Original artwork, not a still
Lord of the Flies • 1954
The boys' chant, Lord of the Flies (1954)
Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The chant is the book's argument in miniature: a hunting rhyme turns into a mob's license, and the beast they are killing is the one they carry. It has become shorthand for crowd cruelty, and a staple of school desks, where it is the line most teenagers remember.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Lord of the FliesShow the scene
The chant rises in Chapter 9, 'A View to a Death', as a storm breaks over the island and the boys dance in a circle round Jack's fire. Simon, who has found that the 'beast' on the mountain is only a dead parachutist, staggers out of the forest to tell them, and the frenzied circle takes him for the beast itself. The words echo the earlier pig-hunt rituals, and the killing that follows is the turning point of Golding's 1954 novel.
Sources (2)
- Lord of the Flies (Wikiquote)whole pageReference checked
- Lord of the Flies (Wikipedia)whole pageReference checked
Context reviewed
