William Golding Lord Of The Flies Beast Analysis

The Beast Within Us
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.
When the boys initially land on the island, they have tons of fun and are completely carefree. Only a couple of days later though, the “little ‘uns” begin to have dreams about beasts attacking them at night.

At one of the very first meetings, one of the little ‘uns whispers to Piggy about his “encounter” with the beast. Piggy dictates what the little ‘un told him, and, apparently the beast is, “’a snake thing. Ever so big. He saw it’”(35). The fact that the beast is a large “snake thing” enforces the idea of the “typical beast” because a lot of people are afraid of snakes, and the boys are no exception. Another significance of the beast being a snake is that the snake is often used to represent the devil such as the snake in the Garden of Eden. Many of them are immediately scared about this beast, but Ralph immediately assuages their fears by rejecting the idea of the beast, and he states that, “You couldn’t have a beastie, a snake thing on an island this size,”(36). At this point, Ralph and almost all of the other children on the island are mature enough at to realize that there isn’t a “typical beast” for them to be afraid of, but he and most of the other children are also too naïve to realize the true beast that has already begun to manifest itself in them.
Life continues on the island, with no real concrete evidence of the beast, but the little ‘uns still are still having these dreams about beasts. After one particularly vivid description of the beast by Percival in which he says, using Piggy as a translator, that “the beast comes out of the sea”(88), all of the children, including Ralph and Jack, fall silent. They realize that, if the beast couldn’t live on an island of that size, maybe it could live in the sea. Maurice doesn’t really help the mood by saying that his father told him that “they haven’t found all the animals in the sea yet”(88). After this, even Simon who seems to be the most logical person in the group, says, “maybe there is a beast”(89). Immediately after this, the assembly as a whole uproariously shuts him down, but the boys do begin to talk about the beast and what they should do about it. Although Simon most likely was not speaking of the “typical beast” the boys took it that way, and did not give him any chance to elaborate. This shows that the belief in the beast is creeping into their minds against their will and without them really even realizing.
At this point in the book, the beast has gone through two phases: the outright denunciation of the existence of the beast and the belief in the beast creeping into their minds. The next phase that the beast goes through, which is full belief in the beast, marks a turning point in what the beast is to the children. After Sam and Eric see the dead pilot on the top of the mountain, Ralph, Jack, and Roger journey to the top to see it for themselves. When they reach the top of the mountain, they see a dark figure that looks like it has enormous wings, and they hightail it back to the beach. When they get back, Piggy asks if Ralph is sure that he saw the beast, and Ralph responds, “;I told you a dozen times now, we saw it”(124). He even goes on to elaborate that, “The beast had teeth, and big black eyes”(124). Ralph now fully believes in the beast as the “typical beast” with big teeth and eyes, and this belief quickly spreads to everyone of the island. At this point in the book, the beast very quickly begins to undergo a major change. As the boys begin to completely believe in the tangible beast at the top of the mountain the beast begins to change form from the “typical beast” to something inside of all of them.
The last stage of the beast shows in almost every character in the book, and it is the insatiable urge to cause harm to others. There are numerous occasions in which this shows even in characters such as Ralph, who seemed, at the beginning, to be one of the most level headed and sane of the group. The very first person to realize that the beast might not be a tangible being is Piggy when he states that “[He] know[s] there isn’t no beast—not with claws and all that,”(89). This is the first instance in which any of the boys bring up the idea of the beast not being the “typical beast”, but it isn’t until Simon says, not too much later, ‘”maybe it’s only us.’”(89). Although earlier in the book it seemed that this is what Simon wanted to say, this is the first time that anyone is able to put into words what Piggy was probably thinking. Another time in which Simon demonstrates his understanding of what the beast truly is occurs while he is having a hallucinatory conversation with the “Lord of the Flies” which is just a pigs head on a stick, and it “says” to him, “’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?’”(143). Simon is the only one of the boys that fully understands and can put into words why everything is going wrong, and that what the boys need to be afraid of is not some scary beast that they “could hunt and kill” or that could hunt and kill them. The author makes a point of showing that Simon really understands this significantly more than any of the other boys. One of the very first examples of this internal beast occurs after they miss a chance to kill a pig. Robert goes on his hands and knees and pretends to be a pig, while the others make a ring around him and have a mock hunt. Quickly, it gets out of control and Robert begins to make it clear he is not having a fun time. As the frenzied mob descends on Robert, even Ralph “was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh”(114-5) and “the desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.”(115). This urge within even the most levelheaded boys to cause pain is uncontrollable. This urge continues to manifest itself within the children, mainly Jack’s group, and it culminates in Roger crushing piggy with a boulder, and Jack’s entire tribe hunting and trying to kill Ralph.
The beast in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies goes through four major stages throughout the book.

During the first stage, the majority of the children on the island denounce the idea of a beast. During the second stage, the children begin to believe in the beast but the only evidence they have to demonstrate this is the little ‘uns dreams. During the third stage, they wholly believe in the beast and believe that they have seen evidence of its existence with the dead pilot on the top of the mountain. The third stage marks a turning point in what the beast is because after the third stage the beast is no longer some tangible being, but something inside of them that they cannot hope to control without some form of rule or

order.