Fear in Lord of the Flies Fear plays a large role in the action of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. There are many different types of fear in this novel; fear of being alone, fear of losing power, fear of rejection, fear of death, and fear of the unknown. Golding uses the theme fear of the unknown to display the most harmful emotion. It is easier to manipulate someone when there is an element of the unknown. Throughout this novel, fear becomes unstoppable once the boys realize the only thing to fear, is fear itself. One of the greatest emotions that controls the way people act or think in certain ways is fear. Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous. Fear of the unknown is the most harmful …show more content…
In his view, he is more fit to be the leader since he can destroy the one thing causing terror and hysteria. Fear benefits Jack because he can use it to guide the boys into his tribe. While everyone is afraid of the beast, Jack sees this fear as an opening to create his own tribe. Jack sets the stage for his heroic action by making the littluns more scared of the beast. He then proclaims that if there was a beast, “This is a hunter’s job” he and his hunters will kill it (Golding 102). Jack uses the word hunter because it creates the image of a fearless person. Since, Jack is labeling himself as fearless, it makes the boys want to be like him. By, using the boys fear to his benefit he is trying to convince the littluns that he can make their fear of the unknown go …show more content…
Golding purposely makes his characters young for this novel because of how fear impacts younger people more. Since, the boys are so young it is easier for them to get scared because they have not learned how to control it. Like the childish fear of the little kids screaming for their parents because they think something is under their bed, but they do not know what it is. As Samneric see the dead paratroopers body they immediately run down the mountain to get back to the other boys. When the other boys hear Samneric’s story the fear appears. Golding says, “The bright morning was full of threats and the circle began to change” to emphasize how the panic disperses (Golding 100). Golding calls the boys a circle to demonstrate how they are thought of as one. The boys do not get together to solve this problem; instead they use their impulsive judgment and end up killing one of their own. The bright morning distinguishes how the island that was in control grew overwhelmed with
Fear is unique, and can manifest itself in many different ways, like nightmares, or uncertainty before doing an activity that is risky. For many, when the word “fear” is said to them, they think of their worst fears, such as clowns, ghosts, heights, and what not. Yet, on an island on which a plane full of boys crash lands, some uncommon fears lead to total destruction of civilization. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, it it evident that fear can and will eventually tear down the walls of civilization. It all starts when a plane crash lands into the trees of a lost island. The survivors soon meet up one by one along the shore of the island, and it is noteworthy that they are all boys, from the age range of six to twelve years. At once each boy develops their own characteristics with Ralph as their leader, Piggy being the brainiac, Jack the hunter, and many other “littluns” and “bigguns”. However, all is not well for too long, as their stay on the island continues, the boys become more savage-like, due to their fears. The different terrors these boys encounter lead to despicable actions, including two brutal murders. William Golding shows that fear, of all kinds, can lead to the destruction of civilization.
the novel the Lord of the Flies, fear is the root of the trouble that
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 thing is - fear can’t hurt you anymore than a dream.” (Golding, 116). Jack’s completely false point of view of the hazardous emotion is declared within the quote. Jack is one of the antagonists derived from William Golding’s esteemed bestseller, Lord of the Flies. In the renowned novel written by Golding, young boys in a plane have crashed and descended upon an uninhabited island with more than sufficient vegetation. At first, order and tranquility were established by the children and there was more civilization on the island compared to savagery. However, as the novel advanced, the readers could identify the kids were suffering from the persistent terror on the island because of isolation. Gradually disorder possessed most of the boys’ minds and therefore had inaugurated
In Lord of the Flies by Golding, fear is a prevalent theme that recurs a number of times. Fear is most recurring with the character Jack and the way he uses fear to manipulate the group into staying together and doing things they wouldn't normally do.
Fear can control a lot of things, and can make people do some things they wouldn’t normally think about. It can pull people together, or push them apart. In Lord of the Flies it pushes the boys apart. But in The Village it pulls them together. In both cases, the fear wasn’t real. The beast from LOTF and “those they don’t speak of” in The Village. Fear plays a big role in both of these. I believe fear is an easy thing to overuse and control people with, in LOTF and The Village they use fear as a way of power and controlment.
“I gave you food, said Jack, and my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?” [215-6] Jack said this after a successfully killing the pig, while trying to gain power from Ralph. This is just one of the things he has done to control the others using
“...fear can't hurt you any more than a dream.” Quote William Golding in Lord of Flies. William Golding argues that the fear of the unknown gives a high disadvantage to certain boys who are easily frightened. Golding’s opinion of fear is expressed in Lord of the Flies, relating to the nightmares he had as a child and his fear of abuse from his parents. In our society, the less courageous people have more life struggles and do not have as many experiences. I believe this novel proves that fear holds us back, but in reality, it will not hurt us.
In 1971, a psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment to see the impact of fear. What did fear do to man? He was able to simulate an experiment with prisoners and guards and found out at the end of his experiment that the prisoner had severe stress and anxiety. The experiment demonstrated “the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior”. This experiment showed what a particular situation can influence human behavior. In the book, The Lord of the Flies, the characters are on a stranded island where the environment is governing their human behavior and how they react to one another. The character are influenced by fear and behave in ways that they normally would not act in their everyday lives. Man is controlled by fear and it can cause him to do things that he would never imagine doing. Fear results in letting go of your natural instincts and goes to your survival instincts, and makes you become an animal.
It’s the years following World War II, and tension is high. A group a British school boys needed to crash their plane in the ocean and swim to the shore of an uninhabited island. The island have pigs, water, and other valuable resources they need in order to survive. Once they appear on the island, they decided to set up rules and laws to govern their miniature society. A twelve year old boy disagrees with the laws they had originally set up and a rebellion starts to brew within the group. Now the trouble begins. This is the plot line of the book The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Golding claims that fear brings out the worst in people. These rules, originally made for their own comfort, can be compromised by fear. In the case of the The Lord of the Flies, the children fear a creature called beastie. Fear can cause chaos and make people doing things they don’t normally do. The fear brings out the worst in people and it starts with beastie and leads to a the rebellion of Jack, and the demise of Simon and Piggy.
There are many emotions that do many different things but one of the most destructive of them all is fear. fear is everywhere is the world around us it is a part of everyday lives and it is around every corner waiting. There's only one thing worse than fear itself and that's fear of the unknown. In the novel The Lord Of The Flies fear is brought to a new level of destructiveness when it comes to people's emotions. In the novel fear is a destructive emotion is many ways.
A distressing emotion aroused by impending evil and pain, whether the threat is real or imagined is described as fear. Fear is what William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies encompasses. By taking three major examples from the novel, fear will be considered on different levels: Simon’s having no instance of fear, Ralph’s fear of isolation on the island, and Jack’s fear of being powerless. Fear can make people behave in ways that are foreign to them, whether their fear is real or imagined. In response to fear, people may act defensively by attacking, fear can either stop one from doing something, or it can make one behave in an irrational erratic manner.
Power, in the case of Lord Of the Flies it’s a position of ascendancy over others: AUTHORITY. Fear is an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by expectation or awareness of danger.
In the Novel lord of the flies, it is evident that the stranded school boys attempt to build a civilization. Throughout the building of this new civilization the most challenging factor is leading the school boys and keeping the young boys on track, which is hard enough let alone being on an island with no adults. This making their civilization fragile. A constant fear is looming around the boys, which in the end is what breaks this fragile society. A fear of many factors including; Being stranded forever possibly, A beast and starvation. These fears divide the group of school boys and blinds the boys from the most important goal, surviving till their rescue.