Preview

Fear In William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
609 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Fear In William Golding's Lord Of The Flies
Imagine being 7 years old and having to make that walk into your bedroom with no lights on. Would you be pretty scarce right? Thinking about the possible monsters under your bed or ghosts in your closet. But it's not that these ghosts or monsters are actually there, it's just the fear of the unknown. In the Lord of the Flies the characters are afraid of the unknown, which causes them to act differently, irrationally, and impulsively. The fear of the unknown causes fear. In LOTF, this is proven by how the children react to every little movement, noise, or dark outlining they see. The more they think about the beast, the more they create situations in their head based on events that happen throughout the book. In chapter two the island was still new to them. A littlun began to talk about a …show more content…
January 30, 1933 - May 8, 1945, was when the Holocaust occurred. It was a mass murder of 6 million European Jews ran by the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. In his opinion jews were an inferior race, and he had an attempt at trying to murder all Jews. In the Holocaust, there were many bystanders that were scared of the consequences of speaking up. In an article, I found online states “Powerlessness, fear for one's physical safety, social pressures within one’s group”. People in this time period were scared of the consequence it may have had to their family or themselves, so they acted selfishly and did not think about the effect they could have had on the millions of jews getting executed.
Whether its the causes of fear, effect on fear, or a combination of both, fear causes people to act irrationally. In lord of the flies, it is shown in the way the kids kill Simon even though they knew it was a person and not a beast. In history, it is shown in the Holocaust by how people were scared to speak up. In all fear has an effect that makes people act without

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding tells the story about a group of English boys who are stranded on an island after a plane that they were on was shot down. On this island the boys have the freedom of living without adults. They must find a way to set up a society that is livable in and that maintains order. However as time passes the characters see that those tasks are easier said than done. In Lord of the Flies, there are many different characters that show development and growth. Characters like Piggy, Ralph, and Jack all show signs of maturing and growth near the end of the book. Some of the characters were humane and try to maintain order, but other characters fall into the savagery that is within everyone. This statement is best depicted…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies', a group of schoolboys find themselves on a deserted island alone after a plane crash. They attempt to form a society and elect a 'chief', however this fades and the boys begin to destroy the island and each other. Ralph, the main character and 'chief' of the society the boys initially form, is a character who drastically changes throughout the narrative.…

    • 926 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In its broadest sense, allegory is an extended metaphor. In a deeper sense, allegory is a figure of speech in which philosophical principles and ideas are portrayed in terms of events, figures, and characters. Allegory seems similar to symbolism. Even though allegory uses symbols, both are quite distinct. An allegory is a finished narrative which implicates numerous characters, and events that stand for a conceptual idea. On the other hand, symbol, is only an object that stands for another one, giving it a particular meaning. Lord of the Flies is an allegory, different from Ralph, who is only a symbol. The objective for allegory is to teach a moral lesson, and also allows writers to put forth their moral and political point of views. A diffident…

    • 159 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many children have imaginary friends. However, growing upon your own in a bad environment can lead to eerie, false creatures instead. This is what has happened in Lord of the Flies. The story takes place in the near future with young schoolboys who are stranded on an island in the midst of a war and they generate a fear of a mysterious “beast.” The meaning of the tale depends on the interpretation of the ominous perception. The beast can represent a plethora of illusions.…

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ralph realizes that the savages would not know when they crossed the line because the broken conch and “the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over the island like a vapour.” The deaths deluded Ralph’s mind making him think that there was no hope for the savages. The author implies that Ralph could not mentally deal with all the disasters that happened and lost all hope in the other boys.…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Through their quest of self-knowledge, both novels depict fear. In Lord of the Flies, Jack uses the beast to manipulate the other boys by creating the beast as his tribe’s greatest enemy, idol, and system of belief all together. "Maybe there is a beast . . . .maybe it's only us" (Golding 89). Jack uses the boy's’ fear of the to clear up his control of the group and the violence he causes. He sets up the beast as sort of like an idol to fuel the boy’s bloodlust and establish a cutted view of the hunt. The boy’s belief in the monster gives the novel religious whispers, for the boy’s different types of nightmares about monsters and beasts eventually take take form of the monster that they all believe in and fear.…

