The Beast is a Symbol of Human Nature Throughout history, humanity has fought and acted upon their primitive instincts of survival. The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding describes the actions of young boys after they become stranded on an island. The boys quickly create an orderly society as Ralph, the level-headed protagonist, establishes leadership. Their society soon collapses; however, due to a beast that preys upon the most primal nature of the group. The beast is not physical, but a creature created by the minds of the young boys. Golding uses the fictional beast to highlight the savagery of humanities most primal instincts; fear, control, and rage. Human nature dictates that fear is to be respected and acted upon as a top …show more content…
Golding uses the beast to exemplify the effects of rage on the human mind. During a ‘game’ that involved the Jack and the other boys attacking Rodger they all chanted, “Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!” (Golding 114). Later in the novel the boys again chant but this time directed at the beast, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill the blood!” (Golding 152). Jack and the boys are in a primal state of rage, where their rage gets directed at their surroundings. Driven by rage, the boys attack the ‘beast’, but blinded by their immense anger they are unable to realize that the beast is Simon. Controlled by the flight or fight response created by their rage, the boys are not able to critically think about what they are doing and the consequences of their actions. The beast is a symbol of how rage is inherent in human nature because it is fictional and the boys were never taught the primal emotions that they were experiencing on the island. Through the process of chanting and performing rituals for the beast, such as placing a pig head on a stake and announcing, “This head is for the beast. It’s a gift.” (Golding 137) the boys partially relive themselves of their rage, but through and ineffective and savage
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.
At one point, a dead pilot lands on the island, which the boys (specifically SamnEric) mistake for the beast they already feared (document D). At this point in the story, the beast begins to represent war. This new “beast” came after Ralph wished for a sign from the grownup world in chapter 6. It symbolizes that even the adults can’t help them, quite possibly because they are no better. As stated earlier, everything the boys do is influenced by their perception of the existence of a beast. When Golding writes the beast to represent war, the boys actions are related to war (document C). This first shift in the meaning of the beast occurs as the boys are beginning to divide, as Jack begins to undermine Ralph. The beast symbolizes war; the boys are consumed by the beast, and the boys are eventually consumed by
The beast acts as a symbol for the group’s horror when Sam and Eric think they see the beast and, “Then as though they had one terrified mind between them they scrambled away over the rocks and fled.” (107) The beast, truly being a made up creature brought to life through the fear of the group, make the group extra sensitive when anything is out of the ordinary. The thought of the beast not only conjures up fear, it brings in a sense of uncertainty. Through the alternating beliefs of the beast being real, the boys are left thinking, “I mean when Jack says you can be frightened because people are frightened anyway that’s all right.
Initially, the “beast” is a manifestation of fear. According to the text, “ the darkness of night and forest with spirits and demons… previously only appeared in their dreams…” ( Document A: The Terrors of the Unknown). To clarify, these young boys, with no adults to comfort them, are afraid of the darkness and projecting their fears
Golding uses animal imagery to describe how the boys beat Simon to death because they thought he was the beast. When he was just trying to tell them that the what they thought was the beast was just a man with a parachute. Later in chapter ten, it talks how piggy and Ralph talk about the incident. These rhetorical strategies connect to fear can make people do things that they might regret later because golding later in the book talks about how Piggy and Ralph talk about Simon's death.
In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of boys are stuck on an island by themselves in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. During this time Golding takes humans back to their roots of evil, and shows how no person is different in how far they will go. The beast in Lord of the Flies helps represent this in how it reveals the fear of the boys. The beast does represent other things that push the boys over the edge, satan is one of those things. By the end the boys have become savages because of this beast they have created inside their head.
The relationship between the beast and the school boys is played out through the conversation between Simon and the Lord of the Flies. The Lord of the Flies or pig head tries to intimidate and forewarn Simon calling him,”just an ignorant, silly little boy”(184) and scoffs at Simon for thinking the beast is “something you could hunt or kill!” (184) Golding uses this symbolic beast, the Lord of the Flies, to reveal the truth to Simon which is that “they”(184) the boys on the island are the real beast. Before Simon faints the Lord of the Flies warms Simon that
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
An example of this is seen by the quote, ‘ “This head is for the beast. It’s a gift,” ’(137). Jack mentions how the beat is a “gift” as it refers to the sow’s head on a spear. This acknowledges how the boys are offering gifts as an attempt of pleasing the beast. Eventually the boys on the island start to embrace the beast. The quote that depicts the conversation when the boys were going to attack Ralph on the beach is, ‘ “We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?” ’(201). The boys act of savagery saved them as they would not have been rescued, if it was not lit for the war. Their beast-like personalities helped saved their lives, showing that the beast is not something that one can defeat. The beast is part of oneself, and it is up to each individual to tame it. Another quote that shows how the boys attempt to please the beast’s desires is, ‘ “Kill the beast! Cut the throat! Spill this blood!” ’(152). After the boys realize that they killed Simon, thinking it was the beast, they chant this. Also, this shows how the boys are starting to believe that the beast is everywhere, and they enjoy killing things as a game. The final example of how the boys try to please the beast is seen by the quote, ‘ “I’m warning you. I’m going to get angry. D’you see? You’re not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island.
In addition to fear’s impact on people, overcoming that fear can give someone the strength and courage to do new tasks which were preventing them from finishing them beforehand. When the boys ignore the beast they get stuff done like hunting, and building huts. The book says that, “Forget the beast…,” (Golding, 133). As a result of overcoming fear, they are able to successfully hunt down a pig and eat. This shows them not thinking of the beast and getting something
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
“Maybe ... maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us”(William Golding). In the novel Lord of The Flies, William Golding exhibits the symbolism and representation of the beast. The beast represents the norm of society and how most citizens are conceived to evil. As the novel progresses, the reader's perspective of the beast transforms from a possibly harmful animal into to a representation of human civilization and how humans are ignorant and oblivious when it becomes survival of the fittest. The concept of the beast changes significantly during the novel from first the beast on land, then to the beast in the air and finally to the beast within the kids themselves.
The group of boys are chanting loudly to kill the pig, cut the pig’s throat, and to allow the blood to flow out. The boys start to become different as they start to “kill the pig”. This symbolizes how they are becoming savages as they hunt for entertainment. Humans are inherently savages because without rules and organization, they will forget who they were. They become savages as they dance and kill the pig.
In English we read the book, “Lord of the Flies.” It was a book who’s author, William Golding, had written to show his view on man’s inherent true self. After going through WWII and seeing horrors that man would do to other man he became convinced man is inherently evil. The beast, a symbolic figure in the book, is the manifestation of the evil in every mans heart. This nonexistent beast tormented and manipulated the boys that were stranded on the island, eventually ruining the fragile civil society they built. William’s main point to bring across was even small boy, who’s ages range from five to twelve, can fall victim to the evil in