Fear In Lord Of The Flies

Children are typically reckless and chaotic, needing adult intervention for them to calm down. The novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, depicts what happens when boys are stuck on an island. They start off with organization and order, building a fire, shelters, and a hunting group. This lasts for a while, but they slowly begin to change, fueled by the fear of the unknown manifested by a beast-like figure. The change in thinking from the boys was caused by external factors that changed how they viewed the situation. The scenery of the island made the boys cower in fear. The boys are frightened by the darkness of the forest during the night. The unknownness of their surroundings scared them and made them believe in a beast. Even the

Without adults, they started to wreck the island and celebrate their freedom from rules. This was not good, as “[i]f there [was] no one around to guide children, then they go wrong… [a]nd when children go wrong they can often go wrong with a vengeance” (Golding, “Why”). The adults had been the punishers of behavior that goes against the laws of order, but there are no adults on the island. No one can stop them from doing bad deeds, as there is no one to punish what they were doing. They started to change, acting based on “the specific needs of the situation rather than referring to their own internal morals or beliefs” (Shuttleworth). The majority of the boys started to become more barbaric, thinking that hunting was their only way of survival on the island both for meat and defense from the beast. Their behavior is uncontrolled to the point that they believe that Simon, one of the boys on the island, is the beast in disguise, and they kill Simon by tearing his skin and other parts of his body with their teeth. They become crazy because no one can stop them from doing these things. Ralph, another boy in the group, tries to stop them but almost dies before adults rescue the boys from the island. These scenes are a major depiction of what can happen when certain external factors like adults are excluded from a child’s