Fear In Lord Of The Flies By William Golding: An Analysis

Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous and likely to cause pain or to cause a threat. Throughout difficult situations, fear can emerge in various ways and can cause people to do unimaginable things they would not normally do. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, fear is shown through a group of British boys whose plane, escaping an atomic war, crashes, leaving them stranded on a deserted island. The boys are left alone with no adults and no contact with the real world, therefore they decide to come together so they can survive and be rescued. Ralph and Jack, the two oldest boys, battle to be the leader of the group and with this conflict and tension arises. Fear overcomes the

After thinking they saw the “beast”, Jack and Ralph call an assembly to tell the boys they came face to face with the hideous creature. Ralph tells the boys, in referring to fighting the beast, that “[they] would [not] fight [it].’ He believes that the boys would ‘hide, even Jack [would] hide’”(Golding 124). Knowing the “beast” is real frightens the boys more than before because they now know it is not just their imagination. In the beginning, they have confidence in themselves that they can kill the “beast but now that Ralph and Jack say it is real the boys are more skeptical about their abilities to kill it. Ralph acknowledges the fact that the “beast” is something that all the boys are scared of and how even Jack, one of the bravest on the island, is too scared to fight it. Throughout the novel, the fear of the “beast” continues to increase, but Simon realizes that the “beast” is within each person in the group and the creature is not real. During a stormy night, Simon realizes that the creature thought to be a “beast” is actually a dead parachuter. While rushing down to tell the boys, they mistake Simon for the “beast” and attack him as he is “crying out against the abominable noise about a body on the hill” the group “[surges] after [him], leaps onto [him], strike, bite, [and] tear”(Golding 152). This gruesome killing shows how fear can impact one’s thought process. In an article about fear, it talks about how people “can become violent, and can even become deadly; [fear] can cause an instinctive reaction to rising adrenaline levels rather than a consciously thought-out decision”( Science Daily ). For the boys on the island, the fear of the “beast” being real causes them to hurt each other, kill each other, and causes chaos to erupt. The boys believe there is a creature living with them on the island, which leads to a great fear