Lord of the Flies Essay

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The Lord of The Flies Essay

3. The beast begins as an idea in the boys’ heads, develops into (a) physical object(s), and finally manifests as something into which they transform. Discuss how Golding exploits the “beast” as a literary device to explore his ideas about human behavior

Lord of The Flies is a book written by William Golding published in 1954. The book was set in the time during World War II. and Aa plane crashed on an island where the only survivors were a group of schoolboys. Golding uses this situation to give the reader a sense of how humans start to behave without rules and laws and to give us a sense of what human nature is. Golding uses “the beast” in this book as a literary device to give readers hints of what he thought about human beings and how we behave. Golding uses the word “beast” in his story to let us know that human beings can behave like beasts, and that being “beasts” is a part of human nature and the beast is within all human beings. The “beast” is used as a belief in this story and Golding uses it as a literary device where the more savagery the boys become the stronger the belief in the “beast” gets.

Body Paragraph 1: The first appearance of the “beast” was in Chapter Two,Two, by a Littlun who was described as “a shrimp of a boy about six years old, and on one side of his face was blotted out by a mulberry- colored birthmark” (Page46) Golding wrote it as if the Littluns thought that they saw a beast, which looked like a snake. The fact that the Littluns saw the “beast” first can tell us that they have the most innocence in them and that they might be the first ones to notice the beast that is located inside every single human being. William Golding described it as a snake made it sound like something rather abnormal because he was not sure about it being a snake. Golding does this to make sure that he keeps the beast as the unknown. Golding uses the beast as a snake because it is not one of those animals where you could look out for, it’s small and it will be hard to notice even when it is very close to you, and at the same time do a lot of harm to you as a lion or any other stronger animals would. When Ralph first hears about beast, he laughs it off and does not think about it seriously. He also convinces the other big boys that it was the Littlun’s imagination. The small boy twisted further into himself. “Tell us about the snake-thing. “Now he says it was a beastie. “Beastie?” “A snake-thing. Ever so big. He saw it.” “Where?” In the woods. “He says the beastie came in the dark.” (Page 47) The biguns are laughing at the littluns but little do they know that soon they will be just as afraid. Golding uses the fear of the beast later on in the book to show the readers how savagery overcomes the boys as the more afraid they get the stronger the belief in the beast becomes and it starts to show the readers the true form of human nature as most of the boys starts to become savage and lose sight of civilization.

Then in Chapter Three, the Littluns again have seen the “beast” this time even some of the biguns joined in talking at night, “ They talk and scream. The littluns. Even some of the others. As if -----“ “ As if this wasn’t a good island.” (Page 66) Golding give us a feeling that Jack is the only Bigun who believes in the “beast”, he tells us that Jack has a feeling that he has the need to protect the littluns. The fact that Jack showed that he wanted to protect the Littluns and that he believes in the beast foreshadows the book later on as Jack becomes the leader of the savagery group. Golding also uses the belief of the beast to let Jack gain power because he is the only boy on the island who wants to hunt the beast down and that proves to the Littluns and the other boys that he can protect them. Jack gets really deep into the fact that he wanted to hunt “ Jack had to think for a moment before he could remember what rescue was.”(Page 67) Losing track of getting rescue
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