The beast is an animal, a snake, a giant squid, a ghost, "a beast with claws that scratched, that sat on a mountain-top, that left no tracks and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric," (Golding, Lord of the Flies 112). This beast does not just live on the island in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it is everywhere, hunting everyone. It is greedy, powerful and savage. It hides in the shadows, lurking, just waiting for a chance when you are vulnerable so that it may jump out and latch onto you with its menacing claws. You can put up walls and burn fires as the boys did in the novel, but they can only protect you for so long. So, what is the beast? Is it all of the above or none of it? Is it something different, but similar? These are the questions I wish to find out.
The beast is an animal, a savage that brings out the darkness and brutality in all of us. It causes us fear and anxiety. But, what horrible creature could do this to the boys in the novel, to us? Perhaps it is our very selves that cause such distress and cruelty. Simon sees this conflict and "became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness...'What I mean to say is... maybe it's only us,'" (LOTF 96). Maybe the question we all should be asking is: who is the beast? Are we the beast, is that who? Is there no escaping it?
However, we are not all beasts at first. The boys had to lose their rational minds before they became little beasts, as did Christopher Hadley in William Golding's other novel Pincher Martin. We would have to be forced to give up the proper structure of civilization and humanity before we could be contaminated by the beast. Contaminated like a virus. Simon even expressed it as "...mankind's essential illness..." (LOTF 96). So, perhaps we are not the beast; perhaps it is like a cancer within all of us just waiting to be triggered into the destruction of the mind and sole. So what is the carcinogen? What could trigger us into such insanity and inhumanity?
If the beast is a virus there must be a trigger as well as consequences. In the novel Pincher Martin Christopher has a thought that, "There is no centre of sanity in madness. Nothing like this 'I' sitting in here, staving off the time that must come. The last repeat of the pattern. Then the black lightning," (Golding, Pincher Martin 181). So, the trigger must cause us to lose our sanity before we can go mad, but is madness the same as being a beast? Is the black lightning a cause or effect; a trigger or a consequence? Is it both? There must be some catastrophic event that forces a sane person to turn into a beast, and possibly this causes another devastating event as a consequence. For example, the boys in Lord of the Flies have fallen to the beast due to their fight to survive on the island and their descent into hunting and killing pigs. The effect of this is their loss of innocence as "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy," (LOTF 225) at the conclusion of the novel. The loss of innocence, humanity and wisdom, this is the black lightning and the consequence of falling prey to the beast. The trigger must be the hunt and the boys' obsession over power.
What is the beast? That is what I had wanted to know. I thought I knew, but now it seems as if I have ended up with more questions than answers. Who or what the beast is I can not be sure. It seems as if the beast is different in all of us and therefore effects all of us differently. The boys in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies have many ideas about what the beast is as well, but they do not come to a conclusion either. All I know is that it is not an animal, or a human, but I do not know what the beast is. It could be a virus meaning that our only chance is to prevent it from spreading and controlling our every thought and every action as the boys try to do in the novel. Each defence they use fails them, so the next question is if the defences will fail us. I just hope that it is an answer we will not have to find out.
The beast is an animal, a snake, a giant squid, a ghost, "a beast with claws that scratched, that sat on a mountain-top, that left no tracks and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric," (Golding, Lord of the Flies 112). This beast does not just live on the island in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it is everywhere, hunting everyone. It is greedy, powerful and savage. It hides in the shadows, lurking, just waiting for a chance when you are vulnerable so that it may jump out and latch onto you with its menacing claws. You can put up walls and burn fires as the boys did in the novel, but they can only protect you for so long. So, what is the beast? Is it all of the above or none of it? Is it something different, but similar? These are the questions I wish to find out. 
The beast is an animal, a savage that brings out the darkness and brutality in all of us. It causes us fear and anxiety. But, what horrible creature could do this to the boys in the novel, to us? Perhaps it is our very selves that cause such distress and cruelty. Simon sees this conflict and "became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness...'What I mean to say is... maybe it's only us,'" (LOTF 96). Maybe the question we all should be asking is: who is the beast? Are we the beast, is that who? Is there no escaping it?
However, we are not all beasts at first. The boys had to lose their rational minds before they became little beasts, as did Christopher Hadley in William Golding's other novel Pincher Martin. We would have to be forced to give up the proper structure of civilization and humanity before we could be contaminated by the beast. Contaminated like a virus. Simon even expressed it as "...mankind's essential illness..." (LOTF 96). So, perhaps we are not the beast; perhaps it is like a cancer within all of us just waiting to be triggered into the destruction of the mind and sole. So what is the carcinogen? What could trigger us into such insanity and inhumanity? 
If the beast is a virus there must be a trigger as well as consequences. In the novel Pincher Martin Christopher has a thought that, "There is no centre of sanity in madness. Nothing like this 'I' sitting in here, staving off the time that must come. The last repeat of the pattern. Then the black lightning," (Golding, Pincher Martin 181). So, the trigger must cause us to lose our sanity before we can go mad, but is madness the same as being a beast? Is the black lightning a cause or effect; a trigger or a consequence? Is it both? There must be some catastrophic event that forces a sane person to turn into a beast, and possibly this causes another devastating event as a consequence. For example, the boys in Lord of the Flies have fallen to the beast due to their fight to survive on the island and their descent into hunting and killing pigs. The effect of this is their loss of innocence as "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy," (LOTF 225) at the conclusion of the novel. The loss of innocence, humanity and wisdom, this is the black lightning and the consequence of falling prey to the beast. The trigger must be the hunt and the boys' obsession over power.
What is the beast? That is what I had wanted to know. I thought I knew, but now it seems as if I have ended up with more questions than answers. Who or what the beast is I can not be sure. It seems as if the beast is different in all of us and therefore effects all of us differently. The boys in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies have many ideas about what the beast is as well, but they do not come to a conclusion either. All I know is that it is not an animal, or a human, but I do not know what the beast is. It could be a virus meaning that our only chance is to prevent it from spreading and controlling our every thought and every action as the boys try to do in the novel. Each defence they use fails them, so the next question is if the defences will fail us. I just hope that it is an answer we will not have to find out.
I think you have touched on the theme that Golding was really attempting to reveal. He posed the questions: What if boys were stranded on an island without supervision? What if there was no one to ensure that civility was enforced? In his answer to these what if questions, he reveals the monster in man. Certainly in times of war, when social conventions do not play as a significant role, group identity becomes more important than individual identity and mob mentality takes over, we see adults committing far more heinous acts than this group of boys. Of course, the boys are 'rescued' at the end.
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