    • 133 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sometimes fear of the unknown, can lead to one’s insanity. In “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, the boys on the island fear a beast, which darkens many of the boys and their thoughts. The constant fear on the island causes the boys to act out, resulting in the destruction of rules and civilization, however those who are able to overcome fear leads the reader to believe that there is some hope for goodness. In the novel, Jack is controlled by fear, Roger is energized by fear, and Ralph rises above it.…

    • 907 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Often in our lives other people affect us in both negative and positive ways. In the case of Lord of the Flies, the kids influence one another while on the island, in mostly negative ways. These influences cause for mental changes in the brain. Most of the time, mental changes affect physical changes. However, in some rare occasions it is the other way around. While on the island the boys go through numerous physical and mental changes. Although mental changes are somewhat more significant than physical changes, physical changes are still very much apparent and can sometimes cause for mental change.…

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling" (Golding, 54). William Golding depicts a scene of utter rejoice and of foul behavior. A group of boys stranded on an island, are forced to leave the arbitrary laws that dictate modern society. Lost in a place without rules, without a government, or adults to run it, the young boys manifest a society of their own. Struggling between the need for civilization and the thrill of savagery, two young boys are revealed as the social outcasts, of a society without function.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The lack of civilization and organization can drive people to irrational thoughts. Pride and selfish thoughts often leads to conflicts between groups in societies. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding creates the theme of savagery through the children’s location and isolation. To emphasize this, Golding portrays the people on the island as innocent children to show how primitive and savagery is the core in the human heart. Due to the boys’ desire for freedom and endeavor to kill the beast, the children become primally savage, which can be shown through their game, excitement over killing a pig, and murdering of Simon..…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, A young indian boy is stuck on a small lifeboat with a 450-pound bengal tiger. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean along with one of the top hunters in the animal kingdom, fear often lingers in Pi’s mind. Pi reflects how fear affects the mind and body. He says, “Fear which is but an impression, has triumphed over you. The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end” (204). Pi explains how fear, which is not a real, tangible item, just an emotion induced by perceived danger, can shake one mentally and because the mind is the foundation of a person, fear affects the entire individual. The…

    • 715 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Religion is based primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing – fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.” asserted British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, in his 1927 lecture, ‘Why I Am Not A Christian’. Essentially, Russell suggests that fear is the origin of religion. The same theory of fear-based religion is evident in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. In the classic novel, a group of British boys finds themselves on an exotic island without resources or adults; forcing them to organize civilization with only their brains and senses. On…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    William Golding uses his novel, Lord of the Flies, to demonstrate that people cannot reason when they are influenced by fear by creating characters with irrational fears. A common fear among the stranded boys is a beast. They are afraid of something imaginary that they cannot explain, and this fear controls their minds and prevents them from reasoning.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear In Lord Of The Flies

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the pig's head on a stick may just be a slaughtered sow, but it represents fear on many different levels; the boys are so fearful of the creatures that lurk in the night, but it is solely in their imagination. There are other fears of the boys that are real such as, the fear of Jack’s authority, an underlying fear of will they be stuck on the island, and they silently fear the possibility that life will never return to the way it was before. The boys don’t speak freely about their underlying fears so they drag their attention on an imaginary worry. The Lord of the Flies represents fear on the island the overall darkness of the island and humanity as a whole. The boys are completely stranded…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sigmund Freud is the creator of the structural model of personality that explains why people behave the way they do. He claims a person’s personality is made up of three parts: the Ego, the Superego, and the Id. The Id is the part of our self that is made up of our desires. The Superego helps us differentiate between right and wrong. The ego is the balance of the Superego and Id. In 1954 William Golding wrote a book about a school of boys that were stranded on a tropical island island after a plane crash. Throughout the novel Lord of the Flies, the main characters, Ralph, Piggy and Jack, all showcase their personality and the struggle between the three parts in the human psyche and the chaos that comes with the loss of one of these parts.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays