Literary Analysis Essay About The Beast In Lord Of The Flies

. . . Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you?

The Lord of the Flies identifies itself as the beast and acknowledges to Simon that it exists within all human beings: “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?” The creature’s grotesque language and bizarre appropriation of the boys’ slang (“I’m the reason why it’s no go”) makes the creature appear even more hideous and devilish, for he taunts Simon with the same colloquial, familiar language the boys use themselves. Simon,

Their young mindset tempts them to see the worst. They act upon their poor thoughts.The boys argue where the beast comes from and when Simon suggests it comes from the water, the boys laugh and make fun of him. They then continue to argue and eventually Jack splits with his hunter followers to go find out for themselves. Jack felt the need that if he proved whether the beast was out there, that maybe he would be able to gain some of the respect he thinks he deserves. Simon, being one of the wiset boys, said, “Maybe there is a beast...maybe it’s only us…” (Chapter 5, page 80).

“He says the beastie came in the dark… stumbling among all those creepers…” In the story of the Lord of the Flies, a small group of boys are stranded on an island, and are being hunted by a strange “beast.” What, however, does this beast symbolize? As time progresses, numerous interpretations of the beast have arised. Initially, the beast manifests into the form of fear. In the document, “The terrors of the unknown”, it states that, “They externalize these fears into the figure of a ‘beast’.” (Doc.A). This shows that the young children stranded on the island let their imaginations rule their lives, manifesting the beast in their fear.

A littlun spots Simon and thinking it is the beast cries out scaring the other boys who kill Simon. In this chapter, we see how far the boys will go when full of fear, discomfort, and unknowing. Golding use of animal imagery, juxtaposition, and symbolism in Lord of the Flies helps convey the theme that

This shows Ralph is a smart character who is likely to be more considerate towards others. As they enter a wild, unprotected, and unsupervised environment, the young survivors fall victim to their own emotions. They show their insecurities through the idea of a “beast” which “a shrimp of a boy, about six years old,” brought to light in a meeting (47). Throughout the text the topic of the beast continues to hunt them causing the reader to decipher it represents more than a physical matter. William Golding uses the “beast” to demonstrate the fear that creeps in the mind of the boys affecting them differently as they journey through this adventure.

As stated in “Maybe it’s only us”, one of the boys says “maybe there is a beast… what I mean is… maybe it’s only us… Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s illness.”(Doc F). Simon eventually found out that a human could be capable of behaving like a terrifying creature. In “the Beast is Human”, Simon, the same boy who understood how cruel humans could be, “sets off, weak and staggering, to tell the other boys that the beast is human.”(Doc E). The boy found the body of the man terrorizing the children on the island and realized how being cruel mankind could be. People are capable of something so harsh and tormenting that they could be considered monsters.

And I’m the Beast…. Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!... You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close!

This just confirms Simon’s earlier fears that maybe the boys had nothing to fear but themselves, and maybe the boys were the beast. The Lord Of The Flies symbolizes evil, and loss of innocence. The readers may see these symbols differently than the boys see them. While the boys see the conch shell as an object that represents power and order, it is more clear to the reader that it is actually a symbol of civilization, and eventually the loss of civilization. The boys view the pig’s head as just a sacrifice to the beast, and then the beast itself.

Jack feels the need to alter his appearance simply to please his developing savage tendencies. This demonstrates Jack’s willingness to kill on account of the fact that he feels inclined to become a new person, just to kill an animal. Consequently, this shows his loss of innocence because he is simply no longer just a choir boy. He is a cutthroat hunter and future leader of the tribe of children. Furthermore, Jack has changed so much, both physically and personality wise, that Ralph, a kid who he has gotten to know on the island, can barely recognize him: “A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair, who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist…” (80).

Speaking to the Lord of the Flies, Simon tells that “you knew … I’m part of you? Close, close, close!”. Looking to the supposed “beast” right in the face, he knows that it is the fear and the evil that has caused the disorder on the island. Even if he knows the truth, heads off in the dark for the feast that Jack has prepared for the boys. However, the boys at the feast are still fearful of the fictitious beast and mistake Simon as it.

Buck learns that in the wild or in Alaska you must steal to survive. We both agree that stealing is wrong. So if you agree stealing is wrong then you agree that you need to be evil to live in the wild. In the final chapters in the book Buck kills animals it the woods and enjoys doing it. The killing brings joy to him. "

The beast is metaphoric of the crude feral nature within every human, though naturally more prominent in those who act on it willingly. Simon later encounters the Lord of the Flies (a pig’s head on a stick that Jack left as a sacrifice for the beast) who “speaks” to Simon while he is having a brain clot. The Lord of the Flies tells Simon that it is the beast, that it’s inside of everyone. “Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill!” (Page 143) it tells him, reminding Simon that to defeat the “beast”, or evil, within a person is impossible to physically accomplish. It’s as if everyone has a ticking time bomb of malevolence that is kept in check by our moral values and societal standards.