The Ramifications Of Fear In Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

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The Ramifications of Fear In William Golding's book, Lord of the flies, the theme fear is often the cause of all of the characters actions. In this book, the main characters are a group of boys; Piggy, Ralph, Simon, Sam, Eric, Roger, Jack, and the littluns. They all get stuck on a tropical island in the midst of a war without adult supervision. Because of this they are forced to take care of themselves. However, things become intense when some of the boys start giving into their savage instinct’s which ultimately causes the death of innocent boys. This story perfectly represents the ramifications of fear. It is the boys' fear that leads to the death of Simon, the death of Piggy, and the birth of strange, erratic, and savage behavior. The first …show more content…

At one point in the book, all of the boys look to Ralph as their leader but as soon as they begin following Jack, things take a turn.He begins using violence and fear to intimidate the boys if they did not listen. “‘He's going to beat Wilfred…’ ‘What for?’ Robert shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don't know. He didn't say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up’” (169). In this scene one of Jack's hunters is explaining how Jack is going to beat one of the members. If the boys were not scared of the beast, many of the tragic events that happened wouldn’t have occurred. They would not have come together under Jacks rule at all. This means they would not have given into their savage instincts. However the fear of something so unknown caused them to listen to him. They were scared so they allowed fear to control them. “High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever" (180). In this scene, Roger is pushing the lever which soon causes the rock that kills Piggy to fall. If he had known that there would be consequences for killing Piggy, he would not have done it, but since the boys had already turned savage and were under Jacks rule it didn’t matter and he got away with

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