“What are we? Humans? Or Animals? Or Savages?” asks Piggy in chapter 5 of The Lord of the Flies. William Golding uses the “beast” to pose this question seriously and strike fear in the heart of the readers. The beast started as a something mysterious and scary that gave nightmares to littluns but became something that brought the evil that was hidden in the boys’ hearts.
The beast symbolizes littluns’ feelings of insecurity arising from the fear of the unknown, absence of grownups and bullying behaviors of some of the bigguns. Beast was first mentioned when Piggy voiced the concern of a boy with a mulberry birthmark. “He wants to know what you’re going to do about the snake thing.” Many of the boys were ecstatic to the news that there were no grown-ups in the island. Yet, signs of anxiety were shown through nightmares from boys, especially littluns who are not accustomed to living without their parents. Golding’s description of the beast as a
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Ralph and Jack are similar in a way that they both are eager to make rules and punish who break them. Yet, Jack consistently breaks the rules for his own interest. His main interest, hunting, begins as the desire of meat and survival but builds to the savagery urge to kill creatures. Parallel to the rising fear of beasts, Jack makes use of the beast to his advantage. During littluns’ panic attack over the existence of the beast, Jack impugns Ralph’s authority by saying “He'd never have got us meat," implying that Jack is an effective leader who could hunt meat and protect the boys from the beast. Denouncing the rules and orders, he also declares, “We don't need the conch any more. We know who ought to say things.” The conch represents union, civilization, and order. Therefore, Jack’s disregard of the conch hints savagery and dictatorship. As Jack tries to gain authority, he takes the title of “chief” suggesting a primitive