The Experience of Fear

The Experience of Fear

In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of schoolboys find themselves lost on an uninhabited island, where they struggle to survive and create order. While trying to stay alive, the boys are presented with troubles of sanity. As time goes on, they experience worsening fears. Some boys, such as the leader Ralph, take longer to truly be afraid. Why do people fear differently? For many people, direct trauma is the only way for them to feel fear. But, this is not always the case. People must have at least a memory of violence and trauma from indirect experiences in order to be afraid, because fear is ultimately based on certainty.

Towards the end of the book Ralph had been isolated from the rest of the boys, and was an outsider to the brutal force of Jack and his hunters. While contemplating whether or not the hunters would leave him be, he realized his unsafety and paranoia swept over him. “He argued convincingly that they would let him alone, perhaps even make an outlaw of him. But then the fatal unreasoning knowledge came to him again...These painted savages would go further and further.” (184) In this moment, the author’s language shows that Ralph is filled with fear at just the thought of the hunters, even though he has no direct experience of disturbing actions occurring before him. He still is very scared of these boys because he negatively associates Jack and his hunters with murder and death. He only saw them commit these actions, but never was a victim to their violence. This proves that fear can be felt even without firsthand experiences, because having snapshots of people and knowing what they have done in the past to others can induce fear.

This situation is found in the real world, with mass school shootings becoming a growing problem in America, as well as gun violence in general. Many people who have gone through shootings have been greatly changed by them, into becoming activists. But, sometimes the people affected by the attacks didn’t even experience the violence firsthand. An article about gun violence and its effects on children from the Washington Post said, “A study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2015 concluded that kids who witness an attack involving a gun or knife can be just as traumatized as children who have been shot or stabbed.” Since a psychological study was conducted and released to the public, this is an implication that young people who haven’t been directly involved in violence are increasingly experiencing distress and alarm. Without having been physically assaulted, these young people are still coming forward and admitting they experienced just as much fright after seeing harm being done to others. If youth are this impacted by images of violent attacks, parents of school shooting victims must also be considerably afraid of guns. For these parents, all the images they create in their minds come from the little they see on the news, and can include infinite possible cruel scenarios. This causes them to become fearful of guns, after having only a relation to an experience of gun violence. An example of this same behavior can be found in the novel.

In Chapter 12, after being told by previous allies that the hunters planned to come after Ralph and kill him, he started to vividly remember the murder of Piggy. This thought scared Ralph and even caused him to feel childish. “Piggy was everywhere, was on this neck, was become terrible in darkness and death. If Piggy were to come back now out of the water, with his empty head--Ralph whimpered and yawned like a littlun.” (190) Ralph was frightened to the point of feeling like a “littlun,” which is a representation of weakness and youth on the island. Ralph felt so terrified that he was brought to a youthful and foolish state, which shows how impactful indirect experiences can be. Similarly to before in the book, Ralph felt scared just by picturing the murder of Piggy, even though he was not killed or physically harmed. This mirrors the real world, where parents and children become terrified at only the thought of murder and shootings. They also do not have direct experiences with gun violence, but the images they see and the information they know about it plays in their mind, stimulating fear. Clearly people can be afraid from personal experiences of violence, but this quote is an example of how indirect experiences cause similar fears. Due to the nature of Ralph after he had these flashback memories, this demonstrates that indirect fears can sometimes be more powerful than direct ones.

In the real world, as violence and crime are on the rise, so are fear and paranoia. This leads many to question what a healthy fear is, compared to what an unhealthy fear is. Neuroscientists even analyze how networks in our brains work when experiencing fear. According to a Psychology Today article, neuropsychologist Theo Tsaousides Ph.D. stated that, “When these networks are electrically or chemically stimulated, they produce fear, even in the absence of a fearful stimulus.” Tsaousides confirmed with scientific evidence that fear can be felt without a stimulator present to cause harm or invoke threats. Our brains process fear for us, replaying certain images and memories to cause us to be scared. This is the case with Ralph in the novel, because he acted like a tough guy for the majority of the story, but only became paranoid at the end, after watching boys he had relationships with be killed. His brain processed the violent images of people close to him being harmed, and this chemically stimulated him to become fearful of the other boys. He originally had nothing to be afraid of because he had no images, memories, or associations to make, until he watched Piggy and Simon be murdered. For many who still wonder why they fear things that aren’t even threatening them in person, it is because our brain turns fear on and off, like a switch.

Feeling terror without a direct stimulator can be just as powerful, or more powerful than first hand traumatic experiences. Many people become frightened with at least some knowledge or visuals of threats, even without it being directed towards them. With Ralph’s fear of the boys who had commited murder before him, and in the real world with youth who watched their close friends be shot in school, fear impacted people similarly. These sources prove that direct experiences are not crucial to having fear, but knowing for certain that violence or threats existed is essential.

Works Cited:

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

2. Rich, Steven, and Cox, John. Scarred by School Shootings. The Washington Post, 25 March 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/us-school-shootings-history/?utm_term=.5710c768de15.

3. Tsaousides, Theo. 7 Things You Need to Know About Fear. Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 19 November 2015, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/smashing-the-brainblocks/201511/7-things-you-need-know-about-fear.