Essay Example on Fear in Lord of the Flies

Fear is everywhere and in everyone. People are born with it. That feeling of fear is genetically implanted into their brain, but it only activates at certain times. William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies shines a light on fear in many ways. In this classic tale, a group of young boys are stranded on an island as a result of a plane crash with no adults to look after them. Ralph, a good-looking and confident boy, finds a conch with Piggy, who is overweight but quite smart. Also on the island is Jack, the leader of a choir, Simon who is angelic and accommodating, Sam and Eric are twins who are always addressed together, and Roger who fades into the background at first but becomes sadistic. Ralph became chief after a quick vote, and Jack wasn't happy. As time goes on, Jack kills multiple pigs, starts a totally separate tribe that is devoted to hunting, invades the original tribe's camp, and kills Piggy. Farther along in the book, Jack’s tribe, Ralph and Piggy are circling and chanting hungrily and aggressively. Then Simon bursts into the ring yelling, but the boys are in such a deep trance that they did not notice. They ripped him apart with their bare hands and teeth. To make matters worse they hardly thought anything of it afterward. All the boys were on the same island but not all the boys became as irrational and psychotic as Jack and his tribe of boys. Brain development is clearly the cause of Jack’s tribe's insane spiral into barbarity; they were the only boys that turned into animals even though all the boys were in the same harsh conditions.

Jack’s tribe could not contain the impulsive urge to become savages, and that is due to the fact that everybody is born with that barbaric instinct. In a study done by Eveline Crone and her team that measures brain activity, they found that “This region, known as the ventral striatum, is often referred to as the reward center of the brain. The region can drive us to repeat behaviors that provide a reward” (Mascarelli 12). Additionally, a separate study proved that young people are unable to comprehend actions this extreme. A different article by Susan Sachs says “Few would argue with the assumption that, at that stage in their lives, they ought to be capable of understanding their actions and the consequences” This can be applied to Jack’s tribe as they repeated the behavior of killing the pig because they got a reward which was meat. The group killed so many animals throughout the book that they started to grow numb to the grief feeling that follows, thus driving them to continue their slaughter of pigs on the island. To further this point, the boys did not think anything of it when they tore Simon apart during the circle dance.

In fact, Ralph and Piggy feel remorse and grief after the murder of Simon. They talked about it and when Sam and Eric walked up to the beach they all tried to dodge the topic. They all know what they did, but feel bad and do not want to acknowledge it. Ralph and Piggy even say “‘Piggy?’ ‘Uh?’ ‘That was murder.’ ‘You stop it!’” (Golding 156). Particularly, the boys try to convince themselves that it was not them who killed Simon. They feel so bad that they refuse to admit what they did by saying “We left early” (Golding 158). This is repeated multiple times by all four boys. Therefore Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric’s brains are further developed than the rest of the kids on the island, as everyone did not give it a second thought. Conveniently, those same boys were the ones who turned wild. But the four who felt grief and wrongdoing still had some civility left in them. To wrap up, the lack of brain development in the boys of Jack’s tribe caused them to turn into savages since all the boys were on the same island.

While some may believe that it was the boys' harsh environment that caused them to become barbaric, this is completely falsified as the culprit was truly lack of brain development as all the boys were on the same island, but only a portion turned to savages.  Backing this up is another one of Golding’s works titled Why Boys Become Vicious and it states “We are born with evil in us and cruelty is part of this” (“Golding”, The Examiner). This does not directly tie into Lord of the Flies, however, it can be applied. For instance, Jack’s tribe's demonstration of savagery and unruliness is exactly what Golding was talking about when he wrote this. All the boys have that barbarity in them, that craving for chaos, however, Ralph never tapped into it. The other group of boys’ brains had not developed fully, meaning they could not keep the savage in. To reiterate, brains that were not fully developed were the cause of Jack’s tribe turning to violent animals, not the brutal island setting.

Jack and his tribe lost all sense of civility and rationality because their brains were not fully grown. All people have a caveman mentality. Impossible to get rid of; it becomes a matter of containing it and not letting it invade and corrupt the mind. Everybody has a savage in them, so maybe be careful next time around friends. Maybe they are capable of turning into savages.