Lord of the Flies

      I think that one of the most important part of Lord of the Flies is when Simon talks with the Lord of the Flies. This takes place on page 143, where the Lord of the Flies tells Simon "You know perfectly well you'll only meet me down there–so don't try to escape!" , implying that the beast resides in all of the boys who crashed on the island. This is an important fact, because the beast is something that is mentioned throughout almost the entire book. 

      When the littluns who crashed on the island first start to refer to the beast, it invokes fear into everyone and makes the boys scared of each other. The descriptions of the beast that we hear from the boys is that it has sharp fangs and claws–normally what we would expect from a typical imagination of a beast. However, what the Lord of the Flies is saying is that the beast is the fear, madness, and bloodthirst that resides in the minds all human beings. This is proved when Simon, after his encounter with the Lord of the Flies, stumbles into the group and tries to tell the boys that the beast does not exist. However, the boys, who do not know this fact yet, mistakes Simon as the beast, and then brutally murders him as a group.