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Jitters Creep Upon the Young Fear can destroy a person’s outlook on life. In William Golding’s book, Lord of the Flies a group of schoolboys from England are deserted on an uninhabited island. They are forced to live on their own with no parental control or saying in their actions, which eventually causes absurdity within the group. From the very beginning of the story, fear haunts the boys. Jack is the primary cause for this fear; he is merciless and strives for complete control on his path to becoming the main leader. His actions towards the group cause fear, delusion, and anxiety in the young boys. Thus, Golding shows the ruthless side of Jack and the destruction his control causes. Jack’s thirst for complete control over the island …show more content…
causes fear for the rest of the boys. His actions towards the group scare the boys because of his style of being the leader. This isn’t normal for a young boy. The hardships that Jack puts the other boys through, makes personal slaves to the demanding boy. “The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on the hill. The savages chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!” (Golding 152). This symbolizes a gruesome seen in the book when Simon is mistaken for the beast and is killed by his fellow “friends”. It was Jack’s idea to go after “the beast”, not knowing who or what it was. Jack and his savages created a chant to kill the beast, but in reality the beast is in their minds; there is no beast on the island, the beast is a created image in their head of fears that have been haunting them. While Simon was being murdered, he was explaining that the fear that they “saw” was the man on top of the mountain. Jack is too delusional and confused to realize the crime that his group committed. “He jumped to his feet and stood over Ralph. Piggy states, “It was dark. There was that—that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared!” (Golding 156). After Simon’s murder, Jack is still denying that his tribe killed him and that it was just karma. Jack commanded his savages to kill “the beast” which caused fear in Piggy and many of the young ones. Jack’s character is very unpredictable in different situations and is frightening to others.
During the boy’s meetings, they argue about power or the conch. The conch was a key symbol in this book and to the boys because it meant that they still needed to be civilized with a strong leader, unlike Jack. Golding writes, “Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went” (Golding 181). During an argument between the factions on island, Roger, moved the lever, which held back the rock that ended up killing Piggy, this was not an intentional act committed by Roger. “Suddenly Jack bounded out from the tribe and began screaming wildly, Jack states, “See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that!” (Golding 181). Jack is crazy and destructive; he is blaming an incident that did not involve him physically on him to make it seem like he has absolute power. He wants to try to scare Ralph and his group to never come back to his territory. Jack’s presence brings fear to the savages with his hurtful actions towards the …show more content…
others. In William Golding’s book Lord of The Flies, Jack debased the importance of humanity by damaging the younger boys physically and mentally.
His constructive ways of killing animals with his “spill the blood!” chants scared Ralph and Piggy because they knows it’s not right. His acts towards not just animals, but toward humans as well exposes his own inner animal. Golding writes, “ If it were light shame would burn them at admitting these things. But the night was dark. Eric took up; and then the twins started their antiphonal speech. “You got to go because it’s not safe-” “ –They made us. They hurt us.” (Golding 188). Sam and Eric were now putrefied from the detrimental acts that the other savages have preformed on them. The twins were contrived to join Jack’s demented tribe of savages just to irritate Ralph and Piggy about their safety. After the twins told Ralph about what they have gone through, they had to urge him to leave quickly because Jack was planning to hunt to Ralph the next day. Sam and Eric stressed, ‘‘ you got to go for your own good-’ ‘ the chief and Roger’ ‘ –yes, Roger-’ “ They hate you Ralph. They’re going to do you.” “ They’re going to hunt you tomorrow.” “But why?” Ralph says, “ I Dunno. And Ralph, Jack, the chief, says it’ll be dangerous-.” “- And we’ve got to be careful and throw our spears like at the pig.” (Golding 189). Jacks behavior put Ralph in distress because it was all about a fire, a fire that Jack wanted to move because he wanted to
make the final say in all of the boy’s choices. Jack’s hurtful crimes towards the boys scared the savages. The destructive acts on Piggy, Simon, and Ralph caused the boys to split to either Jack’s side or Ralph’s. Jack and his team killed two innocent boys, gave the boy’s anxiety to do his dances and chants, and fought with Ralph for absolute power over the island and all the boys. Ultimately, Jack’s destructive personality turned an abhorrent situation into an anxiety filled vacation to the deserted island.
