Woe Soyinka, a Nigerian writer, once said: “Well, some people say I am pessimistic because I recognize the eternal cycle of evil. All I say is: look at the history of humanity up to this moment and what do you find?” In essence, Soyinka is saying that humanity's inevitable fate is to repeat its past due to the infinite existence of evil. Soyinka's ideas are echoed in William Golding's Lord of the Flies. In the novel, a group of well-behaved British boys are stranded on an island. Over time, the boys' natural wild instincts are revealed. Throughout the novel, the reader should see that Golding uses Christian imagery to reinforce the idea that humanity is naturally evil and doomed to repeat its past. The reader should see that Golding uses diction to portray the island as a living hell. Early in the novel, when the boys crash-land on the island, Piggy expresses his concerns that the boys might be stranded on the island until they die. Just with that word the heat on the island seemed to increase until it “became a threatening weight” (14). Golding didn't need to mention this at all, but he purposely chose to write that the island seemed to get warmer just when Piggy said that the boys might die on this island. Not only did the island get hotter, but the heat was “threatening.” The reader should understand that with these words Golding portrays the island as hell. In Christianity, hell is the place where sinners go when they die; a place where the heat is unbearable and interminable. For Piggy to mention death, and for the heat on the island to increase at the same time he says it, hell would have to be on the reader's mind. Not only is the island warm, but several times throughout the novel Golding emphasizes Jack's appearance, especially... middle of paper... Eve, the first humans, is committed. This idea, as well as other Christian ideas, reflects many of Golding's arguments. Now we can see that Golding wanted us to understand that humans are naturally evil and will simply repeat their past mistakes. He reinforces this idea through the use of an infernal motif and imagery of the Christ figure. Golding makes this argument so that we can understand who we are as people. Since the beginning of time, man has made mistakes. The natural evil within each of us takes control and bad things happen. From the enslavement of the Israelites in ancient Egypt, to the enslavement of African Americans in America in the 1800s, people have been doing bad things for a long time and will continue to do bad things. Soyinka would agree that human beings are condemned to repeat their past; this is just the natural order of things.