¨Kill the beast!... Spill his blood!” Lord of the Flies, a novel written by William Golding, centers around a group of boys stranded on an abandoned island after being shot down. The book is set in the near future in the middle of a war. The boys soon find themselves haunted by a figure they call the ¨Beast.¨ The so called ¨Beast¨ is and ungraspable being constantly changing form. In the beginning, the ¨Beast¨ was a figment of imagination created by the boys externalizing their fears. As is stated in Document A the group, ¨...begin to people the darkness...¨ meaning the boys are beginning to present the gloom with a ¨face.¨ To further explain, the children allow themselves to see the things that are not really there, such as demons and monsters.
To further explain, in Document B one of the children states, ¨He was dreaming….He must have had a nightmare.¨ This quote proves that the boys were merely frightened and alone, consequently enabling their fears to consume and trick their minds into creating this nightmarish fiend. Gradually the monster becomes the embodiment of the war encircling the island. The book itself is based in the midst of World War II…
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is a sordid tale about a group of kids who are stranded on a deserted island after their plane crashes. The story is set during the Atomic War and plenty of references are made to the fact. However, the real key to the story lies in the role of Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. Beelzebub has a central role in the story as he represents the Beast, or evil, that dwells within all humans. The Beast cannot be hunted and since it dwells within all humans, humans are all guilty because mankind is sick. The destruction of mankind is a point that Golding makes apparent often in this novel. He establishes early on that Beelzebub is a force within all humans that drives them to destroy and maim. In the story the central emblem of the story lies in the dead airman. The boys mistake him for Beelzebub and basically begin to worship him.
Within each of us lurks a beast waiting for the first opportunity to bare its ugly fangs. A vestige of ages past, when violence and destruction was man’s only language, the beast only needs a bit of chaos to resurface. William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, is hinged on this idea. In the story, a group of English schoolboys are stranded on an island without a single adult. They try initially to keep a rough semblance of civilization in place, calling assemblies and lighting signal fires, but the beast is soon awoken from its primeval slumber to wreak terror among them. Golding makes it his duty to reveal the innate evil of the human soul in Lord of the Flies by not only displaying general chaos, but detailing specific instances where the violent nature of man bleeds through. The “darkness of man’s heart” (Golding 202) is demonstrated when Roger feels the sudden urge to throw rocks toward a younger boy, when the boys’ game of mock hunting turns a little too real, and when the little savages murder Simon in a passionate frenzy.
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.
Every now and then, one finds themselves taking a deeper look inside of their soul, often times resulting in the discovery of an inner being. This inner being is perfectly depicted through the lord of the flies. Contrary to the boys’ beliefs, the lord of the flies, or in the novel the symbol of the "beast", is not "something you could hunt and kill" (164), but rather a spirit that dwells inside of a soul, and slowly seduces one into complete and utter savagery. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding gives the reader a glimpse into a society composed of a group of young British boys, all raised in a civilized and orderly manner, that find themselves stranded on a deserted island. Fighting for survival, many of the boys surrender to the Beast that engulfs them. Others, like Ralph, find themselves in a much more complex and compromising battle- one that takes place inside the mind. In his novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses the motifs of the pig dance, the conch, and the masks to convey the theme that man becomes a corrupt and savage being without a strict system of order and civilization.
Arguments on how to govern society has always been apart of human history. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, he demonstrates how one society from a boy named Jack gains supremacy from another boy’s society named Ralph. Ralph’s society is more civil, lawful, and democratic while Jack’s society is more savage like and more of a dictatorship. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, he uses foreshadowing, symbolism, and allegory to convey the reasons why Jack gains supremacy over Ralph.
The author, William Golding uses the main characters of Ralph, Jack, and Simon in The Lord of the Flies to portray how their desire for leadership, combined with lack of compromise leads to the fall of their society. This desire for leadership and compromise led to the fall of their society just like multiple countries during times of wars.
