Obviously on a conscious level, the boys perceive this beast as an actual animal rather than as the conceptualization of the evil inherent in humanity. Yet these littlest boys have an immediate and instinctive recognition of the island as a threat to them: They realize that they lack the domesticity that protected them back home. The older boys ostensibly reject the little boys’ fear, presenting the logical explanation that the island is too small for large predators. Ralph is vehement on this point: “Something he had not known was there rose in him and compelled him to make the point, loudly and again. ‘But I tell you there isn’t a beast!’” He is denying that there exists a dark side to humanity.
The fire on the mountain has tremendous symbolic meaning. First, it represents hope and aspirations for the future, a gift from the gods, a tool that separates humankind from the animals. Just as the beach platform and the untamed jungle represent the duality in humanity’s behavior, the fire, also, represents both savagery (evil) and hope: “On one side the air was cool, but on the other the fire thrust out a savage arm of heat.” Golding could be describing here how societies and individuals contain these conflicting yet complementary forces. In some individuals, the savage side runs closer to the surface, as with Jack, but it exists in everyone. The boys’ fire shows that one entity can contain hot and cold, good and evil, civility and savagery.
