Importance of The Beast in Lord of The Flies by William Golding

Importance of The Beast in Lord of The Flies by William Golding

All the way throughout the book, of ‘Lord of the Flies’ there is one

main, big theme; the beast. It was first introduced by a small boy who

was described as ‘a shrimp of a boy, about six years old, and on one

side of his face was blotted out by a mulberry-coloured birthmark.’

The boy with the mulberry-coloured birthmark said that it was ‘a

snake-thing, ever so big.’ By describing the beast as a ‘snake-thing’

makes it sound like as if it is something quite abnormal, because he’s

not so sure about it being a snake. This keeps the beast more of a

mystery, and starts making the beast as the unknown. The beast being a

snake is quite significant because it’s not a huge animal that you can

keep a look out for, it’s small and you won’t even know when it’s near

you, and can do you as much harm as a lion or tiger would.

Ralph when he first hears about the beast laughs it off, and doesn’t

think about it seriously. He also convinces the other big boys that it

was the small boy’s imagination. ‘Laughing, Ralph looked for

confirmation round the ring of faces. The older boys agreed;’ page 35.

Every single time someone tries to show Ralph that the people were

starting to get scared, and that as the days went on, more and more

people became aware of the ‘beast’, he always throws the idea away to

show that if he isn’t scared then why should anyone else be; and

covers it up by saying that they need to get rescued. ‘ “The best

thing we can do is get our selves rescued.” ’ page 54. So even if

Ralph is scared of the beast, his speech leads the readers and the

characters of the book to think that he is brave, and doesn’t want to

think about the beast becaus...

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boys. ‘Simon was crying out something about a dead man…The beast

struggled…There were no words and no movements but the tearing of

teeth and claws.’ page 168 – 169. This is quite important because the

only person who knew about the beast had now just been killed by the

beast within the other boys.

One of the main themes throughout the book is shown as part of the

boys. Although at the beginning the beast had no importance in the

novel, near the end it was the only theme to concentrate on as

everyone could only think about torture, hunt and kill. Before Simon

had died, there was some kind civilisation around, and people weren’t

that much afraid of the beast, as they knew they had someone saying

that there was no beast. But after the beast inside themselves kill

Simon, everything becomes wild and savage, and there is more of the

fear of the unknown.