Lord of the Flies

Have you ever been so frightened you’ll never forget that moment in your life? Fear can have a long-term effect on people’s mental health and can affect their physical health as well. Fear is a very powerful emotion that can be very well a positive thing a can be a very much a negative thing. This is also present in real life when people dream because when they have a nightmare it can stick with them  When people are dealing with a threat to their existence, they let fear rule their behavior. As a result, they cannot fully be themselves and the threat of the fear will constantly haunt them.

In the “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding there are a bunch of boys stuck on a Island and the main character is a guy named Ralph.  In this scene there are two twins who are names Sam and Eric. They are talking to Ralph about their “encounter” with the beast. ”The beast moved too-’ That was awful. It kind of sat up-’ The fire was bright-’ We’d just made it up-’-more sticks on-’There were eyes-’ Teeth-’ Claws-’ We ran as fast as we could-’Bashed into things-’ The beast followed us”(100). You can see obviously that the boys were scared and all that jazz but what the boys didn’t know was that there was literally nobody following them. When they were mentioning the description of the beast, that was just their imagination and you can see it’s having a mental effect on their brains because what they are describing didn’t happen. They probably just heard some noises and they thought that was the beast and started running, either way there wasn’t any beast in this scene.

A little later in the book there is a scene where there is a boy that is named Simon who is having a conversation with a dead pig alone in a forest, which is called the Lord of the Flies. ”We are going to have fun on this island. So don’t try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else-...Simon was inside the month. He fell down and lost consciousness”(144).  In this quote you can see that fear has affected Simon too because he is literally talking to a dead pig and the reader is to believe that the pig is talking to him. Simon’s fear got to a climaxing point as you can see since he put his head in the dead’s pig mouth and went unconscious. If they never even heard or saw the beast this whole scene wouldn’t have happened. You can see that Simon is not himself and isn’t functioning fully since he is in this state. This beast senario is having mental issue with him and is having a hard time in this scene.  

Now a little after the previous scene we see Simon again with the Lord of the flies on his head is trying to tell a group of boys about a dead man on a hill. ”Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill. Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!...The beast struggled forward, broke the ring, and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water...they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand.”(152-153) In this quote you can see that the group of boys were definitely not themselves because they were chanting a really morbid chant. They were so blind that they didn’t realize that the person they was hurting was there fellow comrade Simon. Then later in the scene he ends up dying because of their ruthlessness and how much fear had control them to the point where they took a life of a person, their own friend. They were so obsessed with the beast that they were going to kill it no matter what but the things is there was never really a beast.  

A real world example of this is dreams. In some of the websites it was explaining that the environment can affect people’s behaviors and how they function. Also, dreams are also powerful because if you remember them it can stick with you. This is important to remember because when you have fear it can have a mental and physical impact on you.”The environment can influence mood. For example, the results of several research studies reveal that rooms with bright light, both natural and artificial, can improve health outcomes such as depression, agitation, and sleep.”(Found here) It said this in one of the articles and basically it’s saying that being in a good environment can improve your health physically and mentally. “The environment can create or reduce stress, which in turn impacts our bodies in multiple ways. This is because our brain and our nervous, endocrine, and immune systems are constantly interacting. As neuroscientist Candice Pert puts it, "What you are thinking at any moment is changing your biochemistry."(Found here) This is also stating evidence that depending on the environment it can decrease or increase stress. When your stressed you can’t fully be yourself and you’re going to be worried about every single thing in your life just like in the novel.

Having fear in your life can have a very dangerous impact on you both physically and mentally. When you’re being threatened, it can cause you to do things you wouldn’t think of doing until you’re in the moment. In that moment fear is ruling their behavior and it is allowing to dictate their actions and choices that they make. Just like in the lord of the flies dreams in the real world can impact you to the point where you act out of your normal character.

Works Cited

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

Kollmuss, Anja. “Mind the Gap: Why Do People Act Environmentally and What Are the Barriers to pro-Environmental Behavior?” Https://Www.tandfonline.com/Doi/Abs/10.1080/13504620220145401.

“What Impact Does the Environment Have on Us?” Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing, www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/healing-environment/what-impact-does-environment-have-us.

“Impact of Fear and Anxiety.” Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing, www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/enhance-your-wellbeing/security/facing-fear/impact-fear.

“The Impact of Dreams on Your Social Life.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dream-catcher/201105/the-impact-dreams-your-social-life.