Fear in The Lord of the Flies Essay Example
📌Category: | Literature, Lord of the Flies |
📌Words: | 651 |
📌Pages: | 3 |
📌Published: | 05 August 2020 |
The idea that fear can control one's life it is proved throughout the boys time on the island.William Golding displays the idea of fear on the island in his Allegorical Fiction, Lord of The Flies. Golding exemplifies this through the main characters, Simon, Piggy, Ralph, and Jack. They are able to portray how their fear changes throughout their time on the island. Fear is the inability to control impulses and instincts. In the novel Lord of The Flies, fear is shown through fear of the beast, fear of each other and fear of being forgotten.
With the danger of the beastie, the hunters are very careful so they assemble a flame on the sea shore and they hold a meeting. The fire makes them feel safe and protected. They begin to move and hover around the flame, Simon knowing reality with regards to the beastie hustles to tell the boys, " "The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain.
The beast stumbled into the horseshoe. Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"(Golding 152) The monster was transformed into blameless Simon and as a result of the dread inside the wilderness, Simon was fiercely beaten and executed by different boys. Jack utilizes the Beast to cause the boys to accommodate under his will, he also makes it appear that the Beast would get them sometime and there's no reason to leave him from the Beast. Jack fears resistance to his power. He catches the whole island on fire just to get rid of his competition to be leader, Ralph “They’re going to hunt you to-morrow!’ ... They had smoke him out and set the island on fire” (Golding 209, 219). Fear was proven to scare Jack into losing his power over the boys.
The boys become terrified of one another and not long after that, they separated and got into a fight with each other. The boys unique feelings of fear is why the start to become scared of each other "At that point individuals began getting terrified"(Golding, 88). During the boy's time on the island they begin to be more and more scared by each others choice in action towards each other. "I'm frightened. Of us." (Golding 174) The boys can't quite depict what they are particularly scared of. It might be the boys or their actions or themself. As time goes on the boys go into survival mode and try to kill anything they can find to eat. This is what starts to cause fear within each other. They are constantly fearing and worrying about if they might be killed.
The boys greatest fear on the island not getting rescued. This fear causes Ralphs compultion with the signal fire. This is what began the controversy between Ralph and Jack which eventually separates the boys into two groups. .“You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home--’ ... ``I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can't even build huts--then you go off hunting and let out the fire--’ ... Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled at the pig.
Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. ... The two boys faced each other” (Golding 74, 75). Ralph ultimately thinks Jack and the boys need to take the signal fire more seriously if they want to get rescued.Ralph thinks they won't be rescued if they don't have a fire because planes and ships wont see them. "We've got to relight that fire. You never thought of that, Jack, did you? Or don't any of you want to be rescued?"(p.102) he gets very angry because the fire keeps going out, this is a reaction because of fear.
Throughout the novel Lord Of the Flies fear is oppressed upon the characters. They are seeing fear through through fear of the beast, fear of each other and fear of being forgotten. Eventually they ended up being rescued but unfortunately for Piggy and Simon their last memory was fear.