Importance of Fear in The Lord of the Flies Essay

Beast? “Kill it! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” WIlliam Golding’s Lord of the FLies is one ofthe most powerful and popular novels of the 20th century, but no one truly knows what the “beast” is, except for Golding himself. The novel begins just after a plane evacuating a group of English schoolboys has been shot down over an unnamed deserted island in the Pacific Ocean.When the boys first land, there is an air of adventure and even celebration at their newfound freedom from grownups, but what the children don’t know is that there is something there with them. As the book goes on, there are many different thought of what this thing is, or some would say what the “beast” is.

To begin with, in the book The Lord of the Flies the two groups of boys are drawn by their own imagination and create the beast within themselves.The boys imagine that the beast is actually in one of the caves on the island.They are so scared of this beast that they start thinking their own friends are the beast,and get to the point of killing many boys.By the time they realize they are their own beast it is too late and many kids have been lost.The younger boys have no choice but to go with who is superior and who they see as a leader although he might be cruel.

“We may stay here till we die ”(14). When Piggy, one of the main characters in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, addresses the recently deserted boys who are stranded on a tropical island insinuating that they may never be rescued. Lord of the Flies is a book about how life on an island with fear and without adults can turn young, poised, innocent British boys into unrecognizable savages. A roadblock that the boys run into is the appearance of the imaginary phantom that lurks in the boys’ mind which they call the Beast . In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, fear is in multiple forms but, only exists in their mind.

The commotion in,“Lord of the Flies,” is a result from symbolism. William Goulding uses descriptive images and symbols to paint a picture for the reader. In the beginning of the book, the beast is this unknown creature that strikes fear into the boys. Many of the littluns believed in the beast, and this spreader throughout them. A boy, with a mark, out of fear talks about the beast. This sparks a chain of events that knocks the boys out of their Garden of Eden.

A group of boys descend into madness and homicide when they find they are alone to govern themselves on an island. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Jack and Ralph take charge of the boys almost immediately and are then forced to confront any issues that the boys may have. While Jack has more of an aggressive and instinctual approach, Ralph has more of an empathetic approach. Primal fear of the unknown causes the littluns to latch onto the fear of a beast. The beast creates a physical being to centralize and project their fears onto. The littluns are the first to introduce the idea of a beast on the island and spread that fear to the biguns once Samneric recount their story of the beast. Jack and Ralph's contrasting reactions to the story set up the conflict between the boys who believe in the beast and those who do not. The threat of the beast accelerates the loss of civilization in the less prevalent older boys showing how fear and savagery spread when people are under constant threat.

The novel Lord Of The Flies written by William Golding, is a story about a groups of boys who are stranded on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere. The story highlights the boys as they lose their sense of civilization and order. One of the major symbols throughout the story is the beast. The beast is a very powerful symbol throughout the story. The beast is made up, but represents fearing the unknown. That fear of the unknown takes over the boys mind, and the boys even believe "the beast" is a fellow boy among them. All the ages of the boys believe in the beast, the littluns believing the beast is a snake, and even Ralph, a bigun who believes there is no beast, even believes in the beast at one point. Throughout the book, jack uses the beast to almost scare the others into following him, and joining his tribe. "The Beast" is the most powerful symbol in the novel, because it "attacks", and alters every

Ralph prioritizes opinions, specifically, he looks down on the younger beliefs. By pushing it off as “littluns’ talk” and how “we’ll get it straight” (82), he is disregarding their concerns of the beastie as nothing more than gossip. On the other hand, Jack uses this fear to his advantage, claiming that “if there was a beast I’d have seen it” (83). In like manner to Ralph, Jack tries to extinguish rumors of a beast, but he does so by reason rather than silencing. Jack’s tactics present his ease of controlling a crowd and shows Ralph’s limitations of persuasion. Ralph, in response to Piggy’s determination “to find the others... to do something” (14), daydreams, saying nothing further until prompted with a question. Ralph soon loses the little interest he has and shifts it to the newly-found conch, telling Piggy to “shut up” (15) when he warns Ralph not to break it. Oppressive phrases like this are used at length from Ralph, leaving him to listen and follow to nearly no one but himself. His viewpoint is therefore narrow, ironically, his perspective is blinder than Piggy, the voice of

