# Can we speak of the beast in Lord of the Flies as a 'big lie"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-speak-of-the-beast-in-lord-of-the-flies-as-a-big-lie/953361>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** books-writing-myths\
**Created:** [October 28, 2021, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-speak-of-the-beast-in-lord-of-the-flies-as-a-big-lie/953361 "2021-10-28T06:30:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-speak-of-the-beast-in-lord-of-the-flies-as-a-big-lie/953361/1 "2021-10-28T06:30:38Z")

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Can we speak of the presence of the beast in’ Lord of the Flies’ as a 'big lie" even though no one can really dispute it except eventually Simon (who is killed before he can reveal that there is no beast). Does’t a big lie require that a smaller number of people know the truth? If everyone is oblivious to a lie except the reader, can we still refer to something like the beast as a 'big lie"?

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**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-speak-of-the-beast-in-lord-of-the-flies-as-a-big-lie/953361/2 "2021-10-28T12:50:24Z")

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Questions about books are best suited to Cafe Society; I’ve moved it for you.

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**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-speak-of-the-beast-in-lord-of-the-flies-as-a-big-lie/953361/3 "2021-10-28T13:52:38Z")

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“The big lie” generally refers to a large-scale lie known and deliberately propagated by a lot of people - usually powerful people. In LOTF (to the extent I remember it) what happens is a lot more akin to an irrational belief system - a pagan proto-religion, if you will - involving fear and appeasement of a scary unseen entity whose aims and wishes can only be guessed at by a small group who lack understanding of what is really happening.

If LOTF describes a “big lie”, then religion is a “big lie” too. And there are a lot of people who would agree with that, but I don’t know that the author was making that claim per se.

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**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-speak-of-the-beast-in-lord-of-the-flies-as-a-big-lie/953361/4 "2021-10-28T15:12:43Z")

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Thanks Gyrate. William Golding seems to have been opposed to institutionalized religion, not to religion per se. He himself seems to have been religious.  
If Jack were trying to institutionalize a religious cult centered around appeasing the ‘beast’ then that may have been a theme but I can’t really say for sure. Jack does cynically propagate the existence of the beast to induce fear in order to manipulate and control the other boys. However, I do think the ‘term big lie’ is misapplied here, since Jack believes in the beast. It is no lie as far as he is concerned, though he nonetheless exploits the belief in the beast to gain the ascendancy.