Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The significance of the beast in Lord of the Flies
The significance of the beast in Lord of the Flies
The significance of the beast in Lord of the Flies
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The significance of the beast in Lord of the Flies
As a society everyone is expected to work together and have the same views, however there will always be people to go against their society’s opinions. In the beginning of Lord of the Flies, two characters, Ralph and Piggy, find a conch and use it to signal the others on the island. The conch is what brings the boys together and is the base of their society. However, as the story progresses the children begin to work as individuals rather than as a community. The deterioration of their society occurs when the beast of the island strikes fear amongst everyone which leads to the two main characters, Jack and Ralph, to create a schism in the society. A group of children creating a society is destined to corrode. In the beginning of the novel a little boy asks the older children what they are going to do about the “beast.” Although the older boys do not believe the thought of the island being inhabited by a beast, it does mark the start of their paranoia. As their paranoia rises, the children begin to wonder if there really is a beast on the island. "They talk and scream . . . as if the beastie, the beastie or the snake-thing, was real” (52). In this quote, Ralph, Jack, and Simon talk about the beast and whether it is real or not. The beast had created a fear that made …show more content…
In the beginning of the novel, the children created a society with a leader, Ralph, and everything was under control. One day, the hunters left the fire unattended when a boat passed by, which caused Ralph to be very enraged at Jack. In Jack’s opinion, hunting was more important than fire. This marked the start of the schism in their society. Jack, who had been tired of the confinement of Ralph, decided to break free. “Who’ll join my tribe and have fun with me?” (150). Here, Jack decided to create a new tribe that focused on hunting and being protected by the beast. His speech appealed many people, causing Ralph’s tribe to only have three people
In our society, law is what keeps our country in wraps. Order is key to running a steady and organized nation. In Lord of the Flies, the children manage to maintain a peaceful civilization with a conch shell. The conch rallies groups and gives people a chance to speak out. The conch represents order, but the beast brings out the fear and dysfunction of the children. The group is torn apart as the beast wreakes paranoia on the members, but it is merely a figment of their imagination. Jack breaking from the group, the stealing of Piggy’s specs, and the breaking of the conch all lead to the demise of society itself on the island. While the conch represents ordinance and harmony, the beast symbolizes fear and disorganization,
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)?
With such rigid and different identities, Jack and Ralph have very different priorities, making it challenging for them to work together. Ralph’s identity is threatened when Jack lets the fire burn out to go hunting, so he lashes out at him, accusing him, “I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can’t even build huts-then you go off hunting and let out the fire-”(70, 71). By ignoring what Ralph told him to do, Jack threatens numerous aspects of Ralph’s identity. Ralph identifies with being elected Chief based on his plan to get rescued, so Jack’s insubordination threatens Ralph. Meanwhile,
However, as the plot progresses, Ralph faces both internal and external conflicts; from those conflicts he greatly matures. Ralph always has the strong belief that all the children will be saved from the island sooner or later; he is so sure that he even insists that they should have fire at all times to signal. However, when the boys abandon the fire which is symbolic of Ralph’s hope of getting saved, Ralph faces an internal conflict that makes him fear about their future; perhaps they will not be rescued at all. By insisting that the children should keep the fire going, he creates an external conflict with Jack whose values are different. Jack is enjoying life as a leader of the savages, and he fears that fire will possibly end his authoritarian rule over the savages. Both conflicts are resolved when Ralph finally meets the naval officer.
In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the theme of the Downfall of Society Without Consequences is shown by the authority of the conch being lost when the boys get into an argument and
Societies were constructed by both parties. With no authoritative figures to control what is decided, it enabled them to create whatever laws to their liking. The characters become more savage-like every day as the upkeep of their laws starts to become more lenient. As the intelligent Newt explained, “‘That’s one of the reasons we run this place all nice and busylike. You get lazy, you get sad. Start givin’ up. Plain and simple” (Dashner 77). Explaining that a societal type of order had to be established in order to keep their spirits up, the quote retaliates that believing what they have contributed to their small society will grant them into finding a way out soon. However, even this type or societal order came crashing down when... After Piggy was killed, tragically and the conch shattered, Jack had tried to kill Ralph. Consequently, after running away from Jack’s chaotic takeover, Ralph, “. . . argued unconvincingly that they would let him alone, perhaps even make an outlaw of him”, but then becoming aware (to his own knowledge) that, “These painted savages would go further and further” (Golding 184). Ralph realizes that Jack and the rest of the boys have become barbaric. Without the conch’s overwhelming reigns holding the boys back from becoming savage, all order is forgotten. With prior knowledge that the conch was what held the boys together, it can be seen that once it was destroyed, humanity was lost. Proving that once order is lost, humanity is then
They thought their society was stable; they thought it would last. It all started with the conch shell that gathered them. In the book The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of boys became nomads on an island causing them to take on the biggest challenge of their lives, survival. The traits for a successful survivalist would include cooperation, maturity and responsibility. But if they can’t achieve those traits they will crash, causing chaos on the island.
