Katherine Paterson once said, “To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.” William Golding, who is a Nobel Prize winner for literature, writes Lord of the Flies, originally published in 1954. Golding’s novel is about a group of boys who crash land on an island. All of the adults are dead and they are abandoned on an island. The boys try to set rules and create a fire in efforts of being rescued. The group of boys chooses Ralph to be their leader. This choosing makes a literary character named Jack, who doesn’t show his anger until half way through the plot. The novel shows the nature of humans and how fear can control them. The novel also shows the difference between good and evil. Golding experienced this when he was in World War II. There were many times fear controlled the boys in the island in Lord of the Flies. …show more content…
The group actually ends up killing a boy named Simon, who was very mysterious, but likeable character throughout the novel. Here is what Piggy, another literary character in Lord of the Flies, says caused the murder, “It was dark. There was that-that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared!” (Golding 156). This quote shows that the boys were truly scared by Simon’s appearance and since they already had spears, their response was to kill. They thought that Simon was a creature on the island set to kill them. This means that they were scared to be killed by it, so they let fear tell them to kill it. The beast was not the only thing that used or created fear in the other boys. Jack also did
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)?
It is in these games were the boys get carried away and Ralph feels a
Fear in Lord of the Flies In the novel The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, fear. is the cause of all of the problems that take place on the island. At First, the island is thought to be splendid and a paradise, but as the boys' stay on the island increases, so, too, do their fears. The boys soon become afraid of each other and soon after that the boys break up.
Fear is a driving force in The Lord of the Flies. How does fear in all of its forms influence the boy's attitudes and behaviours?
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.
The classic novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an exciting adventure deep into the nether regions of the mind. The part of the brain that is suppressed by the mundane tasks of modern society. It is a struggle between Ralph and Jack, the boys and the Beast, good and evil.
In most cases, fear can greatly alter how people act and therefore can shape lives for the better and for the worst. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a plane crashes on an island leaving the remaining boys all alone without any adults. This leaves them overwhelmed and afraid as they have never been in this situation previously, but also puts other fears that the boys may have suffered through prior to this experiences into action. This fearfulness that the whole group has, whether it be for their survival or because of personal issues, alters their views and thoughts so greatly as it therefore led to the inhumane killing of Simon. Simon death was overall a result of the fear of the unknown, Jack fearfulness of not being the
Firstly, as news spreads of the beast, all kids believe in it, but the one character who does not believe in the beast is Simon as said by the pig head. To Jack, however, it is something for him to release his inner savagery for his desire to hunt and kill. “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. ‘You knew didn’t you? I am a part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s a no go?’ Why things are what they are?” (Golding 158). In this situation, as the boys express their fear of the beast, Simon knows that the beast is not real and will not cause harm; however, the rest of the group thinks the exact opposite. This quote, said by the Lord of the flies (also known as the pig head) to Simon to intimidate the kids and also Jack, this proves how Jack uses the pig head to contract people’s fear, which is always used in the past because of his constant desire for hunting. In the previous quote the pig head says this to Simon referring to the third line it says that the beast is a part of every individual soul on the island. If the pig head does not get hunted down then they have a slimmer chance of getting attacked by the beast.
After thinking they saw the “beast”, Jack and Ralph call an assembly to tell the boys they came face to face with the hideous creature. Ralph tells the boys, in referring to fighting the beast, that “[they] would [not] fight [it].’ He believes that the boys would ‘hide, even Jack [would] hide’”(Golding 124). Knowing the “beast” is real frightens the boys more than before because they now know it is not just their imagination. In the beginning, they have confidence in themselves that they can kill the “beast but now that Ralph and Jack say it is real the boys are more skeptical about their abilities to kill it. Ralph acknowledges the fact that the “beast” is something that all the boys are scared of and how even Jack, one of the bravest on the island, is too scared to fight it. Throughout the novel, the fear of the “beast” continues to increase, but Simon realizes that the “beast” is within each person in the group and the creature is not real. During a stormy night, Simon realizes that the creature thought to be a “beast” is actually a dead parachuter. While rushing down to tell the boys, they mistake Simon for the “beast” and attack him as he is “crying out against the abominable noise about a body on the hill” the group “[surges] after [him], leaps onto [him], strike, bite, [and] tear”(Golding 152). This gruesome killing shows how fear can impact one’s thought process. In an article about fear, it talks about how people “can become violent, and can even become deadly; [fear] can cause an instinctive reaction to rising adrenaline levels rather than a consciously thought-out decision”( Science Daily ). For the boys on the island, the fear of the “beast” being real causes them to hurt each other, kill each other, and causes chaos to erupt. The boys believe there is a creature living with them on the island, which leads to a great fear
People can do anything that involves fear including turning on someone and attempting to kill them. William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies in 1952 during the cold war. This affects the novel because children were often killed during war.This novel is important because the novel shows how the boys communicate and survive on the island. Lord of the Flies is about a group of boys on an island without any adults. In order to survive, they will have to work as a team. In the essay, I will talk about how Jack and Ralph comparison, how they have changed, and there purpose in the novel.
Goldling wanted his audience to know what happens when younger people are brought into a new environment without any laws, little to no leadership or government, and basically a place where you have to build your own society without any help from the outside. In this new society the boys have to create their own society with their own laws and create a stable government. The boys realize that they will need rules to survive the island so their first rule that they established is that they need a leader the use of the conch shell as a replacement for “hands up like at school” so that not everyone would be interrupting each other; they are trying to establish their new society similarly to their previous of what they thought was civil ( Golding
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...
Over millions of years, man has transformed from a savage, simple creature to a highly developed, complex, and civil being. In Lord of the Flies, the author William Golding shows how under certain circumstances, man can become savage. During nuclear war, a group of British schoolboys crash land on an uninhabited island to escape. Ralph the elected leader, along with Piggy and Simon, tries to maintain civilization, while Jack and his group of choir boys turned hunters slowly become savages obsessed with killing. Through characters’ action and dialogue, Golding illustrates the transformation of civil schoolboys into bloodthirsty savages.
The novel that I am going to talk about is Lord of the Flies by
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