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.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the true 'beast' may be the darkness within ourselves rather than an external monster.
In this excerpt from 'Lord of the Flies,' the characters discuss the possibility that the real danger lies within the boys themselves, rather than an unknown external force. This highlights the theme of innate human nature and the struggle between civilization and savagery, suggesting that the most terrifying elements of humanity originate from within rather than from the environment or society.
In practice
During a discussion on human behavior in a psychology class.
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.
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.
Together, joined in effort by the burden, they staggered up the last steep of the mountain. Together, they chanted One! Two! Three! and crashed the log on to the great pile. Then they stepped back, laughing with triumphant pleasure.
The trace left behind is substituted for the practice. It exhibits the (voracious) property that the geographical system has of being able to transform action into legibility, but in doing so it causes a way of being in the world to be forgotten.
Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.
Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.
I begin each day with holy Mass, receiving Jesus hidden under the appearance of a simple piece of bread. Then I go out into the streets and I find the same Jesus hidden in the dying destitute, the AIDS patients, the lepers, the abandoned children, the hungry, and the homeless. It's the same Jesus.
I had displeased the jacobins by blaming their aristocratic usurpation of legitimate powers; the priests of all sorts by claiming religious liberty; the anarchists by repressing them; and the conspirators by rejecting their offers.
Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet.
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