Fear In Lord Of The Flies

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Fear naturally exists in humans which leads to selfishness. For this reason, governments are created to ensure that this fear will not cause chaos. This is demonstrated in the book Lord of the Flies, where a plane crashes on an island and a group of boys must survive alone since the adults die in the crash. Fear is represented by the beast, which represents all forms of evil. The beast is the core of their downfall, and it lives within everyone. Governments are needed to control the beast and the philosophers Cesare Beccaria and Jean-Jacques Rousseau express their ideas about the proper maintenance of a government. In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, this group of boys fails to effectively govern itself because of their lack of accountability…show more content…
When a higher authority is present, the beast tempts the boys to rise against this overbearing individual. Furthermore, when Ralph becomes chief, one of the kids, Jack, is envious of his power. Jack’s hunger for more power leads him to form his own group where he is a supreme ruler and bribes the other boys to join his group within exchange for meat. He might have serve them meat except, he does not serve them justice because he is hoarding all the power for himself without giving the rest a voice to be heard. On the other hand, in the other group, Ralph obtains more power but provides everyone their own opportunity to express their ideas through a system of the conch: whoever holds the conch has the right to speak without interruptions. In the story, Jack treats Piggy, one of the kids, awfully by breaking his glasses, insulting him, and interrupting him, disrespecting their rule of the conch. Noticing this, Piggy tells Ralph "I'm going to him with this conch in my hands. I'm going to hold it out. Look, I'm going to say, you're stronger than I am and you haven't got asthma. You can see, I'm goin' to say, and with both eyes. But I don't ask for my glasses back, not as a favor. I don't ask you to be a sport, I'll say, not because you're strong, but because what's right's right” (171). The conch represents freedom of speech towards everyone, which Rousseau believes is highly essential, Piggy showing this to Jack reveals that he corrupts their freedom of speech. Although Piggy’s actions are just, the beast blinds Jack from realizing this, as he only worries about power. The lack of freedom of speech originates from the greed for power that rulers develop, for their own personal
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