Lord Of The Flies Passage Analysis

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How do you think Golding makes this moment in the novel so frightening? In this extract Golding writes about the three boys having arrived onto a mountainous area and their discovery of “the beast”. In this extract Golding makes this a frightening moment in the novel through the unknown identity of the “creature”, his accurate portrayal of the boys’ fear and through the description of the surroundings. Golding makes this a frightening moment in the novel for the boys by keeping the identity of “the beast” secret. This is done through ambiguous language such as “the thing that bowed” or “A creature that bulged.” The use of the nouns “thing” or “creature” shows that the boys are unable to identify what the beast is, which makes this moment scary…show more content…
This can be shown when Golding portrays Roger as having “bumped, fumbled with a hiss of breath, and passed onwards.” The tri-colon of clumsy verbs is almost the complete opposite of the Roger we have seen in previous chapters, who is portrayed as being sneaky, confident and brave. By portraying him as acting completely differently from how we normally see him, Golding is creating a frightening atmosphere because ever Roger is frightened by it, something which throughout the novel is quite rare. Another way he presents this is when he describes Ralph as being “Not scared so much as paralysed; hung up here immovable on the top of a diminishing, moving mountain.” The use of the word “paralysed” shows how his fear had had a drastic physical effect which has left him “immovable” which shows his vulnerability. This creates an atmosphere of fear because we are scared for the characters because they are vulnerable against a beast, which the audience knows doesn’t exist, but this scene also reminds us that the boys are only young children and that they are in a situation where even most adults would struggle to cope. Another example of Golding using their fear to create a frightening moment is when he describes the boys as having “dared the impossible on the dark slope; presently the mountain was deserted, save for the three abandoned sticks and the thing that bowed.” By saying that “Ralph dared the impossible” and using a semi-colon Golding suggests that Ralph is going to confront the beast, which leaves the reader worried that Ralph is going to go and find the dead body, something which would be traumatising for a
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