Tag Archives: Milgrams

Milgram’s Experiment Proves Golding’s theory

Milgram’s experiment proves Golding’s theory. In Golding’s theory he states that all human’s are evil, it is only consequences and rules that keep them from behaving badly. In the experiment the volunteers (teachers) were told to send shocks to the actor (learner) when they would answer the question wrong. However, when the shock would start to get very intense the teachers would try and stop, though the “scientist” in the white coat (who was the leader) was ordering them to keep going.

This relates to Golding’s theory because the people that could possibly condemn the volunteers during that setting are the scientists. However, they are telling them to keep going so they do as they are told. In this case the volunteers were following the ‘rules’. To not continue to send the shocks would be an act of disobeying, so they continue as they do not want to be punished. Also, this proves how Golding states that all human’s, deep down, are savages. The fact that even though their brain knows that it is wrong, something inside them is amused by the act of bringing pain to someone else.

An example in Chapter 10 of ‘Lord of the Flies’ that proves Milgram’s experiment is that Jack who is an authoritative figure told the tribe to tie up Wilfred so he could beat him. When they asked why he was doing this, he gave no reason. In this case nobody tried to object or stop it because those were the ‘rules’ and he was the leader.

In conclusion, Milgram’s experiment proves Golding’s theory and Chapter 10 of ‘Lord of the Flies’ proves Milgram’s experiment. All in all, all three cases contained one authoritative figure, multiple people not wanting to object and a peep of everyone’s hidden savage. In the end, we saw how authority (people or rules) can over rule anybody and how savagery is camouflaged within us all.