In Lord of the Flies, the beast is a presence throughout the entire book. First seen by a littleun when he is frightened in the dark, the beast is seen everywhere by the boys, but only when they are afraid. Towards the end of the book, the boys begin to become more savage. They still believe the beast is a real being that is to be feared, but the reader begins to see that the true beast is not a physical being at all, but a side of the boys themselves. Many people would argue that the beast is an actual presence on the island, but we believe there is more to it and that the beast is the boys' fear and the darker, savage side of human nature coming out.

The first time we see the beast is in the beginning of the story. They say it is the littleuns' fear that started it. Jack says at a meeting, "'You littleuns started all this, with the fear talk. Beasts!'"(82) Eventually, Jack and Ralph convince the boys to some extent that the beast is only their imaginations running wild. Jack also describes how he believes fear plays a major role. He says, "'Be frightened, because you're like that-but there is no beast in the forest'" (83). By saying this, Jack shows how he sees that the

The appearance of the parachutist on the island is another clear example of how the true beast was simply the savagery that human beings are capable of. In this case, though, it was not the boys' but the outside world's savage instincts that caused the problem. The dead parachutist was on the island because of the savagery of the people still living in the so-called civilized world. This is supported when Golding writes, "...a sign came down from the world of grownups, though at the time there was no child awake to read it. There was a sudden bright explosion and corkscrew trail across the sky; then darkness again and stars"(95). If this truly was a sign, it was most likely a warning. The grownup world would have been cautioning the boys against giving in to their evil sides, although the irony is clear since the grownups themselves had not followed that advice. In any case, the boys did not listen, which slowly caused their demise.

After this time, Simon hallucinates that the pig's head is talking to him, as the "Lord of the Flies," and this hallucination brings many revelations about why the hunters were acting the way they had been. During this time, the Lord of the Flies tells him the true nature of the beast: "'Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill'"(143). This shows that Simon knows the truth about what the beast is, and also what the other boys had become. Jack and his hunters had turned completely savage by this point, so in effect they had become the beasts themselves. Simon is also tempted to turn to savagery in order to survive, which is shown when the Lord of the

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Approximate Word count = 1088
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)