Fancy Thinking The Beast In Lord Of The Flies Essay

Throughout the novel Lord Of The Flies, the boys on the island are continuously faced with numerous fears. Subsequently there is nothing on the island which they fear more than the beast. The beast is not a tangible object that can be killed or destroyed by conventional means, but an idea symbolizing the primal savage instincts within all people. Its Golding’s intention to illustrate the innate evil inside man through his view of human nature, the actions of the Jack and his tribe, and the relationship between the beast and the school boys.

For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?”” (Golding 143)

      The boys in the book, The Lord of the Flies, are controlled by their fear of the beast.  This fear is not of the beast itself, but of the unknown. It comes from not knowing whether or not a beast exists.

Fear can take control of humans and manipulate them for evil. In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, fear is shown to change the boys into savages from their fears on the island. This fear starts with the younger children and their fears of the dark and unknown. The fear changes throughout the novel and manipulates the boys which Jack uses fear to gain power over the innocent boys.

The excessive hunting showed how the boys just killed for no apparent reason; this is not a normal thing for an innocent boy to do. It seemed as if all jack wanted to do is hunt instead of caring about protection and shelter. Humans were killed because the boys began to unravel the true nature of humans. Simon died when Jack said "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill His Blood!" Simon is eventually stabbed with a spear and that causes his death. The boys devour what they believe is the beast (Simon) and even if it was the beast, eating a beast doesn’t sound like what ‘innocent boys’ would do. Piggy’s death of course was most certainly not an accident. Rodger clearly knew what he was doing and he was throwing rocks just aiming to cause harm to someone, the rock hit Piggy and he fell off Castle Rock and died.

No one would think kids could turn to cruelty, but in this book, you can see how human nature turns people against each other. Not all the boys turned to savages, but there were times when there actions were questionable. Take Ralph for example, he was probably one of the least barbaric of them all, yet he still joined in on the murder of Simon. While most boys were oblivious to their descent into savagery, people like Ralph realized this ongoing turn, “I’m frightened. Of us. I want to go home, Oh God, I want to go home” (Golding 157). The boys change into savagery was not gradual, and even some of the boys, such as Ralph or Simon, noticed this trend, and as young boys it frightened them to realize the fact that they were altering towards inhumanity. As well, the book represents that evil is in all of us. The Beast, which was the main source of evil in the book, was not real. It was only a figment of the boys’ imaginations. While the Beast wasn’t a physical thing it represented

In the final analysis of the Lord of the Flies it is really the children who demonstrate who the beast is. They first to on the presence of overwhelming fear, which eventually becomes that of war and lastly the savage nation of mankind. Because these boys were left alone with no one to “ dispel the terrors of the unknown” it eventually lead to the true understanding of the

A crashing plane comes down hard after being shot down during WWII and leaves a band of school boys stranded on a untouched, tropical island and the story of Lord Of The Flies begins to unfold as the terrified children recuperate from the crash. As the boys explore the island, fear from the unknown, and anger from the reoccurring conflict and disagreement, begins to rear its ugly head. Much of these fearful and evil feelings are beginning to create the beast itself. The mindset of there being a beast changed the boys for the worst throughout the novel. The children soon overcame their fears and became savages of war and conflict. From this fear and conflict, they became the beast themselves.

“Maybe ... maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us”(William Golding). In the novel Lord of The Flies, William Golding exhibits the symbolism and representation of the beast. The beast represents the norm of society and how most citizens are conceived to evil. As the novel progresses, the reader's perspective of the beast transforms from a possibly harmful animal into to a representation of human civilization and how humans are ignorant and oblivious when it becomes survival of the fittest. The concept of the beast changes significantly during the novel from first the beast on land, then to the beast in the air and finally to the beast within the kids themselves.

