In Lord of the Flies, the general boys, at first, are afraid of the unknown and deaths. After Jack becomes the chief and forms his tribe, Jack and Roger’s violence becomes the general fear. The main characters also have their own fears. Ralph and Piggy are afraid of the loss of civilisation, the collapse of law and order. Piggy is also afraid of the loss of democracy and not being able to see clear. Jack is afraid of being overpowered by the power of civilisation. Simon is afraid of savagery. For Golding, he is afraid of the evil human nature and people’s misunderstanding that evil is from elsewhere instead of within ourselves. He is also afraid that savagery would defeat civilisation as well as evil defeating goodness and dictatorship defeating democracy.

In general, the boys’ fears can be divided into 2 parts, one is when they first get onto the island and the other one is after Jack has formed his tribe. The boys are afraid of the unknown. The boy with a mulberry birthmark on his face claims that there is a ‘snake’, or a ‘beastie’ as he later calls it, as early as in Chapter 2. When they first arrived at the island, everything is unclear and unsafe, and even overwhelming. The unstable situation arouses fear. It is the human instinct to be afraid of something that we do not know. The boy with a birthmark gives the fear of the unknown a more concrete image as a beast. The fear of the unknown is then turned into the fear of the beast. The boys are still rational when they first hear the boy with a birthmark talks about the beastie, but as they get more and more savage, the fear increases. In Chapter 5, Jack says, ‘You littluns started all this, with the talk of fear. Beast!’, and also admits that they, including himself and his hunters, sometimes, are also frightened. The suggested existence of a beast and the fear of it remain after the boy with a birthmark has died. There is no one else to prove if he really sees a beast or not, and this leaves the other boys suspecting and scared. The imaginary beast becomes more realistic and more significant later in the novel. The fear of the unknown beast leads the boys to savage acts, for example, mistaking the dead parachutist as the beast in Chapter 6, sticking up a pig’s head as a gift for the beast in Chapter 8, the murder of Simon in Chapter 9, etc. The fear of the beast is also used by Jack to control the other boys. Jack reminds the boys about the beast from time to time, and emphasises the importance of his hunters and that he can protect the boys from the beast. The other boys’ obedience and admiration for Jack further prove that they are afraid of the unknown and the beast.

At first, the boys are also afraid of deaths. In Chapter one, even Jack, the most savage boy on the island, is afraid of death. He encounters a pig in Chpater 1 but at that time he dares not to kill or even hurt it. He cannot stand ‘the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh’, as he has been controlled by sense before. When the boy with a birthmark dies in Chapter 2, ‘the boys looked at each other fearfully, unbelieving.’ This is the first death on the island. The boys have not faced death before and it scares them. In Chapter 9, Ralph, Piggy, Samneric are afraid of Simon’s death. They do not want to face the truth that they, as a whole, have killed Simon. They keep finding excuses such as, ‘It was just an accident’ and ‘We left early.’ In Chapter 11, there is a silence after Piggy’s death. The boys, though they are savage, cannot act like nothing have happened instantly. Ralph is especially afraid of Piggy’s death that he escapes and gives up arguing or fighting with Jack. Ralph is also afraid of his own death. He tries to hide and run as to avoid being found and killed by the tribe.

After the formation of the tribe, the general boys, especially the littluns, are afraid of Jack and Roger's violence. When Jack sticks up the pig’s head on a stick in Chapter 8, ‘instinctively the boys drew back’ and there is a silence. Though the boys themselves are savage, the degree of their savagery is still far from that of Jack, and Jack’s cruel beheading scares the boys. In Chapter 10, Samneric tell Ralph that Jack and Roger ‘are both terrors’. To the boys, Jack and Roger are not just savages but dictator and sadist respectively. They successfully show the other boys their superiority and power over them and this becomes one of the general fears. When Ralph sees the Lord of the Flies in Chapter 12, ‘a sick fear and rage swept him’. Jack and Roger’s violence shocks him and smashes his hope that all the murders are only accidents into pieces. He then realises that the young boys are actually capable of killing and that they are really going to hunt him like a pig.

