The Grim Disease…Fear
Fear is a disgusting emotion, which causes humans to do the unthinkable. Why do humans have fear? Why do we need an emotion that causes nothing but chaos and negativity? Do we need fear to stop us from being reckless, but doesn’t that just hold us back from doing what we truly want to do? In “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, the concept of fear is clearly demonstrated in the novel in a fascinating way. The three scenarios fear is used within the novel are: is when the author introduces the “beastie”, when Simon encounters the Lord of the Flies, and when Piggy states how we as humans can become afraid of people.
In this novel, William Golding takes the idea of fear and uses it in “Lord of the Flies”. This time he uses fear as the “beastie” and the characters all do multiple
…show more content…
things to counteract a dead parachutist who was misunderstood as a creature that doesn’t exist. The first appearance of fear is when a littlun says “He wants to know what you’re going to do about the snake-thing…Now he calls it a beastie” (34). At this moment, the fear hasn’t arisen within the older boys but it’s still lingering around the littluns materializing in their nightmares. Soon after, the idea of a “beastie” coexisting with the boys on the island has gotten out of hand, so the older boys visit the area where they have not yet investigated: a castle-like area formed by rocks. The boys travel to the rock castle and they encounter the “beastie” which proves it’s real and that it’s coming for them. All the older boys accept that there’s a beast roaming around the island and they all react to it in several ways. Jack gathers up his hunter’s kills a pig, tears its head off and pierces it’s head on a spear sharpened on both ends and offers it to the beast as a sacrifice. While Piggy at first doesn’t believe it exists but once Ralph explains the beast’s appearances he fully believes in the beast “The beast had teeth…and big black eyes.” (136). Ralph at first is fearful of the beast but then later on realizes that the beast is just a manifestation of the littluns imagination, Simon says they should double check just in case and this is the part where Simon goes off to find the “beastie” to see for himself. The author used the “beastie” to introduce the perception of fear into the novel. The novel expresses fear in an unusual way, this time as Lord of the Flies itself. In this case the novel explains the way how fear is within all humans. Simon converses with Lord of the Flies, revealing that fear is not an outside obstacle in reality it’s in fact a force that comes from within, “You knew, didn’t you? I’m apart of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?” (158). this is referring to the fear inside the boys, the fear that separated them and shattered their mind and body. No matter where they go, where they are that fear will never leave them it will always be there, possessing their bodies, corrupting their minds. “This is ridiculous. You know perfectly well you’ll only meet me down there – so don’t try to escape!” (158). This quote indicates that no matter where you are, what you’re doing fear can still affect you physically and mentally which truly makes fear unnerving. For example when Simon encounters the Lord of the Flies, he begins to hallucinate and that lifeless, rotting swine’s head that just sits there mocking Simon, conversing with him and telling him how fear is within all the boys. In the end, he collapse due to the fear of the decaying, dismembered head and the realization of the boy’s inner savagery or darkness. To sum up, William Golding used the emotion of fear to show that one simple emotion can cause permanent catastrophic damage to your mental health. William Golding amplified the toxic emotion of fear in the novel by describing how people can terrorize one another.
For example when Ralph calls for an assembly to talk about the problem of the “beastie” it escalates to when the boys talk about the fear plaguing the tribe. This is the minute Piggy says “Unless-…unless what? ...unless we get frightened of people” (90). This validates that humans can be fearful of one another. This is proven when Piggy and Jack first meet, Jack has harassed Piggy day and night to terrify the rest of the boys into following him, this fear is also used when the deranged Roger demonstrates how on the island he can get away with anything no matter how gruesome or how violent he gets, he does this by torturing Samneric and brutally murdering Piggy in cold blood. Now that the blood thirsty Roger follows Jack no one other than Ralph opposes Jack due to the fear of being eradicated. Overall the writer uses the fear of other people skillfully, and takes his own personal experience from war and descriptively engrains that experience within his writing which causes a rush of a certain thrill. Which again could be due to our interior savage
selves. These three reasons clearly tell us that all humans experience fear at some point in their life, and that fear is within everyone, though depending on the individual it may vary. Almost all fear is constructed within the brain, this book dives into the diverse amount of fear and uses it in a brilliant way. In the novel all the characters confront fear head on and they all react to fear in various ways.
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.
