In the book ‘Lord of the Flies‘ by William Golding, the conflicts in the book relate to “the beast inside us” by describing the battle between the side of humans that is savage, with a desire to hunt and kill, and the more civilized side of humans that made logical, reasonable decisions. The first major conflict in the story is about the “beastie,” the shadows created by the vines in the story and eventually the dead parachuter; this relates to “the beast inside us” because the conflict that resulted had two sides; that of savagery and that of logic and reason. The next conflict in the story is about how Jack and his “hunters” were not working, but hunting, represented by the fire and how they let it go out. The hunting represented savagery and working represented civilization. The last conflict was about Jack’s wish to break completely from civilization and Ralph’s to have order, represented by the conch and its eventual destruction. Throughout the books, the representative sides of civilization and savagery battled one another.
Even in the beginning of the story, the littluns were scared of the “beastie.” The conflict that resulted had two sides: Jack, who said that he would kill the beastie, and Ralph, who tried to soothe the littluns’ fears through logic and reason. Ralph represented the civil side of humans, whereas Jack represented the more savage side of humans. Jack, who wanted to soothe the littluns’ fear through fighting, represented savagery because he wanted to fight instead of behave in a civilized manner, whereas Ralph wanted to use logic, reason, and other tools provided by civilization. Though the littluns were soothed more by Jack’s argument, Ralph used a more logical and therefore more civilized form of reasoning. The beast represented the fears of the children, and therefore the beast inside them, while the respective ways Jack and Ralph tried to deal with it represented the conflict between civilization and wildness.
Later on, when Jack’s hunters forgot to keep the signal fire lit and a ship passed by, there was another conflict. Jack’s hunters, who had merely wanted to hunt and kill pigs, said that staying alive was more important, but Ralph said that they had agreed to keep it lit and had wasted a good chance to be rescued. The hunters, who had wanted to kill animals instead of do important work that would help them get rescued, represented savagery because they wanted to give into the wild side of themselves, whereas Ralph was practical and pointed out that hunting would not be beneficial in the long run. Jack chose to give in to a wild side of himself that compelled almost everyone; Ralph resisted it and stayed practical. The fire represented a hope for getting rescued and returning to civilization, and by letting the fire go out, Jack’s hunters showed that they cared not for being rescued, but only about staying alive and hunting. When, eventually, Jack stole the spectacles and used them to create fire only for roasting pigs, then to burn up the island, he showed he merely wanted to hunt and destroy lives, not to return to civilization. The signal fire was an important symbol of civilization.
The conch was another symbol of order. In the beginning of the book, the conch was used to assemble everyone, and the bearer of the conch was also the speaker. Jack, by attempting to diminish the conch’s influence, attempted to destroy order. He said that the conch was not necessary, because people who were intelligent enough to have good ideas should automatically be allowed to speak. When the conch was destroyed and Piggy, one of the last thinking and reasonable members of the children on the island died, it represented that there was no more order on the island. The sole supporter of civility, Ralph, was being hunted, and the other biguns all partook in the hunting, whether because of fear or their own savagery.
Clearly, “the beast inside us” represents the primal side of the human heart and its battle with a more civilized and logically reasoning side. To begin with, the “beastie” showed a small part of the battles between Jack and Ralph: how Jack gave into savagery by offering to kill the beast, and how Ralph showed logic by pointing out that the beastie was not real, simply a figment of their imagination. Furthermore, the signal fire represented the differences between those who wanted to keep it lit as a form of rescue and those who wanted it only to cook meat represented the fight between the two sides of the human heart. Additionally, the conch’s destruction and the feelings Jack and Ralph expressed towards it represented Jack’s wildness and Ralph’s inclination towards order.
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