The Main Turning Point of ‘Lord of The Flies’

Lord of the flies is a book in which a massive transformation occurs. A transformation from refinement to savagery. This happens for many reasons but there is one main event which turns everything wrong. That is the first “sighting” of the beast is made.

Samneric where sleeping by the fire. They were supposedly looking after the fire in ‘shifts’ but both had fallen asleep simultaneously. They awaken to see a horrible sight. Nothing but the ‘beast’ floating towards the island. This just happened to be a parachutist but because the fire had gone out and they couldn’t see this creature’s true identity so of course they quickly came to the conclusion that this was the beast. They ran off toward the others in terror to warn them it was a beast.

This event clearly affected the group. They were clearly shaken, frightened and paranoid that the beast was after them. It lowered morale and made people think that there was no escape from the island therefore no escape from the beast but little that they know that they were to become the only beasts on the island and should be very afraid of themselves.

This mainly affected Jack as he saw this as his ‘cue’. This was his time to show how brave and fearless he was. He would go off and find this beast and kill it. Where Ralph very uncharacteristically goes off and joins him after the same reputation Jack wants. The Ralph spears a pig and boasts about it. Then while they are dancing Ralph goes too far and starts jabbing Robert in the ribs. All of this is very uncharacteristic in Ralph to do. It didn’t really affect Simon nor Piggy as they are the sensible ones who realise there probably is no beast. When Jack sees the dead man on the hill he thinks it’s a beast and causes more fear and chaos.

If this event had never happened they never would have split up, killed Piggy and Simon, the fire would still be going and everyone would of carried on as normal although one could argue this was nothing but delaying the inevitable, because for all we know this may have all happened wether or wether not they hadn’t seen the beast but I don’t think that things would be nearly quite as bad if the beast hadn’t been seen. The beast would probably forgotten about and rules and order would finally restored. They would have kept the fire going till the naval officer arrived and Piggy and Simon wouldn’t be dead, they wouldn’t as savage and they would be sensible and fed and looked after. In my opinion there was only one real reason for the islands’s downfall and that was Jack.