Dbq Essay Lord Of The Flies

A beast can take on many forms in the eyes of different people, from the darkness under a child’s bed, to the inner demons within each person Author William Golding uses this concept to display different themes in his novel, Lord of the Flies. The character of the “beast” evolves throughout the story to represent intriguing and abstract subjects as the plot progresses. In The Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, the “beast” is initially the boys’ fear, then a representation of war, and ultimately the savagery of human nature.

Initially, the “beast” was introduced as a figment of the boys’ imagination, brought about by fear. It was at the first assembly, in which a littlun asked about, “the snake-thing” (Doc B). At first, the boys

The “beast” is given a physical form, a dead parachutist. The body falls onto the island by, “a battle fought at ten miles’ height,” and is first seen by Samneric (Doc D). In the dead of night the boys can’t see clearly and run to Ralph saying, “We saw- the beast,” (Doc D). At this point in the story, fear and tension amongst the boys rise due to the alleged sighting of the “beast”. However, the war which produced the body, is the real “beast” and sets the boys’ mini war in motion. Joyanta Dangar calls war the, “off-stage protagonist,” and suggests that it is not just , “mere occasion,” (Doc C). The setting of war helped propel the plot and the boys’ actions. However, author William Golding, previously a WWII solider in the Royal Navy, questioned the humanity of war by saying, “was [war] made by something inhuman and alien- or was it made by chaps with eyes and legs and hearts?” (Doc C). The presence of war causes a change in the boys’ actions. They become more savage and even murder some of their fellow schoolmates. There was no physical “beast” that killed anyone, only the war which justified the violent and cruel actions. The boys use war as an excuse to torture and murder; it is the true “beast” in the

The first time Simon mentions this concept is at an assembly. He began by saying, “maybe it’s only us,” but struggled to express his ideas on, “mankind’s essential illness,” (Doc F). The next time the boys’ inner evil is brought up is during Simon’s hallucinatory conversation with the pig’s head, when Simon discovers the “beast” is only a dead parachutist. He then, “sets off, weak and staggering, to tell the other boys that the beast is human,” (Doc E). There is a duel meaning behind Simon’s statement. The “beast” not only has a physical form of a human, it also represents the savagery of human nature that is displayed through the boys. Throughout the novel, the boys slowly lose their sense and morph into horrendous and violent monsters. The most prominent example of this savagery is during Simon’s murder. A very “beast”-like and aggressive vocabulary is used during this scene to describe the boys attack on Simon, including, “leapt… screamed, struck, bit, tore… and the tearing of teeth and claws,” (Doc F). While these words are expected to be used to describe a monster, they describe the boys instead. This encounter with the “beast” was not a fight against a physical being, it was a manifestation of the boys’ savagery. As time passes and tension amongst the boys rises, the inner evil and savagery becomes more evident through the murders of Simon and Piggy. The true “beast”