William Golding's Lord of the Flies, is a study of basic human nature and psyche. With the help of his young characters, he portrays the horrors of evil which reside nowhere but inside human beings. Though the young kids are in a place which is far from corruption, a place with no outside influence, still the evil, inherently present inside human, the insatiable thirst to conquer and to tame the external anyhow unleashes itself, which leads to the destruction of both nature and the order and harmony provided through it. This paper would be an attempt to study man's anthropocentric nature in the context of Golding's novel, and how the nature within becomes a threat to the nature surrounding. The characters of Ralph, Simon, Piggy, Samneric seem to signify the code of nature. These are the characters who are the carriers of order and harmony which are best seen in nature and can be learnt through it, as Ralph and his conch - nature and the order, Piggy - wisdom, Simon - the spiritual side, Samneric - sense of togetherness. These teachings of nature are hardly understood by man, and the beast residing within soon overpowers all order and wisdom. `Mankind's essential illness' at last comes into force. This ill-force is represented by Jack and his team which at the onset is referred as `something dark'. This force creates a system of anarchy where the only objective is to conquer and tame everything. In this quest to conquer, wisdom and spirituality are butchered and togetherness is subdued. Golding through all the events and characters presented in a way tries to offer the `anthropocentric' attitude of man. He brilliantly portrays this destructive attitude of man to nature. He presents human as entropic, contrary to nature which is a system of symbiosis. This anthropocentric human leaves nature "shuddering in flame". This approach makes man claim everything for him, forgetting that nature is a separate self-balancing entity.

Golding's novel Lord of the Flies is the story of a group of young boys who accidentally reach on an isolated island. It is about how these young innocent boys try to manage their affairs and establish law and order. But soon all innocence is lost and the inner evil, which exists within humans, overpowers, and what we see is destruction and anarchy. This may be the effect of the world war on the writer, which gave the idea that no law can hold the darkness within human. The novel also highlights how this evil in human tries to control everything, including nature. The lust for power destroys both the external order created by man and the internal order and harmony of nature.

 Golding has brilliantly shown the `anthropocentric' nature of man. Man in desire of power moves on to destroy everything, even the very source of his existence. With the help of this group of boys, Golding tries to picture the havoc which the inherent evil in man has brought down upon nature. In fact, the novel is all about the failure of man to establish order and harmony. The boys become the representatives of the culture and civilization from which they have come. Even while living away from the civilized world in the folds of nature, the boys run into conflicts and end up in destroying the harmony of nature. The desire for power finally leads to violence, which brings destruction and death. In this quest for power, they don't care even for their life giving source, i.e., nature.

From the very beginning of the novel we can find traces of this dark side of human nature: "Within the diamond haze of the beach something dark was fumbling along [Italics are author's]" (Golding, 1962, p. 26). The language used here itself defines the characteristics of nature—diamond-like haze, and human—as something dark. The young boys immediately think over the need of law to maintain order. They portray the picture of the civilization they have come from, where external law seems to be the only way to maintain order and harmony. The first thing the boys think about is to maintain order, to set up hierarchies, to have control of the power as they believe, ". . . we ought to have a chief to decide things" (p. 29). This need immediately takes up the democratic method for fulfillment: "Let's have a vote. . . . Vote for chief"(p. 30).

English Studies Journal, William Golding, Anthropocentric Nature, White Fragments, Culture Mankind, Cultural Development, Gglobal Warming, Technological Development, Scientific Development, Transformation Process.