Fear Is Everything The Opposite Of Who You Are Essay, Research Paper

FEAR IS EVERYTHING THE OPPOSITE OF WHO YOU ARE. Have you ever heard the statement When you are afraid you do things which normally you wouldn t do and thought about what it really meant. There is an extremely deep meaning to this statement, which not everybody completely realizes. Should we not begin to appreciate this concept by knowing what fear, besides a simply definition really is? As we search for the definition of this indefinable word we find out it is a painful emotion exited by danger . Hadn t we all experienced the images fear awakes inside of us we might actually find satisfaction in this explanation. Fear is inside of each human being on this earth in different forms and for unlike reasons. Sometimes seen a good thing considering the protection it gives us but an appalling thought felling how it is part of us and how it has the power to take complete control. It is then that we do things we would normally never do You must ask yourself about your identity to recognize the meaning in the statement fear is everything the opposite of who you are for you could never find an agreement with this philosophical declaration not knowing what is meant by your opposite. In Lord of the Flies Golding conveys the message that there are no beasts in this world that are outside our minds our imaginations. There are no beasts besides the ones that are only found deep inside of all human beings. Golding leads us to the understanding that evil is inside of US but it happens frequently that we chose not to acknowledge this presence. After coming to this conclusion analyzing Golding s novel meticulously, I agree with this assumption made about the meaning of fear. It isn t difficult to find ways in which fear overpowers me as it usually gives me a feeling of guilt, as I m afraid of the consequences something might bring later on. I begin to imagine things without realizing making them seem worse and worse as I m thinking more and more. I cannot clearly enjoy the most enjoyable things cannot think about the most natural things as this FEAR has taken control over my thoughts and emotions. In Golding s brilliant novel the boys draw wild conclusions and convince themselves of how terrible this beast really is without having the slightest idea. Why and how can this happen? Again, this fear of the unknown has taken over their imagination their thoughts and this power in the end turns many of them into savages doing what was unthinkable to them before Fear lent wings to it s feet – Virgil. This is a tremendously true statement but what does it mean? Is it not that once you re scared the one thing you want to do is just run or fly away? You never want to face this fear because it is exactly what all of us are afraid of, fear itself. It isn t for no reason that Roosevelt said, the only thing you must fear is fear itself I m convinced that once the boys on the island heard of the beast all they wished for is to leave the island but they couldn t as there was no way out no rescue. It is the same for all of us for we can t run away either, but not because we are trapped on an island. Maybe we can hide from it for a day a week a month a year, but not forever. One day, and that day WILL come you will have to face this fear, no matter what it is. You have an apprehension of danger and pain as it is defined, but this apprehension will never let you go until you have confronted this it. As said before, whatever you do it will come back. Knowing this there is a way in which fear protects everybody. Fear is what keeps us from going over the top from going beyond what we see as our limits . The fact that you are afraid of fear protects you as it keeps us from doing the harmful, as the one thing we are truly scared of is to fear. Coming back to the statement about our opposites Once we understand who we are it often happens that you see others who are the opposite of you things that are different from you. Often we find that these things awake certain fears inside of us, thoughts such as whether we do this or that the nonexistent correct way … Fear controls us, we don t control it. This is exactly the reason the boys couldn t be in command of their savagery towards the end of the book. They couldn t overpower being afraid of the horrible and harmless beast. It is the case that fear protects you, but you must keep in mind that this counts only to a certain extent. Once this limit is stretched to far, we are dominated by fear not only mentally but also socially and intellectually. It s social effect comes in as when we are scared of something we fear its power, which it could have over us. This affects the way we act around these things these people. Mentally it affects your imagination as you cannot control it and the way it turns you towards savagery. Fear has also an intellectual effect on society as it causes your judgments and decisions as well as opinions, but as we all saw in Golding s novel these change once your under the pressure of fear. They only change though, because you do what was unthinkable to you before and because it is the beast, the fear inside of you that makes these judgments, opinions and decisions.

Coming back to my point about fear dominating us after crossing a certain limit of where it still gives us protection, we must consider the thin line between sanity and insanity. Trying to find the definition of insanity I found out that it is a degree of mental illness causing one to act against the laws set by society . Fear is in my eyes what causes a person to cross that line from sanity to insanity. It is when we are scared to go over that limit, just like the boys on the island when they turned towards being savages. Once this limit is stretched to far, there seems to be no way out as it is then that fear has taken control. What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What s the grownups going to think? Going off- hunting pigs-letting fires our-and now? I found this quote very powerful as it symbolizes how slowly everything seemed to get out of hand. In the beginning of the novel the boys had a fire and set rules which they obeyed with respect. As fear began to dominate them in many ways, as explained before, everything broke down and savagery began. This happened only because these young innocent boys were afraid, doing what they normally wouldn t do. Their imagination was full of dark images created by fear that they did not see how slowly even the last bit of control was lost. It happened frequently that Jack apparently tried to convince the littluns that there was no beastie on this island. He himself tried to believe this and by convincing the littluns , all he really did was encourage himself to think so. As the story progressed towards the climax we noticed that soon even Jack officially believed in this evil creature. This was the point in the novel where fear captured also his imagination, where the limit was stretched to far. Whether this is a character flaw or not can be discussed and seen from all different views, but mostly relates to human nature. In Golding s novel it was human nature, which was an extremely important aspect to analyze. As the boys, civilized in the beginning tried to survive on this island they slowly lost all hope and sanity. In the beginning, happy and satisfied to be on this beautiful and mysterious island without adults later wishing for nothing more than to go home and at the end loosing all hope turning into savages. This process was only caused by the fear of the beast , which in their imaginations grew wilder and more dangerous every minute. What they didn t realize though, was that this beast was nowhere but in each and every one of them. This is what Golding is trying to bring across there is evil in EVERY human being and as it is awakened by fear the unthinkable happens. In the end though, it is our nature the nature of our society that puts this evil inside of us. I ve got the conch, I m not talking about the fear, I m talking about the beast. Be frightened if you like. Buts as for the beast As Jack says this, the one thing he did not realize is that the fear is the beast inside each of the boys on the island and this is precisely the theme Golding is trying to bring across to the reader. Is there anyone without fear? To me this seems more than just impossible as whether little or old, fear does not pass by one of us. The statement about our fear of our opposites could not be true otherwise. From the day we are born we fear, often not being aware of it. Going from being afraid of the wild dog next door as a little kid, to loosing our job as we grow older to having a beast haunt your dreams night by night as portrayed in Lord of the Flies, each and every one of these scares us to certain points. There is not one kid, not one adult nor one boy on the island whose imagination has not caused them to fear the horrible and harmless as it is in our nature. This fear protects us in a ways that as a little kid you wouldn t dare come near the dog, as a grownup wouldn t dare to let your boss down and as a boy on the island wouldn t come near the beast. Only with the young boys, this invisible limit was crossed and the evil was unfortunately awakened dominating their minds. It was then that the boys began to have terrible nightmares as their fear would not go, it was INSIDE them. Did they use this as an excuse though, as an excuse to do the awful? Of course, this is another aspect to view the behavior of Jack and his hunters PERFECTION! What is really meant by this word? I believe that also this is a very general term and cannot be defined very easily as nothing on this planet is perfect, especially not our society and its nature. Our disability to be perfect supports the statement Fear is everything the opposite of who you are as the thin line which divides sanity and insanity or fear s social, mental and intellectual domination is caused by this. The answer to the question of who we really are or the power of fear in my life leads me to the conclusion that what we must really fear is fear itself as it cannot be defeated and causes us to do, what usually we would have never dared to do