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Paragraph 1: The destructive nature of fear - Coggle Diagram
Paragraph 1: The destructive nature of fear
the killing of Simon
result of the boys' fear of death + the unknown
the boys are afraid of Simon because they think he's the figurative beast they've conjured to externalise their fears, when in reality they themselves are the beast
this fear causes them to kill Simon
"There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws."
in this sentence alone, Golding is powerfully comparing these boys to vicious creatures
the barbarity and primitiveness is shown by their use of teeth and claws instead of more modern tools like spears
the human invention of speech creates a separation between humans and animals. the lack of verbal communication only strengthens their connection to savagery.
teeth and claws also refers to Samneric's description of when they 'saw' the beast. in this scene, it's evident to the reader that the 'beast' is them, not some figment of their imagination
ironic as they shouldn't be afraid of Simon, but themselves and the barbarians they have become
Jack's fear of losing control makes him commit savage acts
Jack's fear creates an inner conflict between the civilised and violent side to him. However he learns that violence gains control over the other boys, and so uses this to his advantage.
evidence of violence:
when he was killing the pig in chapter 1, his biggest fear which was the reality of taking a life stopped him from killing it
but when he tried to kill Ralph, his biggest fear has changed into not wanting to seem weak in front of the others
“he hadn’t because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh”.
Here, the word choice of ‘enormity’ tells us that Jack finds killing the pig a big deal, he struggles to murder a living thing as he’s never done this before. The description of the knife ‘descending’ reinforces this as even though the knife is traveling a short distance to Jack it feels like an eternity as he tries to commit a big act of killing. The words ‘living flesh’ shows Jack still empathises with the pig and doesn’t want to kill it. At this point it is clear Jack still wants to follow normal rules and thinks that hurting things is wrong.
Golding uses irony to show how fear can be used for survival as well as destruction
At the end of the book, when Ralph is the only one not to be a part of Jack's tribe, he lets his fear of of dying turn him into a savage, to protect himself from savages.
In this respect, it could be argued tjhat Golding also shows that tapping into one's destructive nature is the only way for survival
Golding shows that everyone has the capacity to let fear consume them, given the temptation
For Ralph, who symbolises rationality, it was the loss of fear that caused him to act destructively. In Chapter [], for a moment he wasn't afraid of giving into his savage side like the other boys, and instead embraced it, almost killing Roger in the process
The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering
though Jack is the typical antagonist in the book, Golding shows that everyone is scared of something, thus the destruction and savagery that come as a result is not only confined to certain people
Therefore fear is an emotion that everyone possess, and Golding has shown, through the murder of Simon and the general violent acts which every boy committed, that uncontrolled fear can lead to chaos and destruction.
The boys feel threatened - some for their survival, some for their power. This causes fear, and as a result resort to irratonal behaviour and vicious acts in order to get rid of the impending threat.