1. Given that Piggy represents society and its rules, he must have found his situation on the island disturbing at the least. At first, there is no organized social structure of any kind; no position of leadership existed. There was an absence of rules. This must have been very disturbing to Piggy. Then, as the story progresses, a sort of chain of leadership emerges with Ralph being voted as “chief.” “Ralph raised his hand for silence. ‘All right. Who wants Jack for chief?’ With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands. ‘Who wants me?’ Every hand outside the choir except Piggy’s was raised immediately. Then, Piggy too, raised his hand grudgingly into the air. Ralph counted. ‘I’m chief then.’”(LoF p21). Then, a little bit later, Ralph brings up the idea of rules: “Jack was on his feet. ‘We’ll have rules!’ he cried excitedly. Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks them-’”(LoF p33). When the “hunters” kill their first pig is when we start to see signs of a more primal society, or lack thereof. They repeat the chant, “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” Piggy obviously if fed up with Jack and his hunters, asking, “What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?’”(LoF p.91). And then, Ralph’s authority is challenged by Jack. Jack first disregards the rule of letting the person with conch speak without interruption. Then he directly challenges Ralph, saying, “And you shut up! Who are you, anyway? Sitting there, telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing-’”(LoF p91). From this confrontation is goes downhill on the island. On pg. 114, a “game” gets a little out of hand, when Robert pretends to be the pig, and the others pretend to hunt him, but then they become more serious and actually hurt him. He is not killed, however. Eventually, Jack and some of the other boys split apart from Ralph and his “group.” Jack and his hunting band kill another pig savagely, reveling in its agony. The “peak of their decline” was when they killed Simon, calling him a beast, during the storm. Then Piggy is killed, and the conch is shattered, and that is when I consider them to be at the absolute lowest in society: nothing more than savages.
In Lord of the Flies, William Golding suggests ideas about human nature such as the grasp for power, manipulation, barbarism, anarchy, and destruction which are prevalent in today’s society. As the article 2011 Libyan Civil War Fast Facts by CNN describes the event as a power struggle, mob mentality, international desire for new leadership, and displays the internal challenges of a population, traits of human nature such as these are present the struggle between Jack and Ralph which effectively made two groups and created violent divide. Articles such as this one back up the Golding’s ideas that there is evil and a violent side to the world which as those grounded in the Libyan population.
All of the boys but Simon are becoming the beast at that moment. In Lord of the Flies, Golding proves that fear draws out man’s inner evil and barbarism. Within the novel, Golding uses characterization of the boys and symbolism of the beast to show the gradual change from their initial civility to savagery and inhumanity. Learned civility, order and humanity become ultimately futile in the face of fear. The author teaches that without logic, fear consumes us endlessly.
“The pig’s head is cut off; a stick is sharpened at both ends and ‘jammed in the crack’ of the earth” (207) In the book, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of (British) kids end up on an island after a plane crash. Even though the kids do try to survive with each other, one group of kids wanted to set up a rescue fire, and another group of kids desired hunting for survival (because they don’t care about being rescued as much as the other group). This conflicts both of these groups from doing what they want. The kids are then are then separated, then separate into two civilizations after some time out of civilization. One being a civilized bunch (the kids who wished to have an active rescue fire), and another group that lived like
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.
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.
The Tyrant William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is a novel about a group of English boys whose plane recently crashed onto a stranded island when trying to escape World War II. Stranded on the island with no adult presence, the boys revert to using savage primitive ways to survive on the island. They do this because of Jack, leader of the choir boys, and strikes fear into the children on the island. Jack is eager for absolute power, and he doesn’t care what he must do to gain power over the boys. He becomes a tyrant.
Did you know that 70% of the teen population in all of America have some sort of counseling for some sort of difficulties? These difficulties could range from life or death situations to mental illnesses. After being rescued by the Navy, the boys from The Lord of the Flies, a fictional novel written by William Golding had to seek help from counselors. They are so mentally strained and separated from reality that they start to change. Many became more violent and less civilized, a direct result of the 2 murders that took place while the boys were stranded.
The novel that I am going to talk about is Lord of the Flies by