The Beast Within by Shakota

The Beast Within by Shakota - July 2013 Scholarship Essay

I think we can all agree on one thing: many books on our high school reading list can be tedious at best. Even though I usually read anything I can get my hands on, I have had to struggle through my fair share. However, one book that I read as a sophomore stands out above all the rest – The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I have always been one of those kids who takes the assigned book home and finishes it the first night, and the same held true for this book. As is the case for most high school classes, we did a chapter-by-chapter analysis of The Lord of the Flies. Instead of an English class, though, I studied the book in Psychology Class. This gave me an unique insight into Golding's phenomenal piece of literature. From the beginning I could tell it was like no other book I had ever read. The delicately woven prose and intricate story-telling quickly throws the reader into a story of survival and murder. William Golding portrays the darkness of the human psyche so well that readers do not even stop to question it. I particularly enjoyed the piece because of its controversial undertones: that even the "best and brightest" among us will turn savage in an attempt to survive. As Mark Twain once wrote, "There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages." The truth is that deep down, we all hold a savagery within us. Humans are capable of amazing – and terrible – things. To me, the most remarkable part of The Lord of the Flies is how readily and bluntly it portrays this. William Golding was able to convey this savagery in a way that made me question my own humanity. The Lord of the Flies taught me that civilization has dulled us; made us weak. More than anything, though, it has given us a sense of false security. We are horrified at tales of survival – at the things people will do to survive. In reality, we all have that potential. We all harbor our own Lord of the Flies.