In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, and Kendra Cherry’s article, “The Milgram Obedience Experiment”, the comparable fear factor, and naive mindset of individuals put under dire circumstances leads to the corruption of society and rise of evil in humans. Fear factors are an influential resource, and useful tactic leaders use to instil dominant power in their citizens, if this power is abused, evil and chaos occurs. For example, in Lord of the Flies, when Samneric get captured by Jack, Jack terrorizes them, snapping, “What d’you mean coming here with spears? What d’you mean by not joining my tribe?” the twins try to escape but fear takes over their morals and they, “...lay looking up in quiet terror” (Golding 182). As Jack threatens
In conclusion, by reading the Novel by William Golding titled The Lord of The Flies we encountered many different forms of fear being from the beast, the loss of humanity, and the fear of realization. These forms of fear relate only to this novel but, many feelings these boys on the island felt we feel time and time again in our everyday society. Everyone on this earth comes to grasp with a time of fear in their lives and it is up to oneself if they are too choose to be strong and persevere or to be a cowards and let fear over power them. Ralph was a boy, a scared and broken young little boy but, as he stood on that beach and watched the rover appear he broke down and let the fear of never having peace take control of him. So I will leave you with one last thought, will you let fear overpower you? or will you persevere?
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.
A plane abruptly crashes into an abandoned island, risking the passengers in the plane. Luckily, the boys in the plane survive this devastating event. These boys, isolated from the supervision of adults, cooperate for rescue. A particular boy, encouraged that he can lead the boys successfully, instructs the others. Unfortunately, this responsible boy disguises himself with a mask, which brings a major transformation. For this boy, Jack, a major character in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, his desire for power is greater than his hope for rescue. By Jack putting on the mask, Golding displays a responsible British boy, who focuses on survival, transform to an irresponsible, aggressive human being who is consumed by violence.
They often obey his destructive orders just to avoid being punished. Jack tells Ralph, after Roger kills Piggy, “ ‘See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that! There isn’t a tribe for you anymore! The conch is gone—’ -He ran forward, stooping- ‘I’m chief!’ ” (Golding 181) Jack threatens Ralph and the boys by reminding them of the consequences of not succumbing to his authority. They are physically and emotionally tormented, forced to participate in Jack’s violent acts. As time goes by, they willingly join in on Jack’s brutal endeavors, such as hunting Ralph down in an attempt to sacrifice him to the beast. He
“‘I got the conch’ Said Piggy indignantly. ’You let me speak!’ ‘ The conch doesn’t count on top of the mountain" Said Jack,’So you shut up’” (42). Here, is one of his first acts of antagonism towards his fellow human beings. The declaration he makes, claiming that Piggy has no right to speak out, displays how Jack tries to lower others in order to gain a greater authoritative position for himself. This is evidence for the statement that he uses the leadership he does have with little intentions of bettering the group as a whole.
“The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream” (“William Golding quotes.”). Fear lives to haunt and torment the person to a point of destruction and can be within everyone. Although a person is able to overcome fear, it is still very dangerous because it affects the person as well as everyone and everything around. In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the boys are all so overwhelmed by fear that the island starts to recede into a state damaged beyond repair. In this case, Jack’s fear of not being leader originally starts to affect him, but it gradually starts to affect Ralph, and the rest of the boys. Ralph’s fear of survival brings out his inner savageness and an innocent life is taken away. Lastly, the boys’ fear of the beast causes them to feel so unsafe and uncertain that they are willing to do anything. As a result of the boys being consumed by these fears, it becomes the most destructive force on the island.
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.
A distressing emotion aroused by impending evil and pain, whether the threat is real or imagined is described as fear. Fear is what William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies encompasses. By taking three major examples from the novel, fear will be considered on different levels: Simon’s having no instance of fear, Ralph’s fear of isolation on the island, and Jack’s fear of being powerless. Fear can make people behave in ways that are foreign to them, whether their fear is real or imagined. In response to fear, people may act defensively by attacking, fear can either stop one from doing something, or it can make one behave in an irrational erratic manner.
