fear

• "Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it's only us."



  anaphora highlights how Simon attempts to rationalise his divine understanding of the evil of mankind - tentativeness connotes the subtlety of Simon's didactic message to calm fear
• "fear can't hurt you any more than a dream"


  fear of "the Beast" ultimately drives the boys to savagery, however "the Beast" is the intrinsic evil of man
• Jack creates a culture of fear in his dictatorship that conditions the boys for violence.