Lord of the Flies
What is the Lord of the Flies?
How does the beast begin the story?
What is it, as far as the boys know?
The beast begins as a product of
the boys imaginations. The smaller
boys are afraid of things they see
at night; rather than be blindly
afraid of “The Great Unknown,”
they give their fear a name and a
shape in their minds. You can’t
defeat a “nothing,” but you can
hunt and kill a “something.”
What is the next evolution in the myth
of the beast? What does it become?
The next evolution in
the myth of the beast
is the dead
parachutist. It’s no
coincidence that the
boys catch a glimpse
of a dark, UNKNOWN
object and
immediately call it
the beast; perhaps
they were relieved to
have finally seen the
thing? Why?
Why is it interesting that Golding
chooses to make this manifestation
of the boys’ fear a MAN?
The “beast” then is not only a man,
but a soldier coming from the war.
Not only that, but the parachutist
flies in, in response to Piggy’s request
for a “sign” from the adult world. It’s
ironic that the best that adults can
come up with is a man dead of their
own violence.
What did Piggy say the beast was?
What did Simon say it was?
Piggy says the
beast is just fear,
and Simon says
that the beast is
“only us.”
What does Simon mean when he says
the beast is “only us”?
He’s talking about the beast
being the darkness that is
inside each and every one of
us. The Beast, according to
Simon, is the human tendency
towards cruelty and violence;
the Beast is the worst of what
we are as humans.
What does The Lord of the Flies tell
Simon?
“I’m the Beast…Fancy thinking the
Beast was something you could
hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t
you? I’m part of you? Close, close,
close! I’m the reason why it’s no
go? Why things are what they
are?...You know perfectly well
you’ll only meet me down there—
so don’t try to escape!”
What connection can you make between
how Simon defines the Beast, and what
the Lord of the Flies tells him?
What the Lord of the Flies tells him makes
Simon’s words seem true; you can’t hunt
and kill the beast, because they’ve already
hunted and killed the pig and it’s still talking
to Simon. The beast is inside all of us, and
not only can’t we hunt it, but we can never
see it, never give it form, and never defeat
it. The Beast is just the darkness of man’s
heart, and it is “close, close, close…”
from your packet…
How is the Lord of the Flies
like a devil in the novel?
What does it mean that
the devil is lord over the
flies? Who do the flies
represent?
How is this an appropriate
symbol for the story?
What is the purpose of
including this symbol in
the story?