In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, "The Beast" is not an unknown monster lurking
in the shadows, but instead it represents fear and the negative aspects of the human condition. "He still says he saw the beastie. It came and went away again an' came back and wanted to eat him-" Through this sentence, a collective fear that the beast will harm them is established amongst the littluns. Jack uses their fear and turns it into the first instance of violence we see in the book. He tells the boys that if there is a beast, "they will hunt it down, close in, and beat and beat and beat." “There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.” The murder of Simon by the boys showcases their primal savagery. When Simon, the incarnation of altruism, attempted to explain to the others what the perceived "beastie" truly was, he was mistaken for the beast and brutally killed. The way Simon is slaughtered is important to the plot of the book because it displays the bloodlust of the boys and there is an understanding that not even Piggy (rationalism) and Ralph (democracy) are immune to the effects of fear. In Lord of the Flies, the monster created by the fear of the unknown is a catalyst for the boys to become uncivilized.