In the Lord of the Flies, fear corrupted the boys’ mind causing them to forget about the signal fire that they were trying to keep and, instead, they got worried about the “beast” they thought they

To begin with, Simon speculates that the beast is only the boys themselves. There is an idea of evil being on the island, however, it is only their fear taking over. Simon states, “There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast. . . . Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . . You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are the way they are?” (Salinger 143). In other words, Simon believes that the beast is inside the and he has to go tell everyone what he knows. Simon was on his own and was facing the fear of the beast all by himself. The others did not help him, he goes alone. The Lord of the Flies identified itself as the beast; the thing everyone on the island was frightened of. The littluns were horrified of the beast, Simon tried to convey to the rest that that the evil and savagery is inside them. However, the boys were guided by the fear of the beast. They mistake Simon for the beast and kill him. The boys were not thinking clearly before they murdered Simon. The boys were guided by the fear inside of them; they did not think before they killed one of their own. Therefore, humans are guided by

Man often resorts to destruction through war in response to fear. In December of 1941 the United States of America entered World War II in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. On August 6, 1945 the United States bombed Hiroshima as a product of fear. The consequence of the United Sates’ action was 90,000 innocent people killed and those who survived were exposed to radiation. The stress placed on the United States government caused it to attack in response, which killed thousands of innocent people. The United States employed a method of destruction to control the fear of its citizens. Just as the United States turned to destruction, in Lord of the Flies the boys also were prepared to destroy everything to soothe

In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the prominent, unseen character known as The Beast makes himself known to the boys in every way possible. He starts off by appearing to the boys in their minds, slowly moving towards becoming seen, then ending with turning them against everything the boys have known before the island.

“We’ve got to talk about this fear and decide there’s nothing in it.” Pg 82

From the early start of the book, the boys begin to fear an unknown “beast” that takes on numerous forms and shapes; and it becomes one of the main forces for causing the boys to fall into violence and chaos. When the boys were discussing the existence of the beast in a meeting, Simon takes the chance to offer his own opinion of what he believes the beast is, “maybe there is a beast… What I mean is… maybe it’s only us” (Golding 89). The boys do not understand the concept he introduces, and thus react rashly, denouncing Simon as crazy. Although the boys in the book can not comprehend what Simon refers to, Golding uses this quote to imply to readers that the “beast” is not an actual monster, but a product of human fear. It is a feeling that everyone can relate to, the irrational fear of the unknown. While the boys can clearly see the creeping vines and moving objects in broad daylight, during the night, shadows and anxiety begin to alter the lines between reality and imagination. The more rational boys, such as Ralph, Piggy, and Simon, have a slightly tighter grasp on the distinguishment of the two, but the others, specifically the young and unknowing littluns, have nightmares and are struck with bouts of terror out of fear of the beast. Later on, after the time on the island had taken its toll and split the boys into two groups, the tribe led by Jack, in a vital scene of the plot, kill a sow and spear its head on a wooden stake in the ground. Jack

In his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding writes a haunting story about the power of fear over humans. In the story, a group of young boys are stranded on an island in the midst of World War III. Over the course of the novel, the fragile civilization the boys establish unravels and soon turns into a chaotic frenzy driven by fear and primal instincts. One of the overarching questions Golding attempts to answer in this novel is the part fear plays in our lives and the impact it has on us. According to Golding, fear has the ability to indescribably take control over humans, but there is no right or wrong way

In the Lord of the Flies, author William Golding demonstrates how each character in the story is changed by their experience on the island. One of the most important symbols in the book is the beast because it was a very significant factor in shedding light on the separate beliefs of the boys and their true colors. Each boy had a different initial opinion on the beast, and also how they chose to deal with this insight. By the end of the book, this helps determine who they have become, whether it’s for the better or the worse. All throughout the book, the beast is one of the main creators of violence, fear, chaos, conflict, disorder, and disagreement.