In Lord of the Flies, the island symbolizes hell through its portrayal as a place of isolation, temptation and the unraveling of human nature. The boys gradually descend into savagery and the loss of their morality, paralleling the concept of hell. The island becomes a mini replica of the larger world around them, highlighting the dark and destructive aspects of human behavior when removed from a civilized setting. Throughout the novel, there are several specific events on the island that illustrate its descent into chaos. One example is the formation of separate groups led by Ralph and Jack, which leads to conflict and power struggles. Another event is the gradual breakdown of rules and order, as the boys give in to their primal instincts. …show more content…
The beast serves as a reminder of the dangers that lie within all of us, and how easily civilization can crumble when confronted with our innermost fears and desires. It's a powerful symbol that highlights the fragility of human nature and the thin line between order and chaos. “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee..Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit like a pig after it had been killed.”(Golding 181). When Roger pushed that boulder off the mountain, it was a haunting reminder of the darkness that consumed even the most innocent. As this story unfolds, the island's harsh and inhospitable environment starts to replicate the surroundings of what seems to be hell. The island's unforgiving terrain, dense jungle, treacherous cliffs and unpredictable weather all symbolize a hellish environment. Just as hell is often depicted as a place of torment and moral decay, the island becomes a battleground for the boy's inner demons. With this harsh landscape on the island, it severs a physical and mental darkness the boys have never experienced before. Which mirrors the idea of hell, when the boys come to the island they are all still just children. But when you stay in a place of darkness for so long, the darkness starts to become you. When Simon confronts The Lord of the Flies, he severs the …show more content…
Jack is the pleasure principle in the novel, and is constantly pushing towards what he wants over everyone else.I ought to be chief.. because.. I'm a head boy.(21). Over time, he creates an army of boys and starts to hunt for Ralph. Mirroring the actions of Adolf Hitler when hunting down Jews, purely for power. Jack does these things not because he needs to, but because he wants to have the upper hand and all the power he can acquire. Jack's love for authority controls his actions throughout the book, and towards the end of the novel he uses the boy's fears to gain power. He promises protection for the boys from the beast. Simon's character represents goodness and purity in the world, often seen as a Christ-like figure in the story. Simon's interactions with the boy and his solitary moments in the jungle can be interpreted as symbolic of his connection to a higher power or a force of good even when in the darkness. He is almost like a beacon of light in the midst of all the bad happenings on the island, “Maybe there is a beast..Maybe it's only us”(89). This quote reflects Simon's deep understanding of the good and evil within the boys themselves, contrasting his goodness with the growing savagery around him. By doing this, he symbolizes a sense of hope and righteousness in a place that mirrors hell. When an amount of light is shining in an uneven group of
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)?
Many times in life, things go wrong. Everyone has a problem at least once in their life, and this is because no one is perfect, at least no one except for God, but that is off topic. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, there is a group of boys that get stranded on an island, and basically they had problems, and let’s just say that some of them died before they were finally rescued. The story plays out where there were a couple boys that tried to take charge, and become the leaders of different groups and apparently, they didn’t get along. The two main boys that took charge were Ralph, and Jack. They both had different ways of leading, so they didn’t get along, and therefore there were problems that caused the boys to have trouble on the island. The three different things that went wrong on the island in Golding’s Lord of the Flies were that there were no adults, there was no good government, and there were only boys.
Lord of the Flies is a novel written in the unknown future of 1954. Amidst a world of atomic warfare, a handful of boys find themselves deserted, and stranded on a coral, boat-shaped island. Ralph, the protagonist perceived it to be a paradise full of riches that could support a society. Taking a closer look, this “paradise” is crawling with bugs, fruit induced diarrhea, sharp thorns, and “skull like” coconuts. Also, horrendous storms destroy the serene landscapes, and uproot trees. In addition, certain places on the island signify different characters. The beach near the lagoon is where Piggy and Ralph first talk and find the conch, as well as hold their meetings. Not far away is the fruit orchard where the boys can eat, and inland from the lagoon is the jungle with pig trails and, which the "littluns" fear. The beast that haunts the children is a significant feature of the jungle. Yet, the beast is just a mental and physical manifestation of the boys’ own psyche. The jungle is also Simon's hiding place where he finds the pig's head that Jack mounted on a stake. The island has a mountain that Ralph, Simon, and Jack climb to ignite a rescue fire, which the boys must keep alive. Lastly, there is the castle on the island, where the first search for the beast is made, and soon becomes Jack's headquarters, after the group slits. The paradise island, an important feature in Golding’s story, represents a site of “hell on earth” and a struggle to survive for the boys as they let the fear of the beast grow inside of them.
