Animal Symbolism In Lord Of The Flies

In the Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of boys are stranded on an island after a plane crash and must survive the islands, and as the story progresses, each other. There are many motifs and symbols throughout the book, but one of the most important ones is the beast. The beast came in many forms over the course of the novel. It started off as a monster in the sea, then on the land and in the air and eventually as the head of a sow. The beast represents inner human evil because at first it showed the boys the fear of being on the island, then it became a source of manipulation, and finally encouraged savagery in the boys toward the end of the novel. In the beginning of the book, the beast represented fear, specifically showing …show more content…
In the beginning, even Jack was hesitant to kill a pig, but toward the end there is no hesitation in the boys to kill, whether it was a pig or human. The violent way that they killed pigs to the murder of Piggy shows this, opting for killing rather than peace and taking joy in causing pain. Even Ralph wanted to get in on the killing when Roger pretended to a pig for a game and it got out of control, wanting to cause pain. “The desire to squeeze and hurt was overwhelming” (115). Ralph never showed any desire to want to hunt before, leaving it to the hunters and instead focusing on civilization, but as their game continues Ralph wants to hurt, and it doesn’t matter to him or anyone else that it’s their friend they’re attacking. They react the same to attacking a human as they did with pigs. Later on, Ralph gets told by Samneric, “They hate you, Ralph. They 're going to do you” (188). Rather than leaving Ralph be, considering one boy couldn’t do much harm and he didn’t have any desire to do so in the first place, Jack’s tribe only wants to kill Ralph. At this point, the beast is the boys, not the island. Nature was not the thing to be feared anymore, and the boys knew that. Instead, what they had to fear and fight off was each other, and Jack refused to let him live if he felt Ralph would never join them and would always push for rescue. The want to kill and hurt was the worst the boys had become and they realized this at the end when they had been rescued, and while the beast had started off as fear, throughout the book it had changed into the darkness within the boys.
In Lord of the Flies, many motifs are present that added onto the story, such as the fire, Piggy 's glasses and the conch. The one that added the most to the novel is the beast, which had changed from showing the boys fear of the island to a becoming a way of manipulation