Revision

I chose this essay for revision because it was my lowest grade on the essays that we did this year, and I felt like that grade reflected my effort on the essay. I was never fully proud of the Literary Analysis when I finished, so I felt like it needed to be revised. The traits that I focused on for revision were my ideas and my organization. In most of my work as I writer, my organization is my worst category. The reason that I chose the ideas category is because I told the plot to much in the essay. I feel like this can go under the ideas category.

The main changes that I focused on in the essay were fixing my transitions and focusing them toward my thesis. The second thing I focused on was removing my plot summaries. I also added a couple sentences to my introduction to help broaden the scope of the paper and add context. Many of my citations needed fixing, and this mostly just included my embedding of quotations. I think the revision greatly improved my paper.

Fearing the Human Mind: An Analysis of the Beast’s Reality

            The Beast is a product of fear, a manifestation [TJ1] of fear, and it drives the boys against each other. This suggests that it is a microcosm of the war in the outside world. Everything is going great for the boys in the Lord of the Flies until the Beast comes along and ruins it all. The island portrayed by William Golding is the ideal place for a group of playful young boys to be, with food, water, and entertainment for everyone at no expense. But, an idea that isn’t even visible to the eye causes little children to have nightmares, friends to turn against each other, and a war that can’t even be imagined by a naval officer participating in World War III. How can a simple idea cause these innocent boys to do these horrible, unimaginable things? It actually isn’t that complicated. [TJ2] 

            When the Beast is first mentioned in the book, it is widely laughed off as a joke though it does impose some fear on the boys. An obviously shy six-year-old with a mulberry-colored birthmark[G3]  decides to speak up in an assembly when he is seemingly terrified for no apparent reason. He finally manages to say to Piggy that he saw a “snake-thing.” The other boys laugh at him, and that “snake-thing” turns into a “beastie” in a matter of seconds. This is how the confrontation happens: “Ralph laughed, and the other boys laughed with him. The small boy twisted further within himself. ‘Tell us about the snake-thing.’”[TJ4]  (35). The boy is embarrassed and fearful when he gets laughed at by everyone. So to make up for it, he draws more attention and significance to the animal by saying, “‘It was a beastie’” (35[TJ5] [TJ6] ). [TJ7] He exaggerates the snake that he saw into a huge, scary beast. This incident is the beginning of the fear that the boys possess of a “beast.” The beast continues to grow in power throughout the book and is the driving force and antagonist of the story. But, its being is entirely formed from [TJ8] the fear of the boy with the mulberry-colored birthmark [G9] 

            As the fear of the beast increases among the boys, the beast’s power continually grows[TJ10] . Finally, Ralph calls an assembly to decide what to do about their increasing fear. The disagreement only worsens when they argue in the assembly, but yet again, a small, unheard voice decides to speak out. That voice is Simon, who has proven to be unbiased toward any opinion and wholeheartedly pure. [G11] The frantic situation is described as: [TJ12] “Simon felt a perilous necessity to speak; but to speak in an assembly was a terrible thing to him. ‘Maybe,’ he said hesitantly, ‘maybe there is a beast’” (89). Like the boy with the mulberry-co[G13] lored birthmark, Simon was hesitant to express his own opinions. This conviction of the beast’s reality is so important to him that he risks everything that he is and says it to the assembly. The chaos of this meeting shows that the beast is driving the boys apart, but it also shows how the beast has gained power from fear.[G14] 

The fear of the unknown comes into play when Sam and Eric see what they think is the beast on the top of the mountain. They are petrified and run back to tell everyone what they think that they saw. Ralph’s reaction is one of terror when his fellow mates tell him about their encounter. Golding personifies [TJ15] Ralph’s thoughts of the other boys: “Soon the darkness was full of claws, full of the awful unknown and menace. An interminable dawn faded the stars out, and at last light, sad and grey filtered into the shelter. They began to stir though still the world outside the shelter was impossibly dangerous” (99). [TJ16] Ralph’s fear of the beast, or possibly just the unknown, makes him believe that everyone is in danger even though he never saw the beast. This shows that the beast can manifest fear into the boys without physically being present.

                  

The beast really starts  to drive the boys apart[TJ17]  as the book goes along. Simon is thought to be the beast because the boys are looking for a scapegoat. This is how the boys react when they see Simon[TJ18] : “At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words and no movement but the tearing of teeth and claws… Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was” (153). The boys’ fear of the beast has led them to kill the most innocent kid on the island. This quote is a vivid image of the death scene of Simon, which shows how driven everyone is to kill this unknown thing that they fear. Unlike Simon, they aren’t hesitant. They are killing with viciousness and ferocity. Even though the beast is[TJ19]  physically small, their paranoia drove them to kill the next thing they saw move. The beast has successfully driven the boys apart.

After Simon’s death, the fear of the beast and its power over the boys come together to create a perfect storm[TJ20] . Even though Jack thinks that he killed the beast, he is motivated to keep hunting it. Meanwhile, Roger is on the brink of destruction. His fear has induced him to build a trap to stop invaders. Both Roger and Jack have been completely brainwashed by the idea of the beast[TJ21] . When Piggy starts to argue with Jack, Roger becomes incensed. The scene is described as, “The storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred. High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” [TJ22] (180). When Roger fears that Piggy is going to restore order to the island, he becomes threatened and this causes Piggy’s death. Once again, fear is the biggest component of the characters’ actions in the climactic moments of the book. This scene brings all of the elements of the beast together. The beast is a manifestation of fear because it causes Roger to fear Piggy. It is a product of fear because it is what causes Roger to lean on the lever. Finally, it drives the boys against each other because it kills Piggy.

The beast comes from fear, causes fear, and kills people. Fear drives the boy with the mulberry colored birthmark to invent a “beast”. The beast that Sam and Eric thought they saw on the mountain causes complete pandemonium among everyone. The beast drives former friends to kill each other when Piggy and Simon are murdered at the hands of their once true friends. The fear of the beast mounts as the book goes along, and it finally brings everyone in conflict with each other. The beast is a microcosm for the war in the outside world.

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