Fear is an inevitable characteristic of human nature. In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, a group of boys find themselves stranded on an isolated island, cut off from any contact with civilization. Though they begin as well mannered schoolboys, they are shaped into barbaric monsters as order crumbles and the ultimate source of fear changes. From the beginning they are terrified of a “beastie” after the younger children claim to spot one on the island. It starts as a nagging feeling in the back of their minds, but grows to a massive fear among the boys of a god-like monster that lives on the island preying on them. While none of this is real, it gives significant insight to human nature and the true beast in humanity. They are merely …show more content…
After Jack and his hunters split from the rest of the group and hunt on their own, they brutally slaughter a mother pig and place her head on a stick. Jack displays the head with triumphance and announces, “This head is for the beast. It’s a gift” (137). In the beginning, despite hiding it by promising to defeat the beast, Jack is as fearful of it as the other schoolboys were. Slowly, however, he has begun to see the beast as a symbol of power. Giving it a “gift” or offering proves that the boys are viewing it as a god to worship; it is slowly starting to control them. The beast represents the ultimate symbol of evil and its vicious power is likely something that Jack subconsciously desires. He and his boys continue to obsess over the beast, shown by the passage, ”’Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’ The movement became regular while the chant lost its first superficial excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse [..] Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent blind” (152). The boys’ chanting and dancing unifies their fixation of killing the beast. Except for Ralph and Piggy, their group thinks as one, blindly following this urge despite how brutal and savage they act. The goal of the boys has changed from compassion and rescue to murder and the fun of hunting. This clearly illustrates Jack, Roger, and the other hunter’s gradual decline into the side of evil. The more they obsess over the beast, the less caring they act towards one another. While they appear to not be as afraid as they were before, Ralph, Simon, and Piggy’s source of fear now comes from the other boys rather than the