Imagination and The Fears They Make by: Donald Moses

People imagine all kinds of possibilities for their life like for example what their dream job will be, what kind of house they’ll live in, and what their future family would look like. But when it comes to fear, our imagination tends to wander and over exaggerates what is currently happening from a small incident to a big life threatening risk. People repeatedly conceptualize potentiality however when it comes to fears or concerns our imagination tends to roam and overestimate what is presently happening from a minimal circumstance to a serious life threatening incident.

The boys on the island over exaggerated a mighty beast out of fear and believed there was on the island and their imaginations included what the beast looked like and where it came from. Their imagination made them believed one of their own friends and the corpse of a fallen soldier was the beast without confirmation that what they saw was real. In the real world the world sees this similarly with police officers on a case at night and they imagine their suspect is armed with a gun when their suspect is actually not armed and they shoot without hesitation because they imagine their lives are at risk.

In Chapter 5 of “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, the survivors stranded on the island fear of a beast roaming on the Island based on talk of the little children. While this is happening they also start to act uncivilized in many ways. After seeing these Issues Ralph calls an assembly to address these issues and then ends it with trying to debunk the talk and fear of the beast. “You! What were you mucking about in the dark for?” (pg 85). This shows that the fear in the little children about a beast was there imagination and that what they thought was a beast was actually Simon as he was walking around at night. When Simon went out

In an article made by Shaun King about Police Brutality. This article relates to my thesis as it talks about how Police are trained to shoot the imagined possibilities instead of waiting for confirmation and reality of the danger. This connects to the children as the police images the danger of each case while the children image the danger of a beast roaming around on the island which lead to them to fear that their lives are coming to a close end.

Later on in the book the boys are more split than ever with Jack leading the Hunters as savages. During a thunderstorm, after discovering the corpse of a dead soldier that crashed on the island Simon grabs the parachute off the corpse to tell the others of his discovery. After finding the boys he is quickly mistaken as the imaginary beast they believed was real and then assaulted by the savages and died in the water. “Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea” (pg 154). This shows how powerful imagination has on people’s speculation and quick actions without any real proof their thoughts are real and not false images. Being far from the fire and with the lightning behind Simon all the boys saw from him was just his darkened figure with the parachute in hand so the others believed Simon was the beast out of fear and because they had no logic to proof that it was Simon because all they saw was shadows and their imagination took over their true senses.

In an article on LA Times talks about a police shooting that happened not too long ago that caused a whole commotion. The police involved in this article were on a case about somebody breaking windows and running through people’s backyards. They had a police copter flying over and saw the guy they were about to shoot and lead the officers as the guy was running and ended stopping in his grandmother’s backyard where the police caught up to him. On the article there is a video from the body camera of the officers and then one of them say something similar to “He’s got a gun!” and then they shot about 20 shots at the guy. What the officers thought was a gun was actually the guy’s phone.

Imagination has lead us to our entertainment but the darker side of imagination lead us to fear inanimate objects or fear ourselves and those around us. Imagination also is what makes us believe something is something more deadly. This is a problem we see in our own life from police on duty, and in “Lord of the Flies” with the boys at night.

Works Cited

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Winton, Richard, et al. “Stephon Clark Shooting: How Police Opened Fire on an Unarmed Black Man Holding a Cellphone.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 23 Mar. 2018, www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-stephon-clark-shooting-sacramento-explainer-20180323-story.html.