Ralph tries to resists the urge to become a savage through out the book. Almost all of the other boys become hunters and forget what is important. In the beginning, all of the boys come to the assemblies and decide that Ralph should be the chief. Ralph is the authority figure of the group. He was the one who kept reminding the boys that the fire is the important thing(chpt 4). The hunters let the fire go out and a ship just happens to come along. Because the fire is out, they lose a chance to be rescued.
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.
At first glance, the human society may appear normal to any onlooker. But if that onlooker takes a closer look at reality and observes society from the outside, they might quickly say otherwise. This notion is brought up in Lord of the Flies, almost from the very beginning. After being stranded on an island, Ralph, one of the older boys, decided that he would try to call a meeting and gather all the other boys. After finding a conch, symbolic of order,
In life today, society holds many expectations of its people. Members of society are expected to behave in a civilized manner; conforming to law, following social norms, and acting with dignity and without violence. When the boys became marooned on the island, they were forced to question the expectations they had always observed. This brought about a large battle between those who decided to remain civil and those who would rather rebel. Civilization is pitted against acts of savagery in a plethora of ways in Lord of the Flies when determining who had the right to speak during assemblies, when the group hunted pigs, throughout the struggle over Piggy’s glasses, and finally with Simon’s death.
Throughout the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, many different conflicting societies develop. These groups of young English schoolboys have conflicts between them for many different reasons. Some of them are so spread apart in age that their beliefs and actions are very different. Other groups are conflicting because they have different opinions about who the leader of the entire group should be. The groups also argue about what their priorities should be while trapped on the island. These conflicts continue to grow until the very end, when one group finally gains supremacy.
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
As the story opens, the boys are stranded on the island without any type of authority and must fend for themselves. A meeting is held and the chief, Ralph, is quickly named. A reader at once can notice there is already a power struggle between Jack and Ralph but this is overlooked when Jack says rational and sensible remarks about what should be done. The stability of civilization is still apparent when Jack says, “I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things,” (Golding 42). The boys are still influenced by the restraints they learned from a controlled society. Joseph Conrad asserts that “there exists a certain ‘darkness of man’s heart’ that is suppressed by the light of civilization” (Introduction to Lord of the Flies 2). “Although Golding suggests the harmony of an ideal society, he does not indicate any faith in its creation” (Kennard 234). The more meetings that are held the more futile they become. “ ’We have lots of assemblies. Everybody enjoys speaking and being together. We decide things. But they don’t get done,’ ” (Golding 79). The boys realize that there are no punishments for what they do and disregard their priorities. “The idea that the absence of the restraints of civilization can lead to a subversion towards savagery” (Introduction to Lord of the Flies 2). The makeshift society that the boys have created is already starting to weaken.
Ralph first takes on the position as leader at the beginning of the story, when the rest of the boys vote him in as chief. He carries this position until Jack and his fellow hunters break away from the group. Ralph makes it his job to set out the rules to organize a society. Ralph always thinks of what is best for everyone and how they will all benefit from his decisions. Rules and standards are set when Ralph is the chief. He orders the group to build the basic necessities of civilization, shelters, and most importantly to keep the fire going, in hope that they will be rescued and return to humanity. "But I tell you that smoke is more important than the pig, however often you kill one" (Golding 75). Jack, on the other hand, takes on the idea of every man for himself. He does not care about making homes, only about hunting. When Jack is the leader, evil takes over and all good is destroyed. Under Jack's power both Simon and Piggy are killed.