Allusion of Hitler Adolf Hitler’s name being mentioned may portray a look of disgust on most people’s faces. Some authors, like William Golding, have a tendency to reference Hitler in their novels in order to get their point of oppression across. In the Lord of the Flies, the author portrays Jack as having characteristics of a dictator. As he grows both in power and cruelty, the character of Jack takes on the allusion of Hitler. The text demonstrates clear evidence that Jack is an allusion to Hitler by his actions and his obsessive craving for power over the group. Jack is depicted as being a dictator from the very beginning of the novel. His obsessive inclination towards leadership and being in control is demonstrated early in the novel. When the boys find themselves on the island without any adults, they decide to take it upon themselves to elect a chief. Before they follow through with the election Jack says, “I ought to be chief because I’m chapter chorister and head boy,” (Golding 22). Being the head of the choir group, Jack is oppressively used to being obeyed. With arrogance, he assumes that the rest of the boys will automatically listen to him. In the outcome of the election, the boys decide to choose Ralph as chief. The fact that Ralph was simply attractive and he was the first to blow the conch, influenced their decision immensely. …show more content…
The children of the group obeyed any of Jack’s orders. The novel quotes, “the party of boys marched approximately in step in two parallel lines and dressed in strangely eccentric clothing,” (Golding 190). Each boy wore a black cap with a silver badge on it. On the other hand, the boy who had control over them was dressed in the same manner though his cap badge was golden. The golden badge symbolizes leadership and authority. The leader’s ability to control his group in that manner perceives him as dictator, just like
When Ralph blows the conch, Jack is introduced to the reader for the first time. He is represented as an audacious and selfish boy who likes to order others around when he says "I ought to be chief, because I'm chapter chorister and head boy"(Goldberg p.22). It also confirms his hunger for power and wanting control over everything. His choleric and petulant personality can be seen when he says "Shut up, Fatty."(p.23), also revealing that he is rude and inconsiderate of others. Despite his obnoxious personality, his conscious of civilization keeps him from killing the first pig they see. He even recommends that the boys should have rules to keep things in order.
Sir William Golding has constantly been a man who sees nothing good in anything. He examined the world to be a dreadful place due to the people who has populated the Earth. In order to display how he observes the world which was around the period of the second world war, he came to the decision of producing a novel. His novel was titled “Lord of the flies”. In the novel, William Golding familiarized his audience with three groups of boys; the hunters, the younger children and the gentle boys. Each faction of children in the book; “Lord of the flies” held a significant meaning. Jack and his hunters represented the Nazi’s or a more current group, Donald Trump supporters because they are people who unfortunately fail to think before
Jack ruled with, what we call today, an “Iron Fist”. Golding shows this by telling how Jack ruled, how he’d beat those who didn’t obey him and how he was violent, greedy, and self-absorbed. He rolled a boulder down the mountain the killed Piggy and organized a party to mutilate Ralph. By this point in the story, he was so infatuated with power that he didn’t care about being rescued and that he was willing to spend the rest of his life on that island just to be the leader and ruler of all everyone. This is Golding’s way of showing how Jack had become so obsessed with power that he would kill anyone who said he was unfit for it and have a public “example” to show what would happen to those who opposed and threatened his
Writer Steven James said, “The true nature of man left to himself without restraint is not nobility but savagery.” This quote can be used to accurately describe Jack Merridew, one of the young boys who becomes stranded on an unknown island in the Pacific. Lord of the Flies was written by William Golding; the novel explores the dark side of humanity and the underlying savagery in even the most civilized person. The novel opens on a group of British boys between ages six and twelve stranded on a tropical island without adult supervision. The boys elect a leader in an attempt to form a civilized society; however, their peaceful island descends into chaos as Ralph and Jack continuously argue over who should be the leader of the island. From the beginning of the novel, Jack is seen as power hungry, envious, and manipulative to further his own agenda, the anti-thesis to Ralph’s concern with social order and their future.
You were taught manners since you were a child, but what would happen if you had the power and had control over the rules. In the beginning of Lord of the Flies, Jack in the begin was fine with just being the leader of the hunters, but he still greeds for more power, and wants complete control. As for Hitler, he wanted some power to show Germans to take pride in the country again, but same as jack he just wanted more. In the adventure novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, and the articles on Hitler by BBC, and Kershaw highlights the correlations, and disparity between Jack and Hitler. Both figures show how human nature can change within people based on their environment around them. In the information given people can make comparisons to Jack and Hitler. Each show how their size and age don't matter to them in their situation when they want to gain followers. Hitler and Jack both take their situations seriously, but their views are different. They are both known for their ways of fighting and their urge to win, which show how narcissistic they are. Jack and Hitler, both show how human nature can change in anybody no matter the age, or how they were raised
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.
