What Is The Significance Of Fear In Lord Of The Flies

Similar to Lord of the Flies, this story was also set on an island which helped induce the savagery within Rainsford. General Zaroff lived on a remote island that was feared by Rainsford’s friend before she abandoned Rainsford and said “The place has a bad reputation – a bad one” which implies people avoid the area. This meant that general Zaroff was free to do whatever he pleased and this allowed his vicious fantasies to become reality. Zaroff’s sadistic game transformed Rainsford into a savage beast, as exemplified in the text “Rainsford did not smile. ‘I am still a beast at bay.’”

This comes in the form of idealizing the beast’s appearance and tactics, considering it to be a reality, and finally acting upon superstition. In Lord of the Flies, the boys are so scared of the beast that it directly influences their actions, causing them to take alarming measures to the point where even older readers are appalled by the concept. The book perfectly demonstrates that fear can seriously drive someone to questionable and even foolish

In the imagination of the boys, the beast is a tangible monster of evil on the island. At first, most of the boys disregard the Beast, but as they fall further from civilization, they put more faith in it. The Beast is a symbol for the evil and malice that reside within everyone, and it gets more powerful as the boys capitulate to their savagery. It causes life on the island to deteriorate. Simon is the first one to realize that it is them who are becoming evil and that there is no beast on the island.

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s portrayal of the stranded boys’ bloodlust shows a childhood filled with tribulation and terror. Golding showcases his belief that all men contain wicked desires when the boys abandon their attempts of democracy on the island. Their time spent on the island reveals that even childhood innocence turns dark without society enforcing justice. Simon’s hallucination with the pig’s head creates a physical representation of the evil that took over the stranded boys. The pig tells Simon, “fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, is a classic novel about a group of schoolboys stuck on an island where fear and savagery consumes them. From the beginning of the book to the last page fear has a prominent role in the novel. Fear in the book manifests itself with many thoughts including what the littluns refer to as the beast, and the fear of not getting home. Fear leads some of the boys to make regrettable decision and it also leads Jack to a position of power. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding fear dominates the island that the boys are stranded on and this fear leads the boys to positions of power and influences some of the boys to make regrettable decisions.

Golding intricately details the rise of a demagogue, JACK, through the development of the PLOT and the power struggle between the two major leaders, Ralph and JACK. Ralph struggles to provide for the wellbeing of the group, while JACK “want[s] meat’” (51). This opposition of values is essential to understanding JACK’s rise to power because while Ralph wants to take steps to increase the groups’ chances of rescue, JACK wants to “‘catch a pig first-’” (53) which reveals that JACK does not value the, more civil and less delusional, society outside the island.

Extreme circumstances provoke precarious acts. As man attempts to survive, he forgets his moral code and reverts to instinctual behaviors. The boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies prove this: As the story progresses, their inner evil is evident through their savage actions and their moral behaviors are lost. In the beginning, the group of boys struggle to maintain a democratic environment. The longer they live on the island, their society turns chaotic: No one obeys the regulations set into place and most of them do not take their predicament as serious as they should.

In the book, The Lord of the Flies, the boys debate on whether the beast is real or not. The irony throughout the book is based on how the boys are so terrified of there being a fictitious monster on the island that they do not realize that they are the monsters themselves. As the boys begin to act more savagely, their belief of the existence of the beast becomes stronger. Throughout the book, it is clear that the boys are, in fact, the real beast, as evidenced by the spreading hatred, the sexual assaults, and violence. To begin with, the boys’ hatred towards one another grows stronger as the novel progresses, which portrays them as the real beast on the island.

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.

This is helps move the plot along making the boys fear the beast and to have the urge to kill the beast in order to eliminate their fear on the island. When people are introduced in to the presence of fear by a large power or person they are alright at first they can handle everything at first. But as time goes on the fear and power intensifies to the point of thinking that the person is going to die causes the person who is experiencing the fear do things he or she would not normally do. Especially when the person 's life is at risk because the fear is so bad.