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Lord of the flies characters analysis essay nature
Lord of the flies characters analysis essay nature
Symbolism in Lord of the Flies
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The Catastrophe Of Savagery Savagery, what does it mean? To be savage it means to be fierce,cruel,primitive or uncivilized. Humanity without rules can truly bring out anyone's inner savagery. Without rules, how would civilization know the difference between right and amiss. People would be free to do as they please without consequences and with no corollary. Golding's acclaimed novel, Lord Of The Flies, where a young group of innocent boys find themselves left alone on an island with no parental guardian .The book portrays a group of boys that are alone and struggle to thrive without civilization. Without structure, the characters test their limits and realize they don't have any consequences for doing wrong. They turn on some of …show more content…
On the island there was an entity known as the beast. The beast was first spoken about when the Mulberry boy brought it up and frightened the other boys, making them panicked and scared about the beast that would come for them . The mulberry boy told the others about the monstrosity they made a huge signal fire. The mulberry boy gets captured in the blaze and killed when no one could find him they presumed that the monster had gotten him. One of the major events of savagery takes place when Simon is accidentally assassinated by the others believing he was the beast!!! “the sticks fell in the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise, something about a body on a hill” (Golding 153). After the boy's murdered the sow, they are hyped to kill the beast...They are all on the beach running around a fire when Simon comes out of the woods. The other boys instantly assume that he’s the fear of the beast makes them anxious, which in turn makes them aggressive and savage. so they react as fast as they possibly could viciously murdering Simon in the blink of an eye. Due to their inner savagery and lose of humanity, nobody cares to look back to see the misconception they have just made, “Softly surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea"(Golding 154). Simon has been just been brutally slaughtered by the boys he was living on the island with trying to thrive in the atrocious island. Continued acts of savagery can be seen in all of the boys as they are all chanting around the fire getting ready to kill the beast at any given moment but when Simon come out of nowhere one of the boys see him and expeditious charge at him with the rest of the boys behind him
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
When Jack's obsession for hunting overrides all other reality he decides to start his own tribe. Many of the boys choose to follow. One night when they have a feast over a dead sow of the tribe a figure considered to be the beast is beaten and stabbed with spears. It was really Simon. The ones who don't join the tribe are now the outcasts of the island.
At Simon’s murder the boys, “Leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit and tore.”
Without rules, savagery takes over. Without rules, man is free to do whatever he desires. Meaning, their true nature will be exposed. That nature is surely savagery. For example, when you watch little kids, you tend to notice that if one has a toy, the other will start a fight just to get a toy. Since the kids don’t know the difference between rights and wrong, they’re just expressing themselves naturally, which happens to be savagery.
The book can be split into three parts to show how evil on the island advances. In the first part we learn about the boys meeting on the island and the first assembly. The boys share their ideas but hopes fall due to some of the boys, which fail to admit that they think they will be saved. In the second part the threat of evil begins especially due to the arrival of the dead air pilot. Immediately, the boys are struck with fear... and the boys are all affected with it like a disease What the boys don’t realize at this point is that its not an external fear which creates evil it’s the boys own nature. Finally the third part which is the most terrible part of the story is when the book explores the meaning and consequence of the creation of evil. The evil is so great on the island that the boys eventually split, the good and the evil. The hunters are the evil when Ralph and his friends are the good. The parting of the boys resulted in death, pain and savage. Simon projects the internal evil and fear of the boys. However Simon doesn’t share his feelings for the evil with the others. Within the story Simon is seen as the ‘Christ’ of the island.
Despite his frailty, Simon soldiers on his quest to discover the identity of the beast on the mountaintop because he sees that need for the boys to face their fears, to understand the true identity of the false beast on the mountain and to get on with the business of facing the beast within themselves. His character signifies morality, kindness and compassion and ironically, it is these qualities which lead to his murder, and ultimately the final collapse of society on the island and deterioration into savagery of the boys.
The group actually ends up killing a boy named Simon, who was very mysterious, but likeable character throughout the novel. Here is what Piggy, another literary character in Lord of the Flies, says caused the murder, “It was dark. There was that-that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared!” (Golding 156). This quote shows that the boys were truly scared by Simon’s appearance and since they already had spears, their response was to kill. They thought that Simon was a creature on the island set to kill them. This means that they were scared to be killed by it, so they let fear tell them to kill it. The beast was not the only thing that used or created fear in the other boys. Jack also did
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.
The murders that took place throughout the novel, “The Lord of the Flies”, have symbolized savagery in a great deal. The killing of the sow shows a turning point into savagery for Jack and his hunters. “There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast. . . . 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 the way they are?” (143). This quote reveals that the beast is within themselves. When the boys lose control over themselves while having a feast, it strikes back leading up to the event of the brutal killing of Simon. “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 on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.” (153). Savagery has once again, taken over the boys as they eliminate the only good from the island. When Ralph runs from the hunters as the jungle burns down, he has no time to plan out his next move; he can only run...
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
...und, they mistake him as the beast and kill him. Sadly, Simon only escaped the island by death, but unlike the other boys, he retained his civility and innocence. Simon’s death symbolized the loss of morality and virtue within the group, and without his level headedness, Jack’s group eventually lost all sense of sanity and, never knowing the truth, any chance of returning to the children they were before the crash.
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
In chapter five, the boys begin to discuss the existence of a beast on the island. When asked what he thought about it, Simon replied with “what I mean is... maybe it’s only us” (Golding 89). The idea that the evil was not something to be feared in the jungle, but to be feared within themselves was not received wel...
The nature of Simon’s death by the members of the group thinking that he is the beast, who is going to attack them, becomes very prominent with foreshadowing throughout the novel because it implies that he is going to get defeated by acts of savage displaying his death. A scene that foreshadows this defeat of Simon takes place when he is hallucinating to "The Lord of the Flies" in the jungle." You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?.....We are going to have fun on the island! So don't try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else"(158). "Lord of the Flies" declares that Simon will never have the ability to escape him due to him being within all the humans. This enhances that there is no beast, and that the beast on the island is actually the boys themselves. This foreshadowing approaches when "Lord of the Flies" promises to have some “fun” with Simon, which results in him getting hurt by the ‘beast’ (also known
First it started with hunting and killing a mama pig then, it progressed into hunting each other. The first victim of the human vs. human hunt was Simon,the one who is somewhat like jesus and is the first to realize that the beast isn’t real that it was just inside of them. He was an innocent boy hurrying to tell the others the news about the beast but, he never could, because he was struck down and killed by the savage ways of the others before he could say a word. " Surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea"(Golding 154). The next target was Ralph, he was the only one left that hadn’t given into the savage ways but, once the others started to hunt after him he had to become savage in order to outsmart the others.