The first imagery of this ‘Beast’ is in the second chapter. Ralph has called a meeting to discuss rules and the jobs that have to be done around the island. Jack and his choir are made the hunters and Jack the leader of them, they also have to look after the fire on top of the mountain. Ralph, Piggy, Simon and some of the littluns are in charge of the shelter and rescue. During the meeting one of the littluns was pushed forward buy the older ones, ‘one side of his face was blotted out by a mulberry-colored birthmark.’ The little boy looked like he was going to cry and he was muttering something Ralph gave him the conch and everyone was laughing so the little boy was reluctant to talk about ‘The snake thing’ but Piggy listens to him and gets the information out of him. The little boy talks about a ‘beastie’ this is the first thing the boys have heard about some animal living with them. This comment makes the boys imagine all sorts of things. This image plays in all the boys’ minds through out the book. This represents the way in which the boys make something outside of themselves and in their imagination into something that is real and evil. This boys image of the ‘Beast’ is ‘a snake-thing’ he says he saw it in the woods and in the dark. The boys laugh at this but its more of a nervous laugh than funny, this is only because they have never heard of beasts and think that it can’t possibly be true. Jack breaks the meeting up by saying they will go and hunt for it. All the boys except Ralph and Piggy follow him. The next appearance of this ‘beast’ is when they all go up the mountain and light a fire, a tree explodes and the creepers off it rise and the littluns scream ‘Snakes! Snakes!’ by this time Piggy notices the Boy with the birth mark has disappeared and this is the last mention of him. They never find out what happens to him but the fact he has disappeared unexplainably the boys start thinking is there really a ‘beast?’
The second vision of this ‘beast’ comes much later in chapter five by this time the boys are supposedly fearless, or they seem to be by the way there acting. They’ve killed a pig finally and now they’ve eaten. Ralph calls another meeting about the jobs that aren’t being done around the camp. Jack starts the Beast thing again but he is trying to reassure everyone that there is no beast and that you can be scared sometimes but there is no ‘beast’. He assured everyone that if there was a beast he and his hunters would hunt and kill it. The second image of this beast comes in one of the littluns dreams. He says that he was fighting the ‘twisty things in the trees’. Also he said when he woke up something was moving in the trees. This something was actually Simon going off to his ‘special place’, which no one knew about till now. Then another boy says that the beast came out of the sea, but this is also an image that his father could have put into his head because he says ‘Daddy said they haven’t found all the animals in the sea yet.’ This added to the wild imaginations of these children could make a beast from nothing. Then someone says ‘maybe it’s some sort of ghost’ this causes a stir up. Ralph and Jack don’t believe in the ghost thing and so tell people to save it till daylight or they will be having nightmares, then asks ‘Who thinks there maybe ghosts?’ and actually starts considering maybe there is.
The third image of the ‘beast’ comes in chapter six when a parachutist drops from his burning plane. The twins Sam n Eric are on fire duty, they had fallen asleep and they had let the fire out again. They went to get more fire wood and tried to get it going again by blowing and adding more ‘tinder wood’. It lit up again and they added more branches. They started chatting about the pig they ate the other night and about a boy called ‘Waxy’ they were having a laugh until they remembered it was dark. Then suddenly Eric saw something behind Sam. It was really the dead parachutist hanging in the tree. They rush back to the camp and they are covered in scratches. They told everyone about the supposed beast they saw, they said the ‘beast’ had teeth and claws and said that it was running after them and that was what was scratching them but it’s the fact that they were terrified and would believe that but the scratches really came from the thorns and brambles they were running through. Jack decides to go and hunt it down and asks who would go with him. Jack makes Piggy stay behind with the littluns and everyone else goes with Jack. They ate before they went and come back with yet another pig. This time Ralph was with them and joined in the hunters recreated plays. Jack uses a littlun as the pig and act out how Ralph saved Jack from the pig and how they shoved a stick up the beasts backside. When they finish Jack decides he’s going to confront the beast up the mountain, Roger and Ralph go with him.
This is where the fourth vision of the ‘beast’ comes in. Jack goes up first and comes back screaming then they go up all together and see the dead parachutist. They refer to the ‘beast’ as a ‘great ape’. The parachutist is caught on the tree and when the wind blows his head lifts up, this time they see his decayed face and run as fast as they can down the mountain. Ralph says ‘the beast had teeth’ The fact that Ralph said the same thing as the twins means he may have not actually seen its face and believes Sam n Eric because that’s what he think it looks like. Jack calls an assembly and asks for a re-vote because he believes that Ralph isn’t a fit leader, he doesn’t hunt .etc. Everyone of course goes with Jack and Ralph is left with Piggy his loyal friend and Simon who is really an outsider.
This is where the fifth vision of the ‘beast’ comes in. The next day Jack put the pigs’ head on a spear and stuck it in the ground as an offering to the ‘beast’. While all this is going on Simon is watching from in his secret place under the bushes. The head of the pig that is on the stick starts talking to him saying things like ‘Run away go back to the others’ meaning Jack. At this point it starts raining ‘for once, were clouds, great bulging towers that sprouted away over the island’ this was a sign of Evil. It said ‘You are a silly little boy’ and ‘You like Ralph a lot, don’t you? And Piggy, and Jack?’ all of these were Simon’s inner thoughts. He couldn’t decide whether to go with Ralph or Jack. The head said ‘I am the Beast’. Simon suffers from epilepsy and he starts having a fit and starts hallucinating because of the heat. He starts thinking he’s inside the head of the pig, and then loses consciousness.
The last sighting of the beast is when Ralph and the rest of the boys are invited to a feast by Jack. By this time its pitch black so they all do their dancing and acting’s to keep them occupied and they are so caught up in the act they hear something in the bush and think it’s the beast. In fact its Simon trying to tell them the beast isn’t real but there making too much noise and cant hear him. They kill him with spears and he is left dead. The boys suddenly realize what they have done but he’s dead. He washes away with the tide and that is the end of the beast.
In this novel Golding uses the boys’ imagination, daydreams, nightmares to show us their fears and desires. These things illuminate the sense of loss and their need for security. Failing exists in any society and it is usually caused by the failing of human nature - what Golding sees as the existence but of undeveloped evil in life. This is the ‘Beast’. What happens in this novel is the example of how, in the right set of circumstances, the beast will reveal itself and bring a lack of integrity and corruption.