Human's fears should not be taken lightly. Fear could do anything to one's minds, though without fear, man can be as savage as animals. In the book Lord of the Flies, William Golding presented fear of the unknown to be a powerful force in a man's mind. Fear of the unknown is a powerful force, which can turn to either insight or hysteria. The kids feared of not being rescued off of the island, so they made signal fires on top of the mountain. Then, there and gone, Roger's fear of the old rules he abided to. Also, there were the fears of the beast which confused and isolated the kids from the top of the mountain.
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?
In the novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the author, by way of vivid imagery and a tense mood, places the timing of the death of one significant character, Simon, at a pivotal point in the novel in order to display his opinion on the natural state of man. Closer to the end of the novel, Golding creates a dramatic atmosphere through the use of weather, just before Simon passes. Using vivid imagery, the sky is described as having “great bulging towers [of clouds] that sprouted away over the island . . . The clouds were sitting on the land; they squeezed [out] tormenting heat” (151). At this point,
Fear is a present topic in Lord of the Flies and the acrostic, False-Evidence-Appearing-Real, directly relates to chapter 9. In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of young boys were stranded on an island. At first they incorporated the civilization that they grew up with into their lives, but as time progressed they began to accept a savage lifestyle that came with consequences. In chapter 9, while the biguns and littluns gathered in a group, chanting and dancing, Simon came down the mountain after finding out the beast was actually a dead man in a parachute. Because it was dark and Simon was unrecognizable, the boys feared him to be the beast and killed him. If the boys had not been so afraid of the beast then they would not have been prompted to kill Simon. In chapter 9 of Lord of the Flies, William Golding employs diction, repetition, and animal imagery to convey the theme that fear can cause savagery to develop in anyone.
“The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream” (“William Golding quotes.”). Fear lives to haunt and torment the person to a point of destruction and can be within everyone. Although a person is able to overcome fear, it is still very dangerous because it affects the person as well as everyone and everything around. In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the boys are all so overwhelmed by fear that the island starts to recede into a state damaged beyond repair. In this case, Jack’s fear of not being leader originally starts to affect him, but it gradually starts to affect Ralph, and the rest of the boys. Ralph’s fear of survival brings out his inner savageness and an innocent life is taken away. Lastly, the boys’ fear of the beast causes them to feel so unsafe and uncertain that they are willing to do anything. As a result of the boys being consumed by these fears, it becomes the most destructive force on the island.
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.
Golding has a rather pessimistic view of humanity having selfishness, impulsiveness and violence within, shown in his dark yet allegorical novel Lord of the Flies. Throughout the novel, the boys show great self-concern, act rashly, and pummel beasts, boys and bacon. The delicate facade of society is easily toppled by man's true beastly nature.
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.
To conclude I agree that Lord of the flies is a terrifying novel and Golding does this be creating a chilling message, characters such as Roger and the Beast who cause terror in both the story and in their hiding meanings, in the bullying and eventual demise of two boys who wanted nothing but to help them survive summing up to a book which directly is very terrifying but when looked at deeper is full of implications and hidden meaning which should terrify the reader.
A distressing emotion aroused by impending evil and pain, whether the threat is real or imagined is described as fear. Fear is what William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies encompasses. By taking three major examples from the novel, fear will be considered on different levels: Simon’s having no instance of fear, Ralph’s fear of isolation on the island, and Jack’s fear of being powerless. Fear can make people behave in ways that are foreign to them, whether their fear is real or imagined. In response to fear, people may act defensively by attacking, fear can either stop one from doing something, or it can make one behave in an irrational erratic manner.
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'.
In the end, they are being rescued, but too much is lost. Their innocence is forever lost along with the lives of Simon, a peaceful boy, and an intelligent boy, Piggy. Throughout the novel, Golding uses symbolism and characterization to show that savagery and evil are a direct effect of fear. Initially, the boys carried on about in a civilized, systematic and fearless manner when first landing on the island. Ralph has just blown the conch and some small children responded to the sound by gathering at the source of the sound.
This leads to the fact that a beast really does exist within all human beings, but is only expressed when human instinct for survival becomes the main objective. At first the boys aren?t able to kill, but as survival instinct starts taking over, the reader?s are able to se the true character?s play out, and lives are compromised. ?You feel as if you?re not hunting, but- being hunted, as if something?s behind you all the time in the jungle,? (pg.53) proves that it?s every man for himself and people will do anything to survive. An example of this in the novel was when Robert became the ?pig,? and was wounded even though it wasn?t intentional, but the situation became worse when Piggy?s death happened as a result of all civilization lost and evil taken over.
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.