Self Discovery In Lord Of The Flies Essay

Anything an author writes can have a deeper meaning and it is the responsibility of the reader to decipher it to help bring personal connexion between them and the characters. In the novel Lord of the Flies, as the boys enter this journey of self discovery brought to them by the plane crash. The author, William Golding, uses new circumstances to help the audience connect by showing the characters personalities through reactions. For example, when they find out that there are no other adults that survived the crash Ralph responded with his organizational skills by wanting to know everyone’s name. 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.

Piggy explains this when he says, “I know there isn 't no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I know there isn 't no fear, either" (118 - 119). They are unsure of what they should be fearing so they fear this beast because it embodies their fears. The beast comes a symbol of malice because they fear that something is threatening them. In reality there was never a best like they described. The closest thing to a beast was the parachutist, a “figure that hung with dangling limbs” after it crashed (136). Other than this the description of the beast is not solid as it changes as their fears