The Effects of Fear and Superstition in the
Novel Lord of the Flies
Fear can cause people to become
irrational and make rash decisions. Often, this fear is of the unknown. Betrand Russell once said, “Fear is the main source of
superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the
beginning of wisdom.” Superstition occurs when people resort to stories and
myths to explain unusual things that happen around them. When people are afraid
of something, they are more likely to explain it through stories instead of
through rational thinking. This irrational thinking can make people commit acts
of cruelty. Once this fear is eliminated, people are
able to make rational and wise decisions again. In William Golding’s
novel, Lord of the Flies, fear
consumes the boys and makes them conjure up stories about the beast. Jack, who
has a different fear from the rest of the boys, uses superstition and cruelty
to assuage his fear. Simon reveals and overcomes the fear, but tragedy prevents
him from spreading his wisdom.
The fear that takes hold of the
boys most tightly is that of the Beastie. It is ignited by the littluns’
nightmares. Piggy says about one of the littleuns,
“’He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?...He says in the morning it turned into them things like
ropes in the trees and hung in the branches.’”(36) The setting of the tropical island allows the idea of giant snakes to
be set in the boys’ minds. These childish fears lead to the initial incursion
of the Beastie into the boys’ minds and thoughts. This superstition in the
beast grows as the boys try to explain where the Beast could have come from.
When Percival says that the Beast comes from the sea, Maurice conjures up an
explanation from stories and fable he had heard in the past. He says, “’My
daddy says there’s things, what d’you call’em that make ink – squids – that are hundreds of yards
long and eat whales whole.’”(88) This sparks the imaginations of the boys, and
they become frightened. Although it may be far-fetched, this explanation gives
validation for the Beast that they can’t see or find.
Simon offers an explanation next, saying that perhaps the Beast is a ghost.
Piggy, who is characterized to be rational and
scientifically minded, incredulously dismisses this idea, but has
trouble giving reason as to why it cannot be a ghost, showing that Piggy was
starting to become rapt in the idea of the beastie. He says, “’ ‘Cos things wouldn’t make sense. Houses an’ streets an’ – TV
– they wouldn’t work.’”(92) The boys are trying to explain what is happening,
and since Piggy cannot come up with a reasonable, scientific Explanation, They are forced to believe stories and rumors of supernatural
phenomena. As we see this progression of fear and superstition, we see that the
only one who is not gripped by the fear of the Beast
is Jack.
Jack’s fears also lead to
superstition, as well as cruelty, but his fears are not of the Beast. From the
beginning, he denies the existence of the Beast, but asserts his power as a
hunter by saying, “’If there’s a Beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and
beat and beat and beat - !’”(91) This tirade shows that he wants to be
the protector of the boys and will save them from the Beast. Unlike the other
boys, his fear is not of the Beast, but of losing power and standing among the
boys. By showing that he can protect them from the Beast, they see him as
stronger than the rest of them, and their natural leader. He is afraid of
making the wrong decision when Piggy scolds him and his hunters for letting the
fire go out. He responds with cruelty when he punches Piggy and derides
him menacingly. This conflict develops
further to illustrate a metaphor
for the conflict between
anarchy, represented by Jack, and organized government, represented by Piggy.
Soon, Jack’s fear begins to cause a rift between the boys. When
they finally see the Beast for the first time as the dead pilot on the
mountain, his position as the protector is challenged by Ralph, who says that
Jack’s hunters couldn’t do anything since they are nothing but, “boys with
sticks.”(125) Jack, having been insulted, leaves and creates his own
tribe. He then nourishes the idea of the Beastie as a way to control the boys,
because without the beastie, there is nothing to protect the boys from, and he
holds no power. Therefore, he intensifies the superstition with a sacrifice of
a pig’s head to propitiate the Beastie. He also establishes a ceremonious
ritual dance of a pig hunt to protect them from the Beast:
Roger
became the pig, grunting and charging at Jack who side-stepped.
