In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the ill-advised children's fear and ability to get along with each other make the establishment decompose. The fear compels the boys to go separate ways, creating a chilling concern throughout the whole tribe. One can see the fear is already in play early in the book. The fear starts out as a small-scale problem. In an assembly about fear, midway through the book, Simon decides to take a step forward and break his comfort zone, and voices his opinion about the feared beast. He mentions, “Maybe, he said hesitantly, maybe there is a beast … What I mean to say … maybe it’s only us” (89). The beast is a metaphor, not truly existing in reality, but in the boys’ heads. Jack and the rest of the boys cannot
