Jack Merridew: Choir Boy or Savage Boy?

After being marooned on an unknown, uninhabited island and desperate to survive, the characters in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies are pushed to the limits of their humanity, and no one is safe from the atrocities from within, not even the seemingly innocent littluns. In an environment where civilization does not exist, the boys of the story attempt to form a society among themselves. Among the group of boys is a young boy who stands out from the rest. Jack Merridew, the leader of the choir boys, strives to take the role of leader of the boys, and he appears to be completely competent. In the beginning, Jack seems to be innocent and civilized. Jack is the cultured leader of the boys’ choir. Although the reader’s first impression of Jack Merridew may be one of an innocent leader eager to be rescued, his true, truculent nature manifests with the development of the novel, and the reader is gripped by Jack’s true schismatic, belligerent, and iconoclastic nature.

When Jack loses the election to become chief to Ralph, it becomes apparent that Jack is schismatic and wholeheartedly intends to act against Ralph’s actions and decisions. From small nuances such as churlish remarks to fights, it is obvious that Jack intends to eventually either dethrone Ralph or form his own tribe. In one instance, Ralph assigns Jack a very simplistic task of watching the fire on the mountain, yet Jack decides that his appetence for blood and meat is more important than fulfilling his duty to the fire. Disobeying Ralph’s orders, Jack defects from his post to hunt and does not attempt to have another person tend the fire in his absence. Because of Jack’s actions, Ralph verbally scolds Jack and states to Jack, “You talk. But you can’t even build hut...

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...would be in the pursuit of righteousness due to the fact that he was the leader of the choir at a private boys’ school. As it turns out, the results of being absent from society and the heightening desperation to survive causes the wickedness sealed away deep within him to break its chains and overtake his personality. Throughout the novel, the reader experiences the change of Jack’s character from one of righteousness and a fair leader to a schismatic, belligerent savage with no reverence for objects with sacred values. The reader can observe these obvious alterations as everybody who isn’t on his side becomes victimized by a malicious beast known by the name of Jack Merridew. The beast lurking in the darkness of Jack’s inner being maliciously exposes itself and ultimately turns a once innocent child into a bloodied savage with almost no morality left in his body.