Fear in The Lord of the Flies

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Fear in The Lord of the Flies

In The Lord of the Flies, fear is the cause of all destruction and violence, which leads to savagery, and disobeying of human morals. Throughout the entire book fear is what drives these young innocent boys into savagery, and what also pulls most of them away from expectable human behavior. Without the normal rules of society helping to guide them, they become disoriented with the new surroundings, therefore freighting them into savage ways.

After the traumatic plane crash the boys became frightened because their world of comfort was no longer visible, and a dark scary place awaited their arrival. Fear inside of them became greater but the boys did not to show their fear. While struggling to get through the jungle Piggy gets caught up in tree vines, frustrated he yelled out "I can't hardly move with all these creeper things." (Pg.7 Golding) With out even realizing it Piggy shows how his fear turns things that are beautiful in nature into things to beware. Now with the danger of many creatures / animals, they decide to hunt. Hunt because in the mind of the hunters getting rescued is not in the future, and to survive is to kill, and to kill is to stay alive. So fear of not getting rescued sets in and the children start to hunt and destroy.

With the threat of the beastie the hunters are extra cautious so they build a fire on the beach and they hold a gathering. The fire represent the safeness of light and the gathering keeps everyone together, so as a group, are not scared. They start to dance and circle around the fire, meanwhile Simon knowing the truth about the beastie hurries to tell the boys, "The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe. Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"(Pg.152 Golding) The beast was now turned into innocent Simon and because of the fear inside the jungle, and inside themselves, Simon was brutally beaten and killed by the other boys as the mother pig was with her young.

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