Essay which explores the themes relating to the beast in Lord of the Flies. Excellent Points which will make you stand out from the rest of your classmates.
The Beast in Lord of the Flies represents the innate ability to commit evil within
every human being. Golding, at first gives the beast a physical meeting but over the course
of the novel presents a more abstract view.
The fear that the beast brings to the island, the effects of this fear and it’s mirroring
of events close to the time make the beast significant to the novel. The beast is a figure of
one of the littluns’ imagination. It exists because of a fear within; however, making this fear
a physical entity is comforting for him, as he knows they can kill it, whereas the fear of
something unknown or abstract cannot be defeated with force. The childish thought of
there being a beast is exacerbated by the comment ‘You only get them (snakes) in big
countries like Africa or India’. Africa obviously isn’t a country and Golding perhaps uses this
lack of knowledge to highlight their stupidity which undermines this idea of a beast
altogether. Golding, on the other hand is perhaps trying to indicate and thereby foreshadow
there is a more powerful meaning to the ‘beastie’ which Simon eventually reveals.
The fear that the boy with the mulberry birth mark brings opens up an opportunity
for Jack to take control on the island. ‘If there was a snake we’d hunt it and kill it’. The use of
violent verbs makes them seem powerful and plants hope within the minds of the littluns
that Jack and his hunters can get rid of the beast. Ralph’s repetition of ‘But there isn’t a
beast’ perhaps implies that he also realizes this episode has led to him losing a bit of power
and he is trying to get rid of the idea altogether. Jack provides a solution to their worries
(hunting the beast) which automatically endears him to the boys and eventually leads to
him becoming ‘chief’ on the island.
This use of fear mirrors the events of the time. Lord of the Flies was published in
1954, less than ten years after the end of WW2; a war which saw the climax of Adolf Hitler’s
power. However, the way in which he got people to support him was similar to that of
Jack’s. He gave the people of Germany solutions to their issues by blaming the things wrong
in their country on Jews, Homosexuals and Gypsies. Jack does the same by blaming their
issues on Ralph’s poor leadership.
The Lord of the Flies can be seen as a physical representation of the beast. The Lord
of the Flies means Beelzebub which is Hebrew for the Devil. Simon hallucinates having a
conversation during which Golding presents The Lord of the Flies to be very human. ‘I’m the
reason why it’s no go’ exemplifies the point as the use of colloquial language makes the Lord
of the Flies seem like one of them, which means Golding might be implying that they are the
Beast. He also goes on to describe The Lord of the Flies as ‘obscene’, and with it now being a
metaphor for the boys; it may be describing the boys themselves.
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