Scottie Watson
Mrs. Koch
Honors English 2
The Beast
There are some things in the world that over time that humanity as a whole begins to forget and let slip from it’s collective mind. Our species did not start out as the large, sophisticated entities that we know today. As history would tell it, we started out as small warring tribes all across the globe, tribes would rise, then fall in a continuous circle of death and savagery. But somewhere along the line, a tribe decided to take a different approach to survival. These were the ancestors and the forerunners of modern society. A question that arose in my head was, how hard would it take for society to revert back to what it once was? The Lord of the Flies was evidence that it would not take long at all. But one element of the story took my thought and made me invest time into it, The Beast. What is it? How did it manifest? Did it exist in our world? Or was it merely a figmentation of the author’s imagination? With time I’ve began to come up with answers to these questions and although I have my answers, one can come up with many different conclusions on what exactly the Beast is. But no one answer is wronger then the other.
As the boys spent more and more time on the Island, they slowly began to change into corrupted versions of their originals selves. In the beginning, they were normal children. They played, they ate, they enjoyed the shore. As time began to drag on though, thoughts of never escaping began to take root in their young minds. As they began to turn more savage, their hair grew and their humanity slowly went. But in the center of it all, in the backs of everyone’s mind, old and young, a monster loomed. In their sleep they saw it and at night, anything and everything could be the result of the Beast’s existence. Unbeknownst to them thought, the beast was simply their imagination, fear incarnate. It was evident that towards the end of the story, Jack used the beast in a way to keep power over the other children, promising them protection if they left Ralph’s tribe and came to his. Had the boys rationalized the situation, pondered the fact that no one had actually ever come into contact with the beast, then they could have come to the conclusion that no such monster existed. But instead the Beast gained more and more power as time went on, existing in the boy’s irrational fear, one which grew like a flame thanks to the boy’s sacrifices and dances to the animal. It was born as the result of a single little boy claiming he had seen a “beastie”. Had it not been for this child, then the island may have continued on in civilized thought and manner. But in a way, he only contributed a part of the path that lead the boys to destruction. I believe that the Beast was a sub conscience excuse for all the boys to revert back into the savages that their ancestors struggled to come out of. Thanks to the fatal seduction that all humans suffer from, to let one’s self to become an animal, then the boys would have never allowed a thought, an idea, take such a powerful existence in their minds.
One must also ask one’s self, could such a beast or situation happen in our own world? One must simply look to humanity’s past. The United Kingdom was once a collection of nations of power and wealth; as well as poverty and death. Although all countries have seen both of these in some way, the United Kingdom is unique because both of these extremes often occurred at the same time. Parts of England were inhabited by nobility, but from a stones throw length away, peasants had to survive from day to day. They did this by any means, stealing, robbing, even killing to get the food and nutrients they desperately needed. I think it not a far off thought that if one were to be stranded in isolation away from society, they would slowly begin to morph into a creature of their former selves, eventually embracing what they’ve become. One cannot be sure of this, unless one has been through the situation themselves.
It takes very thought at all for one to come to the conclusion that the Beast is in fact a real thing in many ways, an entity that can pop up into anyone’s mind. A monster that can destroy any group caught unaware. The Beast can make one revert into an animal, one that steals, hunts, kills, and anything else deemed by society as “brutish.” Look into yourself, what in this world do you really desire? Is it something good, one that benefits humanity as a whole? On that all can benefit from? More likely then not, it won’t be. Be honest, is it something frowned upon? Something malicious or unreightuous in nature? Is it something beastly?