Evil is an inescapable consequence of human nature, and in the correct setting, this intrinsic evil of humanity will emerge. In Lord of the Flies, the island acts as a microcosm presenting the real world, yet it is left uncharted to creating a bare environment away from the destructive nature of humanity. The novel explores the notion in which man destroys every beautiful environment they settle in, and that when in a bare setting, free of social construct, the evil and primal urges would surface. When the boys first arrive on the island, Golding paints it to be beautiful and not yet spoiled by man, highlighted in the use of personification in ‘the palm-fronds would whisper, so that spots of blurred sunlight slid over their bodies’ which creates
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.
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.
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...
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...
Furthermore, Simon’s gifted power of true inner visionary to look beneath the souls is revealed, “..Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick” (112). As the boys continue to indignantly quarrel and give the beast a form and figure, Simon visualizes the beast in man himself. Thus, he loses his former innocence when he realizes the ‘darker’ side of mankind, which the boys named as the beast and understands that evil is inherent in all humans. Furthermore, his eyes represent mystical wisdom and knowledge as well as magnifying lenses to see clear pictures of the obnoxious happenings such as, “The tangle of the lines showed him the mechanics of this parody; he examined the white nasal bones, the teeth, the colours of corruption” (162). Out of all the boys present, he is the only one who receives the opportunity to see the true illusion of the beast, adding more comprehension to his understanding of the beast that the more the bitter acts of violence are committed, the more the beast will come alive on the island. This also shows his ‘superego’ personality, consisting of a fully developed mind of social and parental values. With these values, he understands the difference between the right and wrong; savage and civility and is also both naturally good willed and civilized. His identity of a keen observer appears when he comprehends that on the surface, the island is extremely peaceful and calming, but the inside is where the roots of brutality grow which slyly evoke the inner savage present in all humans. Moreover, Simon’s character also has a touch of spirituality which is revealed when he hallucinates his conversation with the Lord of the Flies, where Lord of the Flies is symbolized as the devil and Simon as Jesus. He also has a
Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, took place on an isolated tropical island. There were many symbolic items within the story, and their meanings changed as the story developed. The fire was the symbol of hope and civilization at the beginning of the novel, but at the end it had become a fire of destruction. Ralph, in the beginning of the book, stood for leadership and almost perfection, however as the story progresses, he was nothing more than a normal human. The beast, upon its first appearance, symbolized fear, but soon, it represented the savagery within them. The different symbolic figures within the book, such as the fire, Ralph, and the beast, shifted in meaning as the story develops.
Another of the most important symbols used to present the theme of the novel is the beast. In the imaginations of many of the boys, the beast is a tangible source of evil on the island. However, in reality, it represents the evil naturally present within everyone, which is causing life on the island to deteriorate. Simon begins to realize this even before his encounter with the Lord of the Flies, and during one argument over the existence of a beast, he attempts to share his insight with the others.
Lord of the flies is not just a story about boys trapped on an island; it is a story about power struggle over democracy and dictatorship in societies. They are many objects used in the novel to show dictatorship and democracy. Also, they are many situations between characters in the novel to show the power struggles between the two ideologies. Between the power struggle, characters also use these objects to control emotions and people’s decisions in the novel. People and societies give away too much power to objects and let them control their lives.
There are myriad symbols in the novel which incompass human nature.The beast in the novel represents the religious aspect all societies ability to generate a common fear.The need for fear is one of the most powerful tools in development due to the way in can hold a generalized accountability. Jack 's reign reflects the very depths of human instinct and how humans are inevitably malicious. He used the fear of the beast to control all of the people that followed him. On the other end of the spectrum the conch represents order, which is broken as soon as they let fear govern their morals. The lord of the flies is a sow 's head that jack impales on a stake which is used to symbolize the devil just as simon alludes a christ like figure. The sow 's head makes the reader visualize a palpable evil in the novel. The behavior of the boys in general determines that environment directly regulates
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.