Sometimes, fear plays a role in the alteration of a person’s mentality and behavior. Normally, when a person is scared, one can sweat, panic, cry, or even lose their sanity a bit. But imagine being stranded on an island for a long time and believing that there is a monstrous creature lurking in the woods. Of course, there would be a major change in human behavior if you are in that situation. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, fear is to blame for the destruction of “civilized” behavior on the island. The concept of the beast, which symbolizes the fear itself, held the boys back from the goal of being rescued.
When the “beast” was first mentioned by the mulberry boy, it was not a big issue with the boys, however, it slowly evolved into an obstacle
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that drove the boys away from the main focus of being rescued and it also made the boys, such as Jack and his hunters, lose their sanity and their sense of civilization. The beast symbolizes the panic and fear within the island. One could say that Jack wanted to kill the beast along with their fear. Just as Jack and his hunters concealed their faces with face paint, in order to the hunt the pig, it also gradually concealed their personalities and sophistication. Jack longing to kill the pig deliberately made him a savage and he eventually had the ambition to kill the beast, and so it interrupted the goal of being rescued. For instance, Jack stated, “We’re strong-we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat-!”. This illustrates how Jack was pretentious and eager to hunt the beast. Some may argue that it was Jack’s fault that chaos was brought upon the island, however, it was the thought of the mere existence of the “so-called” beast that attracted Jack to hunt it. Furthermore, Simon realized that the beast was actually a dead pilot and the boys perceived it as a terrifying beast because of their tremendous amount of fear dominating their mentality.
In the early stages in the book, Simon mentions that the beast is perhaps, the boys. When the boys were questioning the beast’s existence, Simon states, “What I mean is...maybe it’s only us.” The boys laugh at his idea, however, Simon’s proposal is indeed correct about the boys and foreshadows the escalation to the loss of civilization, although, Simon doesn’t have the entire puzzle solved. It shows that the evil in human nature can slowly evolve when put in that situation. Simon later understands the root of the boys’ fear and sees the dead pilot, when he encounters the Lord of The Flies, which is his sub consciousness. While Simon was delivering the pig’s head to the beast, “in [his] right temple, a pulse began to beat on the brain.” This is where Simon’s sub consciousness awakens. He starts to have a conversation with “The Lord of the Flies”. The Lord of the Flies starts the conversation by calling him a, “Silly little boy. Just an ignorant, silly little boy” because he thinks that Simon and the boys can’t take on the beast, which is the boy’s untamable savagery. He then warns Simon that he shouldn’t tell the boys because he would be laughed at again (because he’s “batty”) or something bad will happen to him, which foreshadows his death. This conversation symbolizes Simon’s realization about the root of the boy’s fear and the savages they are
becoming. Later in the novel, Simon is unfortunately murdered by the boys, as predicted by his own sub consciousness. The murder of Simon is an evidence that the boys’ fear of the beast led them to become uncivilized. The boys were having a feast when suddenly, Ralph and Jack started argue and there was a storm emerging. “The littluns began to run about, screaming” and so Jack encourages the boys to do their tribal “dance”. The storm builds up their fear and tension, which leads to Simon’s death. As Simon emerges out of the woods to reveal the truth about the beast, he is attacked by the boys. “The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain.” The quote depicts the boys screaming in fear when, Simon, being referred as the “beast”, comes out of the forest. Out of fear, they thought Simon was the beast, and ended up murdering their fellow comrade. They “poured down on the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore”, torturing and mauling Simon violently. They were eager to kill the beast and eliminate their fear, unknowingly, along with their sanity and their answer to the mystery of the “beast”. As expressed, the boys becoming savages was resulted from their fear of the beast. Their transformation of becoming savages gradually escalated in the novel, from starting as innocent, civilized bunch of schoolboys, to a tribe of savages. The beast symbolizes their fear, itself, and being consumed by it. It became an obstacle for them to be rescued, however, they still managed to be rescued, but simultaneously, lost three of their fellow comrades.
