In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, in World War two a group of British boys get stranded on an island with no adults because of a plane crash. They establish order, and they are scared of what they call the beast. They accidentally kill someone as the island falls apart. A war starts on the island and some other boys die and they get saved because of the large fire on the island. The beast in the Lord of the Flies caused the downfall of civilization on the island because in the story it put fear in the boys, made them kill one another, and forgot how they wanted to leave the island. The first reason the beast caused the downfall of the island was the beast caused the boys to fear many things, including each other. In the chapter …show more content…
Along with this Ralph took power and the boys still think the beast is on the island Jack calls ““Sam! Thanks for the great post Sam! Hey Eric!” presently quite again” (Golding 128). In what is happening, the boys along with Sam and Eric are scared of each other and the beast that might be in the woods. In this case, people usually go to the person with the most power because they can protect them, in this case Jack. In the book they say that they are scared of the beast. The dead man in the parachute is what they think is the beast. Another reason that the beast caused the downfall is it caused most of the boys to kill each other, as with Simon. When they are trying to figure out where the beast would be Piggy mentions ““Thats a clever beast” said Piggy jeering “it can hide on the island” (Golding 77). It shows that the boys still have the fear of the unknown, that is what got Simon killed when he came out of the woods; they thought he was the beast. In an instance when they are planning to explore Castle Rock where they think the beast lives, Ralph says “”Let’s go." “We’ll eat first” Ralph paused “We’d better take spears”” (Golding …show more content…
Some other reason to add was that Jack was obsessed with killing the beast, he and the boys forgot about wanting to be saved if it weren't for the beast they could have been saved sooner. When the littles were talking about the beast one said “I was outside the shelter fighting those twisty things in the tree and then I saw the beast” (Golding 64). As this means the boys want the beast gone and believe it is a danger with this, Jack becomes more obsessed with wanting to kill the beast. When Sam and Eric are watching the fire they believe they were being chased by the beast and some boys were planning to check it out and bring Sam and Eric along they say ““Couldn’t we kinda stay here? Maybe the beast won't come near us”” (Golding 77) In this part the jack wants to kill the beast forgetting the want to leave the island they don't care about the fire but the fire is their way of being rescued. In the Lord of the Flies, the beast caused the downfall of the island because it was what the boys feared in the novel. The boys were controlled by fear in the novel because of the
Our first aspect of Fear in the novel comes into play with the Beast. This fictional character becomes the center of the boys problems on the island and brings a long chaos and death. Simon is murdered due to the befuddlement of Simon being mistaken as the beast when in fact he was the jesus like figure and his death was a representation of sacrifice. The beast was not something tangible it was simply the boys because the beast was themselves. Our biggest demons in life rest within oneself, and on the island the beast was just a justification for the boys to blame their wrong doings on. William Golding refers to this using the role of simon by stating: “Fancy thinking the Beast was 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" (158)?
The boys’ fear of the beast causes them to pay no attention to their morals and act savagely to defeat it. However, Simon is ultimately able to understand the beast and avoid savagery because his embrace of nature allows him to avoid any fears of the island. Simon demonstrates this lack of fear when he climbs the mountain by himself in order to find the beast, despite the dangers that might await him. The hunters and even Piggy and Ralph want to avoid the mountain because that is the last place where the beast was seen, but Simon seems to Once he reaches the top, he finds a physical beast, but not the kind the boys were expecting: a dead parachutist. The parachutist serves as an ironic symbol of Simon’s understanding; the monster the boys were afraid was a human. In contrast, Piggy displays immense fear throughout the novel, especially about Jack. For most of the story, his appreciation of logic and order help him remain civilized, but eventually his fears overcome him and he acts savagely the night of Simon’s murder. As Golding states, “[Piggy and Ralph] found themselves eager to take place in this demented but partly secure society….[the crowd] leapt on the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore” (136). After this occurrence and the theft of his glasses, Piggy decides to
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?
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 Lord of the Flies, a group of well brought up English boys are pushed into the task of surviving on an island by themselves. In the beginning, order, leadership, and fire are the only things that help the boys realize that there is hope for being rescued. As the boys’ time on the island continues to increase, they become more tempted to let their inner beast within them take over. As order is lost, the boys try to cope with the fact that they may be on the island for awhile. So, they revert to savage ways in order to cope with it. Their schoolboy behaviors become non-existent and chaos breaks loose. The conch shell, the Beast, leadership, murder, and fire are all five main elements that help lead the boys into their plug to savagery because without rules and discipline their will be chaos.
When we hear the word “beast,” most of us will immediately think of some enormous hairy creature with razor sharp fangs and massive claws coming to kill and eat us. Although these types of beasts do exist, the boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, show that a different, much more sinister beast is present in all of our everyday lives, and, like the boys in the book, most of us don’t even know about it. Throughout the book, the existence and meaning of the beast go through significant changes. In the beginning, the boys believe the beast to be a substantive being. At first no one believes it, but later they begin to believe its existence. Later though, the beast reveals itself as an internal flaw within everyone on the island, and slowly begins to take over the children’s free will. As the belief in the beast goes up, its manifestation as the “typical beast” that we all think of goes down, which is ironic because they are creating the beast in their minds, while also living it out in their actions.
Fear in Lord of the Flies In the novel The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, fear. is the cause of all of the problems that take place on the island. At First, the island is thought to be splendid and a paradise, but as the boys' stay on the island increases, so, too, do their fears. The boys soon become afraid of each other and soon after that the boys break up.
