Apocalyptic Situation In Lord Of The Flies

When it comes to an apocalyptic situation, this will make a species do anything to survive; even inhumane and violent acts may be summoned if the species feels threatened.

The Lord of The Flies by William Golding is a novel about a large group of kids being placed in an apocalyptic situation and having to survive without adult supervision for the first time. The kids face a plane crash on a desolate island where they must assume leadership roles, find food, communicate, work together, and try to find rescue from the island. However, a disconnect occurs within leadership roles which causes a separation in the group, which will become a colossal problem later in the story.

When Youth and fear are combined together, the primitive fight or flight response in the human body will trigger and act more plainly as the guiding hand in any young boy's thought process; acting in a very negative and finicky way.

Jack and Ralph are the two 'running candidates' of the island, out of the two

There aren't any beasts to be afraid of on this island . . . Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of cry-babies!" (5.79) As the quote previously states, Jack proceeds to say fear can't hurt any more than a dream. The reason why he is wrong is because deep within Jack lies fear, hence the reason he will turn into a primitive killing machine later on in the book and develop a pack of young boys to do any of his bidding. There also is a beast, which Jack doesn't know exists yet. The beast is spawned by Jack's youth and fear, which exposes Jack's instability and fear of being stranded alone away from society. Although Jack previously mentions he doesn't want to leave the island, his fear has caused him to think this way, and because he is an inexperienced youth, his brain is more vulnerable to being corrupted of fear and doing unpredictable things. "[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling.