Golding's final novels include Darkness Visible (1979), the story of a boy horribly injured during the London blitz of World War II, and Rites of Passage (1980). This novel won the Booker McConnell Prize, the most prestigious award for English literature, and inspired two sequels, Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989). These three novels portray life aboard a ship during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1983, Golding received the Nobel Prize for literature "for his novels, which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today," and in 1988 Queen Elizabeth II knighted him. Sir William died in 1993 in Perranarworthal, Cornwall. At the time of his death he was working on an unfinished manuscript entitled The Double Tongue, which deals with the fall of Hellenic culture and the rise of Roman civilisation. This work was published posthumously in 1995.
Explain the emergence and rise of the beast in Lord of the flies By William Golding
Lord of the flies is a novel written in the 1950’s by a well known writer called William Golding.
The story shows what would happen if a group of British school boys were to become stranded on an island. At first the boys have good intentions; keep a fire going so that a passing ship can see the smoke and rescue them, However good intentions of the few are quickly passed over for more exciting things e.g. killing of the pig. The younger boys then imagine up a beast and begin to fear it, in order to get rid of this fear the older boys decide to do something about it; during one of the hunters’ celebrations around the kill of an animal a fire-watcher stumbles in to try and disband the idea of the monster. Caught in the middle of the dance, this fire-watcher is suddenly thought to be the beast and is brutally slaughtered by the other members of the group. The most important part of the novel is when the hunters are confronted by the fire-watchers. The hunters had stole Piggy’s (one of the fire-watchers) glasses so that they may have a means of making a cooking fire. One of the more vicious hunter’s roles a boulder off of a cliff, crushing Piggy, and causing the death of him. The story ends with the hunters hunting Ralph (the head and last of the fire-watchers). After lighting half of the island on fire in an attempt to smoke Ralph from his hiding place, they chase him on to the beach only to find a ships captain and crew waiting there to rescue them, because he saw the smoke.
So now I will explain the emergence and rise of the beast in Lord of the Flies.
Throughout the novel Lord Of The Flies, the boys on the island are constantly faced with various fears. However there is nothing on the island which they fear more than the beast. In Lord Of The Flies, the theme of the beast is extremely important. The beast represents the way in which man will try to convince himself that there is no evil inside of him by making someone or something else seem to be the cause for the evil.
Talk of a dangerous presence emerged on the very first day on the island; when a little boy with a mulberry-colored birthmark on his face informed everyone of a "beastie," which he apparently saw on the previous night. At the time, this was dismissed by the older boys as his imagination, but even at that early stage it was obvious that the younger children were troubled by the little boy's words. At this point there was no definite physical appearance to the beast because it was assumed to be the imagination of little children at work. At the same time it is obvious that Golding uses the early chapters in the book to set the scene for the chaos and terror of the beast that follows. Soon it became evident that even the older boys had begun to wonder whether in fact some kind of beast was on the island. However nobody was willing to admit this, but the fact that many boys now cried out in their sleep or had terrible nightmares, shows that they were all fearful of a beast.
The first signs of evil started when Jack* and his hunters killed a pig and re-enacted the killing. In the process people were injured and the chanting, which was to become a ritual, began at this time. Although Jack's ambition to kill a pig had been fulfilled, he now had a taste of the glory and sense of self-fulfillment it brought him. This meant that he was by no means happy to have killed one pig, but would instead wanted continue to do so. It is significant that Jack felt it was necessary to kill pigs, seeing that there was already a viable supply of food on the island. It is possible that Jack simply wanted to kill pigs because the evil inside him had begun to emerge and introduced his lust for killing. Another important event occurred at this point - open violence among the boys. When Jack was confronted by Piggy** and Ralph*** because he allowed the fire to go out and a ship went by, he lashed out at Piggy, he obviously did not like piggy – so he broke his glasses. This further shows how the evil inside Jack was beginning to take control of him.