The hunters took their spears, the cooks took spits, and the rest clubs of
firewood. A circling movement developed and a chant. While Roger mimed the
terror of the pig, the littluns ran and jumped onto
the outside of the circle. (151)
They then chant an incantation,
“Kill the Beast! Cut its throat! Spill his blood!”(152) This
primitive, ritualistic society is based on the superstition and fear of a
Beast, and this gives power to its leader, Jack. Within this society, he
controls the boys through cruelty and strict measures. For example, he ties up
and beats Wilfred without giving reason why. The main antagonists to Jack’s reign of cruelty are Ralph and Piggy. After
Piggy is killed, Ralph is the only obstacle in Jack’s
way towards absolute power. Ralph represents the voice of democracy and reason
whereas Jack wants absolute power to rule the island. Therefore, he sends his
tribe on a huge manhunt, hunting Ralph truculence as if he is a pig.
Jack’s fears lead to his descent into superstition and cruelty, but Simon gains
wisdom after he overpowers his fear.
Simon is the only one to gain
wisdom through the course of the novel. At first Simon denied the existence of
the Beast, shrugging it off as a childish fear, saying that the littleuns were scared, “’As if the beastie, the beastie or
the snake-thing, was real.’”(52) He understands that the fear exists but does
not accept the idea that the Beast is a reality. Soon, as the other boys are
still trying to make up stories about the Beast, Simon understands the true
form of the Beast, and realizes that it exists in each of the boys. He tries to
explain what he has discovered, but the boys are not able to grasp the concept.
He says, “’What I mean is…maybe it’s only us,’…Simon became inarticulate in his
effort to express mankind’s essential illness.”(89) Although he knows the
Beast’s identity, when he tries to show the boys, they reject it in their
immaturity and childishness, His wisdom begins to grow when they investigate
the Beast on top of the mountain. With physical evidence, Simon tries to
comprehend the image of a beast, “a beast with claws that scratched, that sat
on a mountain-top, that left no tracks and yet was not
fast enough to catch Samneric. However Simon thought
of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once
heroic and sick.”(103) The irony is that although Simon’s superhuman sight is reality, the
boys say that he is queer or different and disregard his explanations. Soon, Simon
confronts the Beast directly when he talks to the Lord of the Flies, the pig’s
head. As he was hallucinationg, he understood the
Beast completely, “’And I’m the Beast…You knew didn’t
you? I’m part of you.’”(143) At last, he realizes the true nature of the beast,
the fear that lives inside all of the boys. This is the theme that Golding
is trying to explress throughout this novel;
that fear is a defect in human nature. When he returns to the boys, they are
all in the middle of a savage ritual, and, in their delirium, see his deformed
body as the body of the Beast. Golding’s allusion of the sage Simon to a
Christ-like figure is fulfilled when the boys kill him
when he tries to share his knowledge. As the only light of wisdom on the island
of darkness, Simon’s death signaled the boys’ downfall into evil.
Fear leads to superstition and
cruelty in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The littleuns are
afraid of their nightmares and introduce the idea of a Beastie that leaves no
tracks and will eat the boys at night. The boys believe in the Beast
increasingly as they live on the island, and conjure up stories and myths of
ghosts and squids to explain their fears. Jack, whose fear is that of losing
power, uses the boys’ superstition of the beastie to reinforce his position as
their protector. He also uses cruelty to maintain his power, torturing some
boys as an example and teasing, and eventually killing, Piggy. Although fear of
the Beast exists in most of the boys, Simon stands out and realizes that the
boys themselves create the fear within their own minds. He learns that there is
in fact no Beast, but the fear within each boy is the Beast. This explains why
there are so many different incarnations of the Beast. He is able to explain
the fear through rationality instead of superstition, and becomes wise. When
they let fear overcome their minds, people can become irrational and make
ridiculous decisions. When a society is made up of this type of people, it’s downfall is inevitable.