Both Ralph and Piggy are afraid of the collapse of law and order. The two try hard to maintain rules, like the society outside the island. Piggy and Ralph start the system of calling assemblies by the conch and letting the one who holds the conch to speak. Although they are on an island without adults and order, they still want to be civilised. Later when the civilisation they build is crashed by Jack and his tribe, the two go to Jack’s end of the island to argue with him. Piggy says, ’Because what’s right’s right’ and Ralph calls Jack a ‘thief’, though there is no legislation on the island to judge Jack. When the conch is defunctioned by Jack, law and oder collapse and the two can do nothing about it. There is nothing left to say who is right and who is wrong if law and order are ignored.

They are also afraid of the loss of civilisation. This fear can also be interpreted by the fear of not getting rescued. They are the last ones to give up the hope of being rescued, which brings them back to civilisation. They get angry in Chapter 4, when the hunters let the fire go out. Ralph’s over-reaction to deny that he forgets about getting rescued also shows his obsession with civilisation. Apart from the fear of not getting rescued, they are afraid that Samneric would have their faces painted in Chapter 11. Samneric are the only ones left who do not join the tribe. They are afriad of the spread of savagery and that savagery would take over the civilised sides of the twins.

Besides his common fears with Ralph, Piggy is also afraid of not being able to see clear, both physically and metaphorically. Piggy is short-sighted and he needs his glasses to see clear. Everytime without his glasses, Piggy cannot see clearly and he has no ide what the fire which is made by his glasses would be like. Unclear future scares rational people like him. In Chapter 10, after his glasses are damaged, he is not as civilised and rational as before. He says Simon’s death is an ‘accident’ and denies the fact that he could have done something to help Simon during the trival dance. In Chapter 11, Piggy keeps telling Ralph to remind him what is happening because he cannot see. The inability to see clearly directly causes his death as he cannot see the big boulder. Piggy without glasses is extremely fragile before savagery.

Piggy belongs to the lower-class on the island and this makes him fear the loss of democracy. From the start, no one is willing to hear what Piggy says because of his physical inability and his cockney accent. They do not even ask for Piggy’s real name. Holding the conch is the only way that Piggy may be heard. He often says, ’I’ve got the conch’ or a littlun ‘has got a conch’. He wants to protect the right of the lower class to voice out their opinion. In Chapter 2, he is the one who caresses the conch when it is left behind. He is also holding the conch when he dies, and this shows how much it means to Piggy.

Jack is afraid that he will be overpowered by the power of civilisation, morality and reason. In Chapter 2 , Jack swearing that ‘next time’ he must kill a pig shows his strong desire to get away from moral restriction which used to control him before he gets onto the island. Later in other chapters, he and Ralph, the leader came into a conflict. He tries every mean to eliminate Ralph and his authority, for instance, challenging Ralph in front of other boys in Chapter 7, saying that Ralph is a coward in Chapter 8, and defunctioning the conch on his side of the island in Chapter 9. In the beginning of Chapter 8, he openly asks the boys if they want Ralph as the chief. After the vote fails, he leads to boys to hunt and that is the time when he declares himself as chief. 'The crisis passed easily.' He finally comes to power. To stabilise his authority, Jack constantly shows his power over the other boys. He exercises violence to the littluns for no apparent reason. In Chapter 10, forces Samneric who support Ralph to join his tribe in Chapter 10, and forces them to betray Ralph and tell Ralph's hiding place. However, it seems to Jack that all these are not enough. He fears that Ralph would come back to power and become chief once again. To prevent his fear from happening, he tells his tribe to hunt and kill Ralph.

Simon is afraid of savagery. Throughout the whole novel, Simon is the one who tells the boys that there is no physical existence of the beast and that the beast are themselves. Because of his fear of savagery, he tries hard to safeguard civilisation and the goodness in men’s heart. When the boys have a talk about the beast in Chapter 5, Simon tries his best to warn the others that ‘Maybe it’s [the beast is] only us.’ Before his death in Chapter 9, he tries to find out what the ‘beast from air’ really is, as to ease the boys fears and to bring them back to civilisation and sense. When being attacked, he still ‘cries out something about a dead man on the hill’. He sacrifices himself to the attempt to diminish savagery. In Chapter 8, Simon has an imaginary conversation with the Lord of the Flies which represents evil and savagery. The conversation reflects what is on Simon’s mind. To him, the Lord of the Flies is threatening him. ‘Or else, we shall do you.’ Simon knows that is not wanted among the savages, and that gives him the thought that he will be killed by them. The thought terrifies him, ‘he fell down and lost conscious’. Ironically, his fear comes true in the tribal dance. Simon is weak in front of human’s inherent savagery.