In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, and Kendra Cherry’s article, “The Milgram Obedience Experiment”, the comparable fear factor, and naive mindset of individuals put under dire circumstances leads to the corruption of society and rise of evil in humans. Fear factors are an influential resource, and useful tactic leaders use to instil dominant power in their citizens, if this power is abused, evil and chaos occurs. For example, in Lord of the Flies, when Samneric get captured by Jack, Jack terrorizes them, snapping, “What d’you mean coming here with spears? What d’you mean by not joining my tribe?” the twins try to escape but fear takes over their morals and they, “...lay looking up in quiet terror” (Golding 182). As Jack threatens
Fear resides within all of our souls and our minds in different forms wether it be mind, body, or spirit. Fear can be brought upon by actions, words or ever our mere imagination. Of course as one being younger your imagination can bring along fear that is non existent but, to one it may seem so vivid and tangible. In this Novel by William Golding we come to grasps with many different forms of fear being from the beast, the loss of humanity, and the fear of realization.
When Simon goes to the pig, Simon starts hallucinating and thinks the pig is speaking to him and it takes on the voice of a male. Meanwhile the hunters are naked, painted and people are losing their identity. Everyone is starting to think that it would be fun to be a savage. The Lord of the Flies says to Simon that everyone is gonna become savage and kill him. Simon loses consciousness, but then later wakes up and he realizes he needs to tell everyone that there is no beast. When Simon gets to where they all are, they all crowd around Simon and start chanting. Simon screamed out about the beast but this is what happened “the beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.” (Golding 153)
While they agree that the beast is not a traditional monster, it is Simon’s philosophical understanding that allows him to fully realize the meaning of the beast. At the assembly, Ralph plans to discuss the beast, hoping to bring the fear to an end. Simon suggests that the boys themselves are the beast. Later, when Simon encounters the “Lord of the Flies” in a hallucination, the reader learns the extent of his understanding. The Lord of the Flies mocks Simon by saying, “Fancy you thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill...You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?”(128). Simon realizes that there is something within humans that can cause them to act savagely. However, at the assembly, in an effort to understand what Simon meant about the beast, the boys suggest that the beast could be a ghost. Piggy firmly rejects this idea because he approaches the beast in the same way he handles most situations: logically and scientifically. As Piggy states, “Life… is scientific, that’s what it is…. I know there isn’t no beast- not with claws and all that, I mean- but I know there isn’t no fear either… unless we get afraid of people” (72). Piggy understands fear can have detrimental effects, but he does not yet understand that fear is within every person, and this is the “beast” that can cause people to act without
In the Lord of the Flies fear takes over the boys and cause things to go downfall. The boys in Lord of the Flies might be afraid of the beast, but that fear turns out to be more dangerous than any beast could possibly be. The Lord of the Flies even says to Simon that “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?
Simon, the wisest, calmest, and maturest of all the boys, is off by himself “talking” to a pig, perhaps going crazy. All others are sitting around the fire relaxing, ignoring the fact that one of the the wisest men of all has himself begun to lose sanity, possibly symbolic of the condition of people on the island. Of course, readers know, by the description of the bulging clouds, that the sky will soon break and, symbolically, something terrible within the plot will soon happen. Indeed, the entire novel has built to this point, as readers have observed the downward spiral of morality amidst the moral characters and increased savagery. Simon has observed this, and perhaps because he tends to take in everything inwardly, his depression over the gradual decline in the children on the island has caused him to become somewhat senile. Simon continues his “conversation” with the pig whom he calls “the lord of the flies” (“Beelzebub” in Hebrew, meaning “the devil”), and it is as if he is being tempted by the devil, or corrupt immorality that has taken over the other children on the island. However, he is able to be triumphant over the temptations, and staggers back down to the island to inform the other children that the beast on the island is
The most destructive force on the island is not a physical being, but rather a fear that lives within the boys. The three fears that were stated above, Jack’s fear of not being chief, Ralph’s fear of not surviving and the boys’ fear of the beast, has made the most impact in the book Lord of the Flies. Throughout the book, the boys have the power and the strength to overcome their fears and work together as a group but in the end, they choose not to by letting themselves accept their inner savageness. Fear is a very strong motivator, but it is up to the humans to use that for the benefit of others and themselves. Conclusively, it is either the fear controls the person or the person controls the fear.
In closing, fear can make people act in ways that are unfamiliar to them, whether their fear is valid or imaginary. In reply to fear, people may act defensively by being violent, fear can either stop one from doing something, or it can make one behave in an absurd unpredictable behaviour. As revealed, fear is demonstrated in the “Lord of the Flies” in three major ways: Simon’s lack of fear, Ralph’s fear of being isolated, and Jacks vast fear of being over powered by Ralph. Evil and fear is brought to the island by the boys themselves believed Golding. The world will essentially always have the same problem until every human being on the earth is unblemished, until there is no more evil or fear in the world. Obviously fear isn’t over rated.