On contrary from all the other boys on the island Simon, a Christ like figure in the novel, did not fear the ‘beastie’ or the unknown. “Maybe there is a beast....maybe it's only us” Simon explained. (p. 97) The fear of the unknown in the novel contributes to the boys’ terror of the beast, the beast is an imaginary figure which lays in all of the boys’ minds and haunts them. Golding uses the beast as a symbol of the evil that exists in every creature. "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 the way they are?" The sow head announced to Simon to be the “lord of the flies”. The “lord of the flies” is a figure of the devil, and brings out all the evil and fear in people. It wants you to fear it, but if you don’t believe in the “lord of the flies” nothing can happen to you. Therefore Simon didn’t fall into the trap, but the beast killed him, meaning the other boys on the island did. Simon discovered that the beast is in fact just a dead parachute man before he died and ran down to tell the boys about his finding. When Sim...
The fear of the beast, was an essential one to the story of The Lord of the Flies, as it manifests into different characters.
Throughout the story, the fear the boys have of the beast becomes incredibly strong. This ends up driving the boys apart, as seen when Jack organizes a feast for the boys to try to get people to join his tribe, separate from Ralph: “‘I gave you food,’ said Jack, ‘and my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?’”(172). Everyone is afraid of the beast at this point, and Jack uses this fear to urge people to join his group of hunters. The fear of the beast in turn because a driving factor of the group tearing apart, leaving Ralph against angry savages by the end of the book. The beast therefore is a cause of the boy’s opening up to their inner savagery. The reason for this is explained when Jack gives the beast a physical being when he puts the head of one of the pigs he killed, and Simon, in an hallucination, hears it speak: “Fancy thinking the Beast was 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?”(164). The pig’s head, or the Lord of the Flies, is a physical manifestation of the beast in Simon’s hallucination, and it explicitly states it is part of Simon. In other words, the beast is representative of the savagery and evil within humans, not a monster roaming the island. The only fear the boys have had is fear of what is within: their inherent evil. This idea is perpetuated when all the boys go to Jack’s tribe’s feast, and end up doing a pig dance, when an unsuspecting Simon comes stumbling into the area the boys are doing their dance in: “‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!’...The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face… At once the crowd surged after it, poured down
Fear was the real danger on the island. Although the boys did not see the hidden danger that they believed to be a beast, they let it take control of them and change who they were. The beast was created in the littluns minds because they wanted to make their fear of the dark and being trapped and alone, into something tangible. They created an object that could be stopped, otherwise it would be undefeatable, and they would be trapped and vulnerable. Each new fear fed to the story of the beast, growing it and its power over the boys. Kirstin Olsen stated, “Lord of the flies remains an influential and powerful commentary on human evil… It explores some of the most intense urges and emotions in our repertoire: the desire for power, the fear of the unknown, fear of other people, anger, and jealousy.” These emotions shaped the beast, filling the littluns heads with fear. The beast symbolized both fear and the darkness of humanity, though the darkness is also what the boys feared. When the boy...
Fear is a major part of Lord of the Flies; it is the only thing can change and encourage a little boy into a tribal savage who only knows “Kill”. One of the main fears on the island is the “Beast” or the “Lord of the Flies” which is fear personified into a burnt pilot, a sow’s head on a stick and vines or “creepers”. The Beast is mentioned about in chapter two: “‘He wants to know what you’re going to do about the snake-thing.’ Ralph laughed, and the other boys laughed with him. The small boy twisted further into himself. ‘Tell us about this snake-thing.’ ‘Now he says it was a beastie’” (Golding 34). Its name is later changed to “Lord of the Flies” in chapter eight: “‘You’re a silly boy’ said the Lord of the Flies, ‘just an ignorant, silly little
Beforehand, everything was all fun and games on the island, and Piggy was the only one that actually worried about anything. However, the idea of the beast brought fear to them again and again. Whether it was when it was first mentioned as a snake, or when it was thought to come from the sea, or when it was guessed to be ghosts, the idea of something being there at the island made the boys afraid even though there was no actual evidence of the beast. Golding wrote, “‘He says in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches. He say will it come back tonight?’ ‘But there isn’t a beastie!’ There was no laughter at all now and more grave watching.’” At the idea there there was some sort of mysterious fearsome monster that might come after the boys, the previously joyous atmosphere quickly bursted as fear settles on them. Though the beast only symbolized fear in the beginning, by the latter parts of the novel, it had become a representation of the savagery within a human. Simon was the first one to notice, at how he pointed out how maybe the beast lived within themselves. Also, Jack’s bloody offering to the beast, the sow’s head, represented how the darkness has taken over the hunters. Their belief in the beast strength as their savagery increased, it was almost as if they worshipped it, leaving offerings and such. Also, the Lord
All of the boys but Simon are becoming the beast at that moment. In Lord of the Flies, Golding proves that fear draws out man’s inner evil and barbarism. Within the novel, Golding uses characterization of the boys and symbolism of the beast to show the gradual change from their initial civility to savagery and inhumanity. Learned civility, order and humanity become ultimately futile in the face of fear. The author teaches that without logic, fear consumes us endlessly.
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the beast gives the children a sense of fear throughout the story. It also shows that it is one of the children's top priorities, as they hunt for it and try to protect themselves from it. The children use the beast to work together, but as the novel progresses the group goes through a separation. The beast is an important role in the novel, having many forms of concepts about it. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the concept of the beast as a whole is used as fear, reality, and evil.