Fear is a driving force in The Lord of the Flies. How does fear in all of its forms influence the boy's attitudes and behaviours? One of many prominent themes in William Golding's novel, the Lord of the Flies, is Fear. From the very first chapter, until the last, fear plays an important role in this text. It is the only thing, which stops the boys from acting rationally at times, from questioning curious circumstances and it physically hinders so many of the boys, so many times.
Jack’s representation of malignant and viciousness validates that there is a dark side of human nature. As choirmaster, Jack succeeds pushing control over others, such as the choir, through his manipulative approach. He concentrates on hunting and yearns for meat. In result, his repulsive acts create a savage within. Evil is present in every single one of us and it is natural for one to do whatever it takes to stay alive. In Golding’s novel, Lord of The Flies, Golding depicts society through the group of stranded boys who are compelled to create their own representation of civilization. Though the civilized boys were born into the liberated civilization not all approach the situation with an enlightened belief. Everyone has the proposition to do great however when undermined, man can turn vicious, such as Jack. His fundamental conflicts are that people are savage by nature, and are moved by urges to dominate over others. The natural darkness in humankind brings about the breakdown of civilization, as demonstrated by Jack.
Like Jack, the boys no longer value kindness, compassion, or empathy, Instead, they resort to violence and force. This is shown when the boys do their dance and chant “kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (Golding 168) This chant is one of violence and savagery. When the boys see Simon crawling out of the jungle, they don’t care if it’s a human or a beast, their first instinct is just to kill. Another example of the boy’s lack of compassion and empathy, is when they participate in tying up Wilfred and allow Jack to beat him for no apparent reason. Jack’s tribe continues to slip further into savagery. They rebel against, and destroy everything that represents kindness, order and civilization. This is evident when Jack, Roger, and Maurice go to Ralph’s camp, taunt Piggy, steal his glasses to make a fire, and beat up the civilized group. Piggy’s death and the breaking of the conch also represent the group’s disintegration of humanity. Piggy says while holding the conch: “Which is better-to be a pack of painted niggers like you are, or be sensible like Ralph is?” (Golding 200) The tribe chooses savagery over order when Roger releases the boulder that kills Piggy, and shatters the conch. The evolution of savagery is complete when the group’s morals and values become the laws in which they abide
In Lord of the Flies, Golding proves that fear draws out man’s inner evil and barbarism. Within the novel, Golding uses characterization of the boys and symbolism of the beast to show the gradual change from their initial civility to savagery and inhumanity. Learned civility, order and humanity become ultimately futile in the face of fear. The author teaches that without logic, fear consumes endlessly. He shows that fear clouds the mind, thus making it absolutely imperative to maintain reason and logic throughout life. Fear will always end in a fate worse than death for those who survive it.
In summation, Jack Merridew’s desire for authority, power and violence overcame his knowledge of civilization throughout William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies. Jack’s transformations were built off of his lack of civilization, primitive acts and ruthlessness towards others. Jack represented a dictatorship and evil on the island. Jack’s behavior changes were not for the better, but for the worst, bringing out the worst in him, as well as the other boys.
At one point in the book, all of the boys look to Ralph as their leader but as soon as they begin following Jack, things take a turn.He begins using violence and fear to intimidate the boys if they did not listen. “‘He's going to beat Wilfred…’ ‘What for?’ Robert shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don't know. He didn't say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up’” (169). In this scene one of Jack's hunters is explaining how Jack is going to beat one of the members. If the boys were not scared of the beast, many of the tragic events that happened wouldn’t have occurred. They would not have come together under Jacks rule at all. This means they would not have given into their savage instincts. However the fear of something so unknown caused them to listen to him. They were scared so they allowed fear to control them. “High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever" (180). In this scene, Roger is pushing the lever which soon causes the rock that kills Piggy to fall. If he had known that there would be consequences for killing Piggy, he would not have done it, but since the boys had already turned savage and were under Jacks rule it didn’t matter and he got away with