Lord Of The Flies Fear

One of many prominent themes in William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, is fear. Fear is an unpleasant human emotion that is triggered when a perceived threat, likely to cause pain or distress, presents itself. It is a basic survival mechanism that signals when danger is present. It is an essential part of keeping safe from harm and threats. In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, fear is a persistent theme that occurs in each chapter of the infamous novel. The fear in the group of boys was displayed when they constantly cowered away from each other or a violent beast that they believed existed with them on the uncharted island. Throughout Lord of the Flies, Golding addresses the ramifications of fear in his novel in the boys, individually and …show more content…
“‘The beast is a hunter’” (Golding 126). Throughout the novel, Lord of the Flies, it was obvious that Jack had a fear of losing power. Power is a significant consequence of fear as it allows people to take control over a situation or another person. Jack showed a fear of the beast just as much as the other boys had done so in the novel. However, Jack managed to cleverly try to use the fear of the beast to create a source of power and reliability for himself so that the group of boys who did feel scared would rely on Jack to protect them. By doing so, he was also trying to have a win-win situation where Ralph’s chief position would have been weakened since he would have power over the group. “‘He can’t hurt you: but if you stand out of the way he’d hurt the next thing. And that’s me’” (Golding 93). Power allows a rule that there is a supposed ‘right’ to bully and have dominance over others. This quote shows how power comes into play when fear is present as Piggy does voice his fear of Jack. Piggy feared for his life, knowing that Jack could have hurt him at any time. Piggy had the knowledge that if Ralph was not present or did not have the power over the groups of boys then Jack would have made sure to cause Piggy’s life to be in grave danger. Constant fear can impact thoughts and decisions in negative ways, which could leave people susceptible to intense emotions and impulsive …show more content…
“And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of true, wise friend called Piggy” (Golding 202). What Ralph and the rest of the boys had witness and endured on the island will surely leave some post-traumatic stress on them as they had to go through a lot of trauma when surviving. How Ralph began to think at the end of the Golding’s Lord of the Flies novel can show how much trauma and stress the last few ending days was for him before he and the group of boys were rescued. “‘I was asleep when the twisty things were fighting and when they went away I was awake, and I saw something big and horrid moving in the trees’” (Golding 85). It is common in PTSD that a person feels as if the traumatic event was recurring, in hallucinations or flashbacks. In this quote, it is clear that one of the littluns, Phil suffered from hallucinations as a result of his hypervigilance caused by trauma of being stranded on an unknown island with a potential beast. The nightmares in which Phil felt helpless against fighting the “twisty things in the trees” lead to more fear and intense psychological distress. With the amount of traumatic events that occurred on the island, it seems inevitable that the surviving characters left will experience