In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding depicts the sinful nature of man, “maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.” The book begins with a plane crash, which leaves a group of young boys stranded on an uninhabited island. Throughout the book, readers witness the boys losing their innocence while giving into savagery. By the end, most of the boys act upon their evil thoughts without a moment of hesitation. Although most people would think young boys couldn’t hurt anyone, Golding explains that even the most innocent people are inherently

Imagine sitting on an airplane, then all of a sudden you wake up and find yourself stranded on an uncharted island. Your palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy. When all the adults have died and you are the only person alive with a group of boys on the break of adolescence… Without an adult how will one survive? In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies there are many characters that are perceived as savages. When an airplane crashes on an undiscovered island, the only survivors are young boys. Throughout the novel, the boys fight for their survival, but many fear that there is a beast who may be lurking on the island. As the boys were once moral, their innocence slowly disintegrates away and they turn into their true form, a bloodthirsty savage. Perhaps the beast is within themselves.

All throughout this novel the boys are called to meetings to discuss the rules, the fire, and many other assorted things. One of these things is a beast that comes in the night but does not leave foot prints or any trail at any time. All the boys are very afraid of this beast and what it may do to them if it gets hold of them. As it turns out the beast is in the boys: "'You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you?'"(172). This is the "lord of the flies," also known as the beast, talking to Simon the first boy murdered. The beast is their unwillingness to maintain a civilization; it is their transformation into savages. All the time at all these meetings the boys respect the conch and whoever held the conch was respected, even if he was not liked. Once this symbol of

Some speculate that the people who commit extremely appalling acts as adults were raised to commit these ghastly crimes, while others believe that everyone is born with an evil already inside of them. In William Golding’s psychological fiction Lord of the Flies, the idea of being born innately evil is recurrently alluded to. The novel is about a group of young British boys who crash land on a remote island. They are left with no laws to tell them what they can or cannot do, and are extremely frightened of a so called “Beast” that they expect lives on the island. In the Lord of the Flies, “The Beast” symbolizes the evil and devilish proclivity inside of all humans. Through the use of “The Beast”, William Golding illustrates how the novel is

Lord of the Flies, an allegorical novel by William Golding, holds truths about mankind’s true nature of existence. The novel explores the savagery in all men that lies dormant, yet when society’s rules cease to exist, the boy’s innocence perishes along with it. The boys attempt to band together and mock the society that they came from, but not understanding the complexity of the situation, results in their society falling into ruins. On the island the boys are returned to man’s primitive nature, without rules or discipline, and they slowly drift into anarchy. Without proper guidance, the boys resort to cloaking their innocence with body paint to survive. With the body paint coating their skin, the boys bury their old personas within and allow themselves to commit acts that society would frown upon. When Jack’s tribe uses the facade of body paint to dissociate themselves from civilization’s morals, they denote that hiding one’s true identity liberates them from the constraints of society.

The boys project their irrational fears as a derivative of their immaturity, in an attempt to identify a realized external enemy. Literary critic Lawrence S. Friedman explains, “Too immature to account for the enemy within, the boys project their irrational fears onto the outside world. The first of these projections takes the shape of a snakelike “beastie,” the product of a small boy’s nightmare.” (233) The boys’ irrational fear of the unknown, one of a small boy’s nightmare, only serves to exemplify their immaturity in handling situations like this. It is a stepping stone to events to come, prophesied by Simon. In addition, the character of Simon alludes to the fact that there evil ‘beast’ can really be traced to their internalized innate evilness. Simon argues, “maybe there is a beast… What I mean is… maybe it’s only us.” (Golding 89) While all of the boys attempt to explain the phenomena of the ‘beast,’ Simon is the one who realizes that the boys themselves are the evil ‘beast’ they perceive. There is no external force, the ‘beast’ only serves to be a placeholder for the boys’ true primal nature. However, it is Simon’s death, at the hand of the boys themselves, that only serves to prove that evil truly exists in all of these boys. Friedman suggests, “The ritual murder of Simon is as ironic as it is inevitable. Ironically, he is killed as the beast before he can explain that the beast does not exist. His horrid death refutes is aborted revelation: the beast exists, all right, not where we thought to find it, but within ourselves.” (236) His death is truly the tipping point, a point of no return for the boys. After his killing, Simon’s philosophy of inner evil is realized. It is clear that his own philosophy is what ultimately leads to Simon’s death, as unfortunate as it may be. It is reflected of the group’s fear of the unknown, and their