From the cradle to the grave, every person has experienced the trembling feeling of fear. A child might fear being in the ocean or the dark; on the other hand, an old man might fear losing mental capabilities or even life. All fears are dreadful, but what if the fear was over something unknown? William Golding, both veteran and Nobel Prize winner, depicted his view on humanity into his book, Lord of the Flies. The book describes a group of British boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves with failing results. The boys also had fears, but in their case, it was a hidden beast. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies displays how fear of the unknown is a paralyzing and destructive force that can change one’s identity to a more …show more content…
It was also seen when Jack used fear as a source of power, bribing the littluns and leading them to savagery.
Point 1: Fear has peculiar powers as it can change the way a person thinks when in certain conditions. This may cause the person to make a regretful decision, creating chaos. Many times throughout history fear led to irrational decisions, especially in war. Being a life and death situation, war can cause fear towards the slightest movements. A soldier may mistake a friend for foe, allowing him to make a disastrous mistake. Similarly, the boys in Lord of the Flies feared the unknown beast and would constantly see it in different ways. In the beginning a littlun dreamt of a "snake-thing … or beastie" (Golding 48), becoming the first boy to fear the beast. Later, fear of the beast spread to the other littluns, nibbling at their minds, making them too afraid to even go near the
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Oftentimes, world leaders use fear to their political advantage, trying their best to gain support from the people. This will either support and benefit an issue or it will aggravate it. For instance, George W. Bush used the fear of another 9-11 to support the second U.S. war in Iraq. In a similar fashion, the Lord of the Flies displays Jack as the one trying to take advantage of the other boy’s fear. He knows that the beast does not truly exist but uses its existence to gain more supporters, fulfilling his greed for power. The other boys do not like him or see him as a good leader, but they are manipulated when Jack says, “Who is going to join my tribe? ... Some of the boys turned towards him. I gave you food … and my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe? … I will, Me, I will” (215). As long as the boys feel that Jack is the only one who can protect them from the beast, they will remain under his control. However, they do not realize that Jack is dragging them farther and farther away from the ever existing civilized world. When under Ralphs leadership, the littluns were in a rational and democratic environment, but they lost that identity when they went under Jack’s command. This change can be directly seen in Maurice, Henry and Roger. They boys leave behind their civility as they later raid Ralph’s camp along with Jack. Jack even led Roger to the point where he murdered Piggy.
Fear resides within all of our souls and our minds in different forms wether it be mind, body, or spirit. Fear can be brought upon by actions, words or ever our mere imagination. Of course as one being younger your imagination can bring along fear that is non existent but, to one it may seem so vivid and tangible. In this Novel by William Golding we come to grasps with many different forms of fear being from the beast, the loss of humanity, and the fear of realization.
The Lord of the Flies is a gruesome story about young boys stranded on an island, who underwent a transformation from polite British choir boys to savage hooligans. One of the main difficulties the boys face during their adventures upon the island, is their method of government, they either follow the path of Ralph, the democratic leader whose main focus is to escape the despairing island; or Jack a power-hungry monarchical leader who won't ever take no for an answer. The two boys are constantly bickering and arguing over who deserves the leader-position. We all understand Ralph wants to be leader so that he can ensure that the boys will return back home, but in Jack's case, it is a constant mystery to us about why he wants power over the other children. But we do get much small hints from the author, William Golding, that Jack's biggest fear among the other children on the island is public humiliation. This becomes more and more evident the farther on into the book, and his fear seems to be what persuades him to reach for a powerful position.
In Lord of the Flies, a group of boys are stranded on a deserted island. It starts out fine, until one of the boys, Jack, becomes jealous that he isn’t in charge. He forms a separate tribe. One night they start a war type of dance, chanting and screaming. They mistake Simon for the beast and kill him screaming “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (Goulding 138) After the boys realize they had killed Simon, they realized that who else would give them hope that they could survive, and keep the peace around the island. After Simon died Jack started to gain more power, because Ralph had lost a valuable member of his
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 endlessly. He shows that fear clouds the mind, thus making it absolutely imperative to maintain reason and logic throughout life. Fear will always end in a fate worse than death for those who survive it.
One of many prominent themes in William Golding's novel, the Lord of the Flies, is Fear. From the very first chapter, until the last, fear plays an important role in this text. It is the only thing, which stops the boys from acting rationally at times, from questioning curious circumstances and it physically hindered so many of the boys, so many times. The active role of fear in Lord of the Flies, was intentionally used by Golding, because he knew what images it would create. Fear is described by Mirriam- Webster's English dictionary, as To be uneasy or apprehensive'. This feeling is mutually experienced by all of the boys on the island in many different ways. Initially the boys have an obvious fear of being alone, which then brings upon the fear of what we know as the beast, or as the littluns refer to is, as the beastie'. While this fear continues for the whole of the novel, we are also exposed to three other incidents of fear. The first of these is the civilised fear of consequences, displayed only when the children are seen as young civilised boys, in the earliest chapters. The final two are of a different nature, with those fears being the loss of power, the fear of rejection and the fear of being in the minority. All of these different fears, then relate back to the character, and as was expertly planned out by William Golding, influences the characters attitudes and behaviours.
