Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?
Interpretation
This quote reflects the idea that our inner struggles and fears are not external enemies but intrinsic parts of ourselves.
In this passage from 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding, the 'Beast' symbolizes the primal instincts and darker aspects of human nature that reside within each individual. The quote emphasizes that one cannot simply eradicate these inner demons; instead, they must be acknowledged and understood, as they influence our actions and the state of the world around us.
In practice
During a psychology class discussion on the nature of fear and inner conflict.
Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things.
The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won't tell.
Maybe, he said hesitantly, maybe there is a beast. The assembly cried out savagely and Ralph stood up in amazement. You, Simon? You believe in this? I don't know, said Simon. His heartbeats were choking him. [...] Ralph shouted. Hear him! He's got the conch! What I mean is . . . maybe it's only us. Nuts! That was from Piggy, shocked out of decorum.
The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.
Man produces evil as a bee produces honey.
Utopias are presented for our inspection as a critique of the human state.
I felt, as I became a later and later bloomer, alienated not just from my own recalcitrant glabrous little body but in a way from the whole elemental exterior I'd come to see as my co-conspirator.
Dreaming is a philogenetically older mode of thought.
When you open up to the ultimate, immediately it pours into you. You are no longer an ordinary human being - you have transcended. Your insight has become the insight of the whole existence. Now you are no longer separate - you have found your roots.
The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I figure anytime you put an adjective before 'writer,' it's a way of dismissing the writer.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.