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Fear In Lord Of The Flies

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According to Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (qtd. from www.thinkexist.com). He is saying that the fear we create ourselves is what creates the fear other people are afraid of. During World War Two, fear is all around the soldiers, and they scare the enemies. However, they are also frightening themselves, as a result of the fear they initially create. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, he extends this idea of fear. In the novel, a group of well-behaved, prepubescent, British schoolboys become stuck on an island. Their childhood innocence gets to the best of them when they begin to fear a beast, representing their transition from their world to the real world. The beast scares them, showing them that …show more content…

While Ralph and the others laugh and say that there is no such thing, Jack says, “There isn’t a snake-thing. But if there was a snake we’d hunt it and kill it” (36). This is foreshadowing the beast’s intentions. The little boy has only been in the island for an hour or two, but he already sees “the beast”, when in fact the beast chooses him first. He chooses the vulnerable, helpless, young boy instead of the more mature, older boys because it needs something to use to bring fear into the boys. He is successful, as shown when the boy with the birthmark mysteriously disappears. The reader assumes that he perishes in the fire. However, he would not be just running around, unless the beast persuades him to go toward the fire. He wants the littlun to go into the fire because it would start bringing out the mayhem the boys will experience later in the novel. This is successful, as shown when the book says, “The boys looked at each other fearfully, unbelieving” (47). This just extends more into the fear that the boys build up, and they begin to question the presence of a beast within them at the end of that chapter. They question this idea later when several people think of ideas of where the beast may be hiding. One place is from the sea, when Maurice says, “My daddy says there’s things . . . As Piggy says, life’s scientific, but we don’t know do we?” (88). Another possible explanation is of the …show more content…

They do not want the beast to kill them, so in order for them to not be the kill, they bring out sacrifices to the beast, as a way of happiness and peace toward the two. The main offerings they use are the pigs that live all over the island. Pigs represent the barbaric behaviour that the boys become. The inner beast inside them begins to kill those pigs. However, the pigs are a part of the beast’s plan, as the amount of blood inside the pig, and the meaty, smoky, fatty aroma of the beast makes the boys dependent on the pig, and they become bloodthirsty for them. One person shown to change by the effects of pigs is Jack. The beast manages to turn an arrogant, proper, mature person like Jack into a savage, barbaric, primitive being, with only one thing on his mind: pig. However, Jack is still shown to be somewhat afraid of the beast, and wants to bring an offering to the beast. He and his hunters plan to kill the beast. “When we kill we’ll leave some of the kill for it. Then it won’t bother us, maybe” (133). The fact that he says “maybe” suggests that the beast will never stop bothering them, after seeing what the beast is doing to these poor boys. Nevertheless, the beast does not care. It’s like a jack-in-the-box; you do not know when it is going to pop up, but when it does, it scares the living heck out of you. Speaking of the offering that Jack and his hunters plan to leave

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