Piggy**, he takes a scientific approach, more rational, says he knows that there is no beast, not worried in the slightest
“Life, is scientific…I know there isn’t no beast…but I know there isn’t no fear either.” (P.105)
Ralph***, he wants to talk about it, and decide that its not real, says he is scared too sometimes, but the fear is only circumstantial, never gives himself a chance to look at the situation, too bothered trying to convince others that there is not one, he may have missed something himself, he has convinced himself that there is no beast. He also says things like “We’ve got to talk about this fear and decide that there’s nothing in it. I get frightened myself sometimes, only that’s nonsense!” (p.102) “What’s all this? Who said anything about an animal?” “You did, the other day.” (P.103)
*Jack tries to scare younger kids into believing that there is no beast, says that there could be one, but if there was, he would kill it, thinks it impossible he could have not seen it, may be scared, but he would never admit it.
“Well I’ve been all over this island…If there was a beast, I’d have seen it. Be frightened because you’re like that-but there is no beast in the forest.” (p.104)
Talk of beasts and ghosts started at a later assembly and lots of the boys agreed that there was an evil present on the island. Simon**** had already realized that the evil actually came from within them but he wasn’t able to tell anyone. Then confusion followed and Jack refused to obey any more rules and he and his followers left. There was split between the group on the island. It was at this point in the novel that a physical form was given to the beast, as a dead fighter pilot landed on the island under cover of darkness, while the boys slept fitfully; having nightmares about beasts and ghosts
Simon****, he thinks that there could be a beast, though he is hesitant to admit that, knows more than he gets to say, never gets a chance to carry on. “Maybe,” he said hesitantly, “maybe there is a beast.”(p.110) “I don’t know,”… Then the storm broke.
When the dead pilot was discovered, several factors caused him to be thought of the beast. First, the boys were looking all the time for some kind of physical form that they could give the beast, so they were able to convince themselves that the evil on the island did not come from within them. At this point none of the boys, with the exception of Simon, had realized that the evil came from within them. Secondly, it was dark when the dead pilot was discovered; so he was not seen as a man anyway. When the search party found the beast (the dead pilot), it was also dark, and this made him seem to be a giant ape, this made the boys think for definite that there was a beast on the island.
Simon then climbed the mountain and found out that the beast was actually a dead pilot. Unfortunately, it was at this point where the evil truly emerged in all of the boys, they mistook Simon for the beast and they brutally murdered him before he could tell them that there was no real beast and the evil was coming from within them. This is a very important turning point in the novel because it shows that the boys have lost control, have discarded their morals and have allowed evil to take control of their minds.
Following Simon's death it becomes clear that Ralph and Jack are different. The evil was still in control of Jack so he had insisted that Simon was merely disguised as the beast and the beast is not really dead. Ralph on the other hand realized that he had taken part in the murder of a human being. Ralph had managed to accept that the evil came from within him and he had learned to control it. Jack, on the other hand, had no idea of what he had done and did not care anyway. This fact confirms that Jack had been overcome by the evil within him and afterwards, when he stole Piggy’s glasses, it seemed that all hope for Ralph, order was lost. This was further proved when Roger savagely killed Piggy. Near the end of the novel, there was lots of chaos. Ralph was hunted down like a wild animal and the imagery Golding uses in this final chapter describes a world where insanity and evil rule. There is also the possibility that the boys now saw Ralph as the beast, which is why they hunted him down. Secondly, although all the boys were hunting Ralph to kill him, most of them probably did not realize what they were doing or why, due to the evil that taken over them. This is because Jack had influenced their minds and half of them probably saw killing Ralph as merely a game. In view of the fact that Ralph was being hunted down by everyone on the island, he would have been probably killed had it not been for the arrival of the Navy officers.
Golding does not choose to allow Ralph to be killed. This could be because he does not wish to allow evil to win. However, whether the boys would be able to lead a normal life after their experience on the island is doubtful. The fact that the boys used the beast to avoid self-knowledge and the evil inside themselves is clearly evident at the end of the novel, when they all begin to cry at the realization of what they have done. Finally, it is important to realize that the only reason they attain self-knowledge is because of the arrival of an adult figure on the island, which allows law and order to be restored, thereby eliminating the evil.