There are many ways to abuse the power of language, and while using fear it is commonly done. Many leaders rule with fear, not understanding the pain it can bring to others. In Animal Farm Napoleon chooses to rule with fear when he slaughters many animals, reasoning that they that they thought about, or communicated with Snowball. This caused other animals on the farm to fear being killed and follow the rules intently. Shortly after changing another commandment to “no animal shall kill any other animal without cause”. Many other writings, books, speeches, or ads use fear as well. A poem, Dreams by Langston Hughes uses the same effects in his writing, leading to the emotion, fear. An example of when he demonstrates this, is when Hughes writes, “if your dreams die life are a broken-winged bird that cannot fly”. Meaning you should not let your dreams die or it will be useless and
In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, and Kendra Cherry’s article, “The Milgram Obedience Experiment”, the comparable fear factor, and naive mindset of individuals put under dire circumstances leads to the corruption of society and rise of evil in humans. Fear factors are an influential resource, and useful tactic leaders use to instil dominant power in their citizens, if this power is abused, evil and chaos occurs. For example, in Lord of the Flies, when Samneric get captured by Jack, Jack terrorizes them, snapping, “What d’you mean coming here with spears? What d’you mean by not joining my tribe?” the twins try to escape but fear takes over their morals and they, “...lay looking up in quiet terror” (Golding 182). As Jack threatens
The littluns were the first one to bring up a "beastie" and were convinced that there were a "snake thing". This was merely imagination, but the littluns were convinced that it exists, one may feel that Golding is suggesting that human brings have the tendency to succumb to irrational fears and the desire to make a virtual enemy. Jack, grabbing hold of their fear, emerges a protector and the boys, seeking safety, chooses to side with him due to the supply of meat and his hunting skills. While Ralph's insistence of making a signal fire is more effective in the long run, the littluns donn't recognize its value. As the boys were marooned on an island and detached from civilization, they lose touch with reality and are more vulnerable to the power of the dominating
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
Anthony Borrero Feminella Language Arts I 30 January 2017 Fear of the Unknown What would happen if boys from a civilized society were suddenly thrown together on an island with no adults? The novel "Lord of the Flies" is written by William Golding shortly after the end of World War II. The novel is about a group of English boys who are stranded on an island during the period of war.
But when they reject this responsibility and only care about the power that comes with the position they will do anything to keep this power. As seen in the lord of the flies when Jack creates the lord of the flies after becoming leader. As such, Jack cultivates the fear inside the boys that are part of his tribe. This makes the boys easier to command and he is able to accomplish his desires more easily. As the novel continues, Jack continues to torment the boys with punishment. Punishment in itself is not wrong but when there is no reason behind it is degraded in to torture.As we can see in the novel Jack punishes the boys without a reason. The tribe then becomes afraid of betraying Jack because they know they will get punished so in turn they listen to everything Jack says. This allows him to use his tribe as an army that will listen to all of his
“The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream” (“William Golding quotes.”). Fear lives to haunt and torment the person to a point of destruction and can be within everyone. Although a person is able to overcome fear, it is still very dangerous because it affects the person as well as everyone and everything around. In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the boys are all so overwhelmed by fear that the island starts to recede into a state damaged beyond repair. In this case, Jack’s fear of not being leader originally starts to affect him, but it gradually starts to affect Ralph, and the rest of the boys. Ralph’s fear of survival brings out his inner savageness and an innocent life is taken away. Lastly, the boys’ fear of the beast causes them to feel so unsafe and uncertain that they are willing to do anything. As a result of the boys being consumed by these fears, it becomes the most destructive force on the island.
In closing, fear can make people act in ways that are unfamiliar to them, whether their fear is valid or imaginary. In reply to fear, people may act defensively by being violent, fear can either stop one from doing something, or it can make one behave in an absurd unpredictable behaviour. As revealed, fear is demonstrated in the “Lord of the Flies” in three major ways: Simon’s lack of fear, Ralph’s fear of being isolated, and Jacks vast fear of being over powered by Ralph. Evil and fear is brought to the island by the boys themselves believed Golding. The world will essentially always have the same problem until every human being on the earth is unblemished, until there is no more evil or fear in the world. Obviously fear isn’t over rated.
Teddy Roosevelt once said that, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Fear is a product of the absence of knowledge and thoughts that are blown out of proportion. As humans we are scared of the unknown and what it conceals from us. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of children crash land on an unknown island without adults. As time passes, the kids become uneasy and try to seek comfort in their leaders. When their imagination takes over, the unknown soon ignites their fear and apprehension hinders the juveniles as they attempt to restore order. Since fear is fueled by imagination, the boys’ outward attempt to conquer it only results in violence and chaos.
Every day, all around the world every human being is forced to deal with their own personal terrors in their day to day life. In William Golding’s Lord of The Flies the boys are constantly surrounded by all their fears. Fear is a powerful emotion because it is capable of making us willing to resort to any means necessary to escape possible danger. This is shown when Jack uses fear to manipulate other children to gain power, the boys’ actions are controlled by their fears, which causes their view of reality to become distorted and the boys’ drift further away from their civilized nature to battle their fears.