Beast Symbolism In Lord Of The Flies

Every man has a beast inside of him, lacking knowledge or not accepting the beast within him will be his downfall. The beast is the most important symbol, plays a major role, and gains importance throughout Golding's Lord of the Flies. In the book the beast is used to represent the potential evil, fear of isolation, and primal savagery.

Once character that sheds light of the beasties symbolism, as potential evil, is Palph. After Jack stole Piggy's glasses Ralph goes up to Jack's fortress and screams at him."You're a beast and a swine, and a bloody, bloody thief."(Goldings ) This represents that, Ralph can see that Jack is turning into a beast. The pig's head talked to Simon earlier about how the Beast brings out the evil that is dormant

After one of the littluns are talking about how the beast could possibly live in the water and come out to eat them at night, due to not having evidence of the beast, Simon proposes an idea to the littluns and biguns.“What I mean is . . . maybe it’s only us”(Golding 64) Simon proposes this idea to his friends, even though everyone laughed at Simon's idea of the beast it is central to Golding's idea of the fear of isolation. The fear that the boys have of being alone in the island is reconciled with the beastie. The beastie is a scapegoat for their fear of isolation, the littluns convince themselves that the beastie is around rather than face the fact that they are truly alone on this island, this disconnection with reality is what allows the littluns rationalize the beastie without seeing it. The next event in Lord of the Flies that shows how the beast is used to represents fear of isolation is the pig's head explaining the beast to Simon. After the feast Simon goes into the woods to his oasis but sees the pig's head and has an epileptic attack and the pig talks to him. “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!” said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?”(Golding )

After the boys in Jack's tribe catch and kill the pig they thought was the beast, they put his head on a spear."Jack held out the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which pierced through the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick." (Golding, 136-137) This is an example of how Jack's tribe react violently towards what they perceive is the beast, this act of putting a pig's head on a spear is a very violent and cruel. In the beginning when they killed a pig they never displayed the head, but do to the savagery that the beast has caused them to take on they are more cruel and deadly. Another example of how the beastie to represent primal savagery is the killing of Simon by Jack's tribe. After Simon has confirmed that the beast is not real he goes to the beach to tell the others but is met with violence and killed."Surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea."(Golding 154) The killing of Simon provides evident that the boys are willing to kill and maim whatever they think is the beast. The way the boys killed Simon is also important in the civility of the boys, they did not bother to check whether what they were attacking was actually the beast, showing the bloodlust they boys have.

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