The Beast of PTSD
H. P. Lovecraft wrote: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Fear is a chemical reaction that takes place in the same part of the human brain as excitement and happiness; that is what makes it so addictive to some (Javanbakht & Saab 1). However, fear is not always a good thing; it can compel people to do things that in normality, they would not do. Lord of the Flies is an allegory written by William Golding to exemplify fear and its effect. Golding also uses the book to symbolize the events of World War II. The characters in the book point back to important figures of the war with actions that match up in ways to show how impactful the war was. …show more content…
He would wake up at night with terrifying nightmares of his experience; the same occurrence happened to survivor Eve Kugler (Goldhill 1). They kept suffering in the form of PTSD until their deaths after their time in the camps. Sonia Reich was reported to have been seen screaming that someone was trying to kill her, while running out of her house (Rosenthal 1). Sonia experienced the holocaust as a pre-adolescent Jew who ran away to America post-wartime after her entire family had been killed (Rosenthal 1). Many more people continued to suffer after the war with PTSD for the rest of their lives. The boys on the island in Lord of the Flies most likely faced the same issue; they developed a new way of living on the island and resorted to nonchalantly killing each other. When they returned to England the boys had to remember the way they were before, but they had forgotten. One littlun showed that, “One of them came close to the officer and looked up. ‘I’m, I’m-’ But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away” (Golding 181). They lost everything that they were and had to rebuild themselves, but they are just young boys with still-developing brains. They could not possibly let go of everything that they had become on the
H. P. Lovecraft wrote: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Fear is a chemical reaction that takes place in the same part of the human brain as excitement and happiness; that is what makes it so addictive to some (Javanbakht & Saab 1). However, fear is not always a good thing; it can compel people to do things that in normality, they would not do. Lord of the Flies is an allegory written by William Golding to exemplify fear and its effect. Golding also uses the book to symbolize the events of World War II. The characters in the book point back to important figures of the war with actions that match up in ways to show how impactful the war was. …show more content…
He would wake up at night with terrifying nightmares of his experience; the same occurrence happened to survivor Eve Kugler (Goldhill 1). They kept suffering in the form of PTSD until their deaths after their time in the camps. Sonia Reich was reported to have been seen screaming that someone was trying to kill her, while running out of her house (Rosenthal 1). Sonia experienced the holocaust as a pre-adolescent Jew who ran away to America post-wartime after her entire family had been killed (Rosenthal 1). Many more people continued to suffer after the war with PTSD for the rest of their lives. The boys on the island in Lord of the Flies most likely faced the same issue; they developed a new way of living on the island and resorted to nonchalantly killing each other. When they returned to England the boys had to remember the way they were before, but they had forgotten. One littlun showed that, “One of them came close to the officer and looked up. ‘I’m, I’m-’ But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away” (Golding 181). They lost everything that they were and had to rebuild themselves, but they are just young boys with still-developing brains. They could not possibly let go of everything that they had become on the