One of many prominent themes in William Golding's novel, the Lord of the Flies, is Fear. From the very first chapter, until the last, fear plays an important role in this text. It is the only thing, which stops the boys from acting rationally at times, from questioning curious circumstances and it physically hindered so many of the boys, so many times. The active role of fear in Lord of the Flies, was intentionally used by Golding, because he knew what images it would create. Fear is described by Mirriam- Webster's English dictionary, as To be uneasy or apprehensive'. This feeling is mutually experienced by all of the boys on the island in many different ways. Initially the boys have an obvious fear of being alone, which then brings upon the fear of what we know as the beast, or as the littluns refer to is, as the beastie'. While this fear continues for the whole of the novel, we are also exposed to three other incidents of fear. The first of these is the civilised fear of consequences, displayed only when the children are seen as young civilised boys, in the earliest chapters. The final two are of a different nature, with those fears being the loss of power, the fear of rejection and the fear of being in the minority. All of these different fears, then relate back to the character, and as was expertly planned out by William Golding, influences the characters attitudes and behaviours.
It is controlled by our amygdala and provoked by external stimuli, but it is, for all intents and purposes, an internal reaction. The “littluns” incited the fear of the older children, they began to have nightmares and began to fear the “beastie” they believed was on the island. The fear the children felt helped push them towards the state of savagery that lead to the murder of Simon and Piggy. There was no outside factor, no real monster; it was all internal. The children came up with a monster to fear and this began to pick away at their peace. “Things are breaking up… we began well; we were happy. And then… Then people started getting frightened” (Golding, 74). Ralph saw what was happening, although he didn’t fully understand. Fear caused people to make rash decisions. Fear caused frenzy and allowed for the development of a mob mentality. This supported by greed and
Immediately after sardonically taunting Piggy, the boys all broke into laughter behind Jack. This instance of harassing in Lord of the Flies is an example of insolence that granted power to Jack. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows that aggression can be rewarded with power.
Is it possible to lose your humanity when you are distant from civilization? Can the fear in 12 year olds lead to evil and sadistic thoughts? This is shared in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a story about children who are escaping a war end up stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere. The boy's face the fear of a monster or beast on the island which ends up leading to the bad decisions made by the children. The beginning of their stay on the island they were very civilized. Although, overtime the children would start to show less and less of a civilized society and an increase in savage characteristics. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows that when there is competition for power, people turn evil, and this leads to the
In the blink of an eye, everything can change. For the young schoolboys in the novel Lord of the Flies life changed for the worse leaving the boys stranded on an island. After a deadly plane crash, the pilot was killed along with nearly half the boys. After the crash, the schoolboys were exposed to not only unknown surroundings, but to an unknown world with no adults. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, he effectively uses the person vs. person conflict to illustrate the idea that the fear of the unknown can be a powerful force that can turn people to either focusing on what is important or losing their moral compass. He illustrates this through the use of symbols, such as; the Beast.
Fear can make you do amazing things but it could also lead to someone's downfall. A bunch of boys get stranded on an island without any grown-ups, and try to start civilization, but everything falls into chaos. In chapter 9, while the boys are dancing around the fire, Simion finds out the beast is just a parachute man. He tries to tell everyone, but gets beat to death in the process. This is an example of how fear can lead to savagery. In chapter 9 of Lord of the Flies, William Golding employs animal imagery, repetition, and symbolism to convey the theme that fear can lead the most civilized people to savagery.
First, fear leads to abusive and violent behavior. One example of this is through the verbal and physical abuse that Piggy experiences by the hand of Jack. When Jack leaves to go hunt, he decides to take many of the other boys hunting as well and leaves the fire unattended, resulting in the fire dying out. Meanwhile, a ship passes by, but is unable to see the smoke on the island because the fire is gone, therefore crushing the best chance the boys had at rescue. After Jack and the other boys return from the hunt, Ralph confronts him about shirking his responsibilities. Ralph yells at Jack, and tells him that they would be rescued if had he kept the fire going like he said he would. Because of the confrontation, Jack begins to feel unnerved