preview

Fear In Lord Of The Flies Essay

Decent Essays

Lord of the Flies
When people are subjected to fear they begin to go back to their inherent behavior: the need to hunt, kill, and survive. This fear can be put in any group or society, which can tear them apart and turn them into savages. A similar instance is seen in the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, where a group of boys are stranded on an island without rescue or adults. The group of boys then begin to separate between savages and civils when fear is created by a fictional beastie. The barrier between savagery and civilization is very fragile, which can be easily broken through disorder, fear, and savage leadership.
To begin with, due to the loss of order, the boys turn into savages. At the arrival of the group of boys to …show more content…

One of these rules is that when they are in a group if someone wants to talk they “give the conch to the next person to speak”(Golding 33). The conch is a big white shell that was found when Ralph and Piggy first got onto the island, which is also blown loudly to organize the boys to a meeting. The use of the shell symbolizes order and civility because it is an object that is used to silence the boys and let people speak without everyone talking at once. However, as time passes on the island the power of the conch slowly deteriorates to the point where people don’t care about its meaning and constantly talk out of turn. This happens time and time again, until Piggy, holding the conch, gets hit by a boulder which causes “the conch [to explode] into a thousand white fragments and [cease] to exist”(181). The destruction of the conch symbolizes the destruction of the organization and civilization of the boys. This can also be seen because at the same time that the conch is destroyed the battle between civilization and savagery is at its apex, where civilization is falling due to not only the destruction of the conch but also the death of Piggy. Also, when the boys first arrived to the island they chose Ralph to be their leader. With him as a leader he helps them

Get Access