Savagery In Lord Of The Flies Symbolism 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.

The beast is a concept, which represents an irrational fear within the boys themselves. The beast is just the savagery in them. Every person has evil in them. The Lord of the Flies told Simon “ Fancy thinking the beast was actually 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 what they are?”(Golding 143) through the boars head. Overall the beast represents the devil. I think that it’s just a power that takes over peoples the boys feelings, which caused chaos and barbaric actions within the boys.

Near the end of the book, the boys realized that they were not actually the beast, resulting in questioning and confusion. Later, Ralph proclaims,- “If there was no beast- and almost certainly there was no beast- in case, well and good…”(Golding 120). Ralph’s declaration revealed how humans could start to become very scary if uncontrolled because they can result in joining sinful actions because of temptations. The diction supports the claim of Golding about human nature because it represents hallucination, temptation, and confusion which leads to releasing humans’ natural violence. Understanding that humans are like that is important because people need to see that humans are naturally violent and hostile, but the civilization and higher authorities account for discipline and laws to keep citizens sane and safe from harm. The beast caused the boys some significant confusion which resulted in growing violence and bloody, grotesque and horrid

The image of the beast is introduced by Golding as a physical being, however, it is merely a fictional symbol of the darkness within. The beast is immediately associated with the decay of the makeshift society on the island. In chapter five, Jack shares his thoughts on the state of the island during an assembly: “‘Things are breaking up. I don’t understand why. We began well; we were happy. And then-’ He moved the conch gently, looking beyond them at nothing, remembering the beastie, the snake, the fire, the talk of fear. ‘Then people started getting frightened’” (Golding 82). Here, lines are drawn directly between the dilapidation of the island society, and the growing fear within it. This fear of the beast, or

How, within every kid there is evil, this evil eventually leads to savage like nature. The boys "become" the beast when they kill Simon. Golding describes the savages' behavior as animal like. In Document F when they kill Simon the savages drop their spears (which is man's tool) and "screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

In the novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses the appearance of the beast to represent the boy's inner savagery that is being battled and embraced by the characters of Ralph and Jack. Through the beast, Golding suggests that fear is a powerful tool that can be used as a weapon to control others and can even eventually consume the minds of sane individuals.

In Lord Of The Flies, William Golding uses a fictional being in the young boys minds to introduce the idea of savagery within human beings. For example in chapter 5 Simon states his opinion on the beast that everyone on the island fears, Simon says, “ maybe there is a beast...maybe it’s only us.” Through this statement Golding displays the idea that evil resonates within them all. Thus showing the reader that the fear that was among the boys all along was soli created by their evil acts and intentions. This fear can be seen, when the idea of a “beast” was first introduced to the novel in chapter 5, Ralph “remembering the beast, the snake…the talk of fear.” brings up the beast but the idea is quickly counter attacked by Jack saying, “...as

Jack had tried to lead the inhabitants of the island by terror and savagery instead of by order and civilization when he had declared himself chief of his hunter-driven tribe. Both his lust for blood and lust for power had aided him in becoming the savage tyrant and an antagonist of the book. Jack’s widespread fear would not have been substantial enough to build his stature in the hierarchy if the “beast” was not included in the story. The beast has been portrayed to the readers as a dead parachuter from the world war happening beside them. The characters, however, had no clue about the outside world or the parachuter who fell on the island. Therefore, the beast became a part of their fear on the island. The beast was the main antagonist in the middle of the story. It caused the most discord in the already terror-ridden state of the boys. The internal fears of the characters, the feeling of terror towards the other characters, and the nightmarish imagination of the youth, had all shown the dominating abilities of fear taking over the vulnerable sense of

Initially, the “beast” in the Lord of the flies is fear. In the article on Doc A, it states that, “They externalize these fears into the figure of the “beast.” This illustrates that the fears of people, or in this case the boys, began to materialize, and eventually transforms into the beastly figure in the novel. In Doc B, the boy with the mulberry-colored birthmark on his face, claims to have seen a “beastie.” He goes on to to elaborate to the other boys that “ It was a snake-thing ever so big.” This representation of the “beast” probably symbolizes the boy’s fears.

The boys’ psychological fears terrorize them, threatening their survival and causes them to become violent to each other. When the plane crashes, it is implied that for the first time in their lives, the boys are alone and afraid. They do not understand the internal fear and they project it into a physical fear, the beast. Early on as Piggy translates for a littlun,“‘ Now he says it was a beastie.’ ‘Beastie?’ ‘ A snake-thing. Ever so big.He saw it” (34). This idea becomes rooted into the other boys and they develop a fear of this ‘beast’ that takes on multiple figures as the novel progresses, consequently causing a threat to their own survival as they murder Simon thinking he was the so called ‘beast’. Golding writes, “ At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There was no words, and no movements but

“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us,.” said William Golding, Lord of the Flies. When a symbol is examined, many conclusions can be drawn by relating the symbol to society and real life. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, even though the beast does represent something one can hurt or kill, as a symbol it represents a larger concept or idea because it brings out the beast-like personalities of the boys on the island, illustrates Jack’s dominant personality, and portrays the personalities inside all of us which humans can never defeat.

Lord of the Flies, an allegorical novel by William Golding, holds truths about mankind’s true nature of existence. The novel explores the savagery in all men that lies dormant, yet when society’s rules cease to exist, the boy’s innocence perishes along with it. The boys attempt to band together and mock the society that they came from, but not understanding the complexity of the situation, results in their society falling into ruins. On the island the boys are returned to man’s primitive nature, without rules or discipline, and they slowly drift into anarchy. Without proper guidance, the boys resort to cloaking their innocence with body paint to survive. With the body paint coating their skin, the boys bury their old personas within and allow themselves to commit acts that society would frown upon. When Jack’s tribe uses the facade of body paint to dissociate themselves from civilization’s morals, they denote that hiding one’s true identity liberates them from the constraints of society.

Firstly, the beast represents the irrational fear that exists within humans. People have irrational fears toward multiple things, such as the Loch Ness Monster or the Boogey Man. In Lord of the Flies, the boys developed a fear of the unknown. “The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly … ‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in’” (Golding 168). As time passed and the concept of the beast grew and the boys lost more and more of their will and hope. As a result, they turned to

Initially, when the “beast” is first introduced, it represents fear. According to Claire Rosenfield in her physiological analysis of Lord of the Flies, The boys are petrified by the island in the absence of "consoling mothers," and they personify their fears into a "beast" (DOC A). We see this in the article "Now he says it was a beastie" (Document B) when the boy with the mulberry birthmark tries to explain it: "He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?' ' But there isn't a beastie!" (DOC B)

When people think of a beast, a few ideas may come to mind. The monster that lives under your bed, a creature with fangs, or abomination waiting in the dark. But how often does one consider that the scariest beast may be humans themselves? In Sir WIlliam Golding’s novel “The Lord of the Flies,” boys stranded on a remote island are terrorized by a beast, similarly to some children and even adults in the real world. However, the events and actions of Jack and Ralph in Golding’s novel illustrate that the beast is really humans themselves, and their unending selfishness throughout the story.