Golding is afraid of the evil human nature. ‘Man produces evil as a bee produces honey.’ Golding wrote this novel after being involved in the Second World War when he saw how cruel and evil humans can be. The setting of the novel, an uninhabited island with no one else on it, gives the characters a neutral condition with no restraints. Golding believes that without law and order, human’s evil nature is revealed. When the boys can do whatever they want to on the island, what they choose to do is to form a tribe and to kill and hunt each other, instead of cooperating to get back to civilisation. Even Ralph and Piggy, who are civilised and kind-hearted, have their own evil sides. For Ralph, he bullies Piggy, enjoys hunting and he also has ‘the desire to squeeze and hurt’. Piggy’s saying that Simon ‘asked for’ his death is cruel and even cold-blooded. These sides of the seemingly good characters show Golding’s fear of the evil human nature.

Golding fears that people would misunderstand evil. At the time when Golding wrote Lord of the Flies, some people think that children are innocent or only black people and Germans are evil and uncivilised. Golding wrote this novel to tell others that evil is regardless of age and race. Simon’s quote, ‘Maybe it’s only us’, reveals that evil is not from the society or elsewhere, but right within ourselves. However, the other boys fail to understand Simon’s insight. Golding is afraid that most of the people are like the other boys, and the truth will never be learnt. Jack says, ‘We're English, and the English are best at everything’, which is ironic because he later becomes extremely savage. At that time, British believe that they are well-educated and civilised, they blame the others for being savages and evil. The naval officer in the last chapter also says, ’I should have thought that a pack of British boys, [...] would have been able to put up a better show than that.’ However, Golding’s little English savages show that evil is inherent. No influence is needed to make a man evil.

Besides, Golding fears that savagery would defeat civilisation. In Chapter 2, the conch is already forgotten when Jack suggests the boys to build a fire, which becomes a killing fire, on the mountain top. In Chapter 4, Jack and his hunters go hunting and let the signal fire out. Their savage instinct to hunt cuts the link to civilisation. The example shows that civilisation is hard to build but easy to destroy. Another example is Roger smashing the conch into powder. The conch is the rule that the civilised ones set up, it is too fragile that it cannot exist under savagery.

Golding is afraid that goodness would be diminished by evil. There are both goodness and evil in men’s heart, represented by Simon and Jack’s tribe respectively. Simon is the only saint-like figure in the novel. Unlike Ralph and Piggy, he is not savage at all and is nice to everyone. The only perfect character being killed by the evil force shows that Golding fears that in our hearts, evil would finally take over kindness.

Dictatorship defeating democratic rule is another of Golding’s fear. Golding has been through the two world wars and he has seen how democracy falls. After Germany lost in the First World War, the Germans were living a very harsh and difficult life. They therefore supported the Nazi party. The democratic government in Germany, the Weimar Republic, was then taken over by Nazism. Under harsh conditions, people tend to support strong leaders and governments. In the novel, the boys like Jack as the chief because he guarantees them meat and protection. This is very much like the situation of post-WWI Germany. Golding are afraid that people would support dictatorship without considering the long-term adverseness it might bring.

In conclusion, most of the boys are afraid of the unknown, deaths and violence. The cvilised two, Ralph and Piggy are afraid of the loss of civilisation and the collapse of law and order. Piggy is also afraid of not being able to see clearly and the loss of democracy. Jack is afraid of being overpowered by civilisation while Simon is afraid of evil. The author Golding is afraid of the evil nature of human and the misunderstanding of it. He also has fears that savagery would defeat civilisation, evil defeating goodness and dictatorship defeating democracy.