Why things are what they are?” As Simon begins to faint the beast says, “We are going to have fun on this island!” The lord of the flies admits to Simon he is inside all the boys, he is the savagery and the evil that has a hold on them. “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could kill!” The more wild and deviant the children act the stronger and more real the beast becomes. The beast is seen as a threat to all the boys except Simon, who understands that the beast resides in the boys. Their fear of the beast formed a connection between them until Jack manipulated their fear to create two different groups to maintain power. Savagery is a primal instinct that exists within all humans and isn't something that can be
In the words of David Gemmell, “there is evil is all of us, and it is the mark of a man how he defies the evil within.” The beast in the novel starts as a symbol of fear and something that was ignored but ends up creating chaos and representing evil. In William Golding 's, Lord of the Flies, the boys making fun of the little boy for being scared of the beastie and the boys doubting Sam and Eric, Simons hallucination, and Simon 's death are evidence that show the evil and ignorance in the boys. There are many signs of ignorance towards the beast in the novel. One example of ignorance towards the beast is when the boys made fun of the little boy for being scared of the beast. When the little boy brought up the beast the first time, the older boys, “laughed and cheered,” (Golding.
. . . Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you?
In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies he uses how humans act to portray the main themes of the text. The boys progress from well mannered young boys to complete savage during the duration of the text to portray how men can go from being civilized to animals. Golding also uses the characters to show how inside some people have the ability to inflict pain and suffering upon others. The boys also portray the battle between democracy and totalitarianism/dictatorship and the positives and negatives of each. In Golding’s view when men are left to their own devices will turn evil.
“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.” (Phillip Zombardo) William Golding, the author of a well known book, “Lord of the Flies”, beliefs what Phillip Zombardo said about good and evil. According to the book he wrote, he thinks that humans can very easily cross the line between good and evil. In the book, there is a group of boys that their ages range gets stranded on an island and they have to survive. But as time goes along, evil started to overwhelm them by situational forces. Therefore, they become like savage dogs and only think about killing.
But when there was the discussion about the beast he grabbed the conch and said what he was thinking but was laughed at for it (p.111 l.10 chapter 5). He is the only one to consider that the beast is not an actual living being. His way of thinking makes him understand that the beast is a part of everyone (p.110 l.29). His thinking is confirmed by the Lord of the Flies, a hallucination he has after seeing the pig´s head on a stick. Out of this scene one can see that he sees himself as an outsider and wants to be liked by the other boys.
The Beast was created by the boys and developed throughout the novel. It symbolizes darkness, the unknown, evilness and the fear restrained within the boys. “He says he was the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?” Then the beastie developed and became “The Beast.” It also represents savagery that exists within all human being. While the boys were afraid of the beast Simon was the only one that came up to realize the truth of the beast. He figured out that they fear the beast because it exists within each of them.
(page _____) Simon volunteers to go to Piggy because he is the only one that is not afraid of travelling in the forest by himself. He is not afraid because he is one with nature. Unlike Ralph, Simon is capable of seeing the evil in that lurks within the boys. He regularly has fainting spells, before one of these episodes he hallucinates the Lord of the Flies, a pig head speared by a stick poking out of the ground placed by Jack, speaking to him. The pig head tells Simon about the evil that is inside the boys, and that they are capable of greatly evil things.
Ever so big. He saw it”(Golding,35) Innocence was the first one to see the beast, not an actual animal, but the beast that exists inside every human, and every boy on the island. The boy could not comprehend what he is seeing, so there, the idea of a beast on the island was born. Innocence means freedom from sin or moral wrong. In Lord of the Flies terrible things happened, starting with the fire that killed many littluns.“The boys looked at each other fearfully, unbelieving...Beneath them, on the unfriendly side of the mountain, the drum-roll continued”(Golding,46).
Presently throughout the novel, the boys’ fear of the “Beastie” grew. The boys in the book are controlled by their fear of the Unseen Beast, which they derived from their imaginations, rather than hunting or killing the beast in reality. In the beginning of the novel, the boys started off as a civilized group. They had a conch which was a symbol of order, rules, and they were a community of their own ruled by Ralph; but as the boys were joining each other, a small boy with a mulberry birthmark held the conch and said “ What you’re going to do about the snake thing?” All the boys laughed and Ralph laughed with them. “Tell us more about the snake-thing.” Piggy spoke for the little boy, and he said, “Now he says it was a beastie.” “A Beastie?”