An imaginary“Beast”, haunting and terrifying. What does this “Beast” from Lord of the Flies? Lord of the Flies is a novel written by William Golding. The novel takes place on an unnamed island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On that island, a group of school had crashed after having their plane shot down during World War Two when evacuating their school.
Savagery, uncivilized, and hypocritical children have clouded their judgment when trying to figure out if there is a real beastie. A monstrous figure frightens the juvenile boys that landed on this forsaken island. In the Lord of the Flies, these English boys are all alone to defend for themselves, thats when it all unravels. This mythical monster sooner called the “beast” is symbolized a fear of a mistaken beast, as the darkness of war, and the evilness of humanity waiting to be unleashed.
The beast in Lord of the Flies at the beginning of the story is fear. In document A Claire Rosenfield says “they externalize these fears into a figure of a beast.” The children on the island create a beast that they base on their fear from everything that has happened so far and what could happen. The children make the beast to show how scared they actually are and what they're afraid of because they aren't where they normally
Usually, when the term “beast” is mentioned, negative connotations are developed. In Lord of the Flies, the meaning of the entire story is determined by the symbolic definition of the “beast”. Lord of the Flies surrounds a group of boys stranded on an island. The presumed idea of a beast materialized and spread amongst the group.
For starters, fear is what drove the existence of the beast thus confirming that fear is the fundamental cause of conflict in Lord of the Flies. Fear is what created the beast because fear gave the boys a false illusion of the island being a treacherous place. For instance, when the boy with the mulberry mark said he saw the ‘Beastie’(Golding 34), in reality, it was vines hanging from the trees. The kids are in a new environment where everything is tainted by fear.
In the book, The Lord of the Flies, the boys debate on whether the beast is real or not. The irony throughout the book is based on how the boys are so terrified of there being a fictitious monster on the island that they do not realize that they are the monsters themselves. As the boys begin to act more savagely, their belief of the existence of the beast becomes stronger. Throughout the book, it is clear that the boys are, in fact, the real beast, as evidenced by the spreading hatred, the sexual assaults, and violence. To begin with, the boys’ hatred towards one another grows stronger as the novel progresses, which portrays them as the real beast on the island.
All children have a fear of something; spiders, snakes, even unknown monsters. In William Golding’s Lord of The Flies, a group of English boys are stranded on a deserted island with no adults. Being such young boys, they start to become afraid of a beast. But the big question is, what is the beast in Lord of The Flies? Is it the War that is happening when the boys plane crashed?
When the “beast” is first introduced, it is nothing more than the children's fear manifested. In chapter 2 of “The Lord of the Flies” (Doc. A) a boy “About six years old, and (with) one side of his face blotted out by a mulberry-colored birthmark” imagines a “beast” in the form of a snake-like figure. Their elected leader, Ralph, desperately tries to dissuade this
The Lord of the Flies identifies itself as the beast and acknowledges to Simon that it exists within all human beings: “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?” The creature’s grotesque language and bizarre appropriation of the boys’ slang (“I’m the reason why it’s no go”) makes the creature appear even more hideous and devilish, for he taunts Simon with the same colloquial, familiar language the boys use themselves. Simon,
However, the beast is not a physical figure, but an evil that thrives within each boy on the island. The Lord of the Flies translates to the biblical name Beelzebub, a powerful demon in hell sometimes thought to be the devil himself. Not only does the Beast tell Simon but it also says “I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go?
In Lord of the Flies, the imaginary beast is a symbolic figure that displays the change in humans as they stray farther away from civilization. The young boys suppose there is a beast that lives on the island, most of the boys believe
In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, there are many symbolic concepts within the novel such as the beast, and the pigs head. Golding uses these concepts to portray to the reader his idea that when humans are left without rules or organisation they will break from a civilised manner and become savages allowing evil to over take them. One of the most important symbols used to help the reader understand Golding's idea is the beast. Many of the boys believe their is a beast on the island and become fearful.
People revert to their basic human instincts when put in extreme survival situations. Humans will do whatever is necessary to survive. In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Goldings, the boys begin by trying to keep to a civilized group but as they struggle to survive, the “beast” becomes more real. The beast represents the growing evil and savagery in the boys.
In the highly disturbing and honestly quite terrifying subplot of chapter eight with Simon and the “Lord of the Flies” character, the Lord of the Flies says this: “Get back to the others and we’ll forget the whole thing… This is ridiculous. You know perfectly well you’ll only meet me down there-so don’t try to escape” (143). What it means by “you’ll only meet me down there” is that this entity, the Lord of the Flies, is the representation of evil and darkness on the island, and so you’ll never escape its presence there. “The Lord of the Flies” also calls itself “the beast” (143), which makes perfect sense, since the beast doesn’t actually exist and so it’s only another title for the evil, violence, and fury of the island, which again is the same entity that the “Lord of the Flies” is.
The name “Lord of the Flies” is a reference to the name of the Biblical devil Beelzebub, which symbolizes the evil that potentially exists in the heart of every human. The beast was first introduced in the novel by a boy, described as “shrimp of a boy, about six years old, and one side of his face was blotted out by a mulberry-colored birthmark.” (Golding, 27). In reality, the beast is not real, it actually represents the children 's fears about themselves. The boys end up letting out the beast, which is the savagery hiding within them.
