Rousseau

• Rousseau, a Swiss born philosopher and writer, argued that primitive humans - within which he included indigenous cultures that Europeans were in the process of removing - existed in a prelapsarian state of nature where the burdens of society and culture had not yet poisoned the purity of the human condition.
• He saw the European journey since that point as one of failed potential and missed opportunities. Instead, he praised the newly discovered cultures of the Americas as evidence of the possibility for more egalitarian societal forms.
• This has led him to identified with the concept of the 'noble savage'.
• On the one hand, this could be interpreted to mean that the boys should be liberated from their release from society, which they clearly are not (though it is arguable Simon represents a different type of society, a view strengthened by what happens to him). Alternatively, perhaps they have already been corrupted; after all, they attempt to organise a new hierarchical society which mimics aspects of what they have left.
• Either way, Golding is suggesting that evil is within the boys and they have brought this to the island (the 'scar' is inflicted by their plane).