Jack’s authoritative figure in the beginning of Lord of the Flies is one quality that shows how he is a dynamic character. To begin with, Jack shows he is authoritative by sabotaging Ralph’s integrity and rules. For instance, on pages one-hundred and one and one-hundred and two, Jack says, “We don’t need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us.” Jack is trying to get rid of the idea that the conch, or freedom of speech, is needed. This is another step away from civilized behavior because a newly established order of power replaces the conch. Another way Jack shows he is authoritative is by wanting to be a leader. First, Jack forms his own group that he calls the hunters. Then, Jack intimidates the other boys to join his group by talking about the beast. Jack tells the little ‘uns that are scared that they will forget about the beast. ...
Upon the arrival of the boys to the island Jack immediately found himself in the center of a power struggle. Although the conflict was brief, there was still a very obvious confrontation between Jack and Ralph. Once the boys had assembled themselves there was an election to see who was to be chief. Despite the fact that Ralph was voted leader, the desire to be in command never left Jack. Jack already had some leadership skills, being head choirboy at his old school, and he continuously challenged Ralph. The greatest source of conflict between Jack and Ralph was the debate over the necessity of maintaining a fire. Ralph felt that it was necessary to keep it burning at all times while Jack believed that hunting pigs and getting meat was much more essential.
At the opening of the novel, Ralph and Jack get on extremely well. We are informed Jack, “shared his burden,” and there was an, “invisible light of friendship,” between the two boys. Jack changes considerably throughout this novel. At first he tells us, “I agree with Ralph we’ve got to have rules and obey them,” This shows us that at the beginning of the novel, just like Ralph, he wants to uphold a civilised society. We are also notified, “Most powerfully there was the conch.” As the conch represents democracy we can see that at the beginning of the novel the boys sustain a powerful democratic society.
When it comes to Jack’s fear of not being chief, it brings out the worst in him and it has an effect on others. For instance, when the boys are deciding on who should be the chief, Ralph wins by a landslide. “Even the choir applauded; and the freckles on Jack’s face disappeared under a blush of mortification” (Golding 19). That is the first physical evidence of Jack being humiliated by Ralph and judging by Jack’s personality, he is not used to failure so it has a big impact on him. This motivates him to destroy Ralph and the rivalry between the two begins. Another point is that Jack uses fear and threats to control the boys. For example, when Robert tells Roger “’He’s going to beat Wilfred.’ ‘What for?’ Robert shook his head doubtfully” (Golding 176) it shows that Jack is violent and is using his...
The desire to have power on the island creates the corruption of power within all who crave it, leading to their transformation to become evil human beings. In the novel, the boys arrive on an island without any guidance and the lack of civilization which makes it impossible for them to survive for a long time. To ensure the boy's safety and survival, the boys have to choose a chief who can keep order within the boys. Jack, the strongest character in the novel, believes that he is the most eligible to be the chief because he is the “chapter chorister and head boy”(34) of the choir boys. Jack already has power and he wants to become even powerful to point that he can control all the boys on the island. However, when voting for the chief, the
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The Flies’ tells the story of a group of English boys isolated on a desert island, left to attempt to retain civilisation. In the novel, Golding shows one of the boys, Jack, to change significantly. At the beginning of the book, Jack’s character desires power and although he does not immediately get it, he retains the values of civilized behaviour. However, as the story proceeds, his character becomes more savage, leaving behind the values of society. Jack uses fear of the beast to control the other boys and he changes to become the book’s representation of savagery, violence and domination. He is first taken over with an obsession to hunt, which leads to a change in his physical appearance This change of character is significant as he leads the other boys into savagery, representing Golding’s views of there being a bad and unforgiving nature to every human.
In Lord of the Flies, Golding’s portrayal of Jack’s growing power on the island aligns with Thomas Hobbes’s assertion that humans naturally tend to act violently and contentiously, but Golding’s depiction of Jack as a leader also ridicules Hobbes’s idea of an absolute monarchy.
In his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding describes Jack as someone who promotes unity, someone who is skilled at manipulating people, and someone who idolizes violent actions. Jack has a lot in common with the World War II German dictator, Adolf Hitler, who had also demonstrated desires for unity, the manipulation of others and increased violence. All these similarities between them led to them destroying their society.
On the dystopian island of Lord of the Flies, authored by William Golding, one can observe the boy's’ descent into madness. When a group of young children were abandoned on an island without adult supervision, chaos rampaged. This loss civility is most clearly demonstrated by Jack and his effect on others. The text illustrates how quickly he succumbed to the savagery, the way his thirst for power and his dire situation brought him to barbarity, and how the boys followed suit, losing all their humanity.