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Fear In Lord Of The Flies Essay

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Fear is Man’s Essential Illness The novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a deeply symbolic narrative about the effortless decline that man can take when poisoned by fear. A group of english boys are left stranded on an island after a plane crashes. They are left with no adult supervision and as a result the fragile order that they try to establish is eroded by their fear and they are plummeted into a savage and irrational effort to make sense of it all by adopting new rules that will help them survive on the island. These new rules prove to be deadly. The evil acts that the boys commit are done when in a manic, terror ridden state and are make plane the idea that it is not evil but fear that the boys lost themselves …show more content…

The beast was a manifestation of the fear that the boys felt and awakened the savageness inside of them. The Lord of the Flies was not an offering to the beast as written, but a talisman to appease their fear and a brutal attempt to make simple sense out of the discord of their situation. The signal fire was the boys first attempt to maintain order and live up to the expectations of society. When a boy named Ralph is chosen as their chief, and details the importance of smoke and a signal fire the boys explode into a riotous hoard and do not calm until their task has been completed, “Startled, Ralph realized that the boys were falling still and silent, feeling the beginnings of awe at the power set free below them. The knowledge and awe made him savage”. (44)They thoughtlessly make the fire, and as unorganized as they are their first attempt at order ends in an accidental death from a forest fire. The awe and the power of the fire gives them comfort, and this comfort helps them lose themselves to ‘fun and games’ and forget the importance of the signal fire. The fire protects the boys from ‘the beast’ that they fear, “This

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