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.
In the novel, Jack began as a confident, adventuresome young boy, but as time progressed, he sunk to a level of savagery where he could hardly be considered human. The excitement was fresh on the first day when Jack, Ralph and Simon went out
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to explore the island. The three acted lighthearted and jocular, unaware of the impending conflict that would cut chasms between them.
Jack’s playful innocence is clearly shown on page 25. “Come on,’ said Jack presently, ‘we’re explorers.” His upbeat and inquisitive attitude shows that though he arrived on the island with a thirst for power and an inflated ego, he was still full the joy of childhood. Quickly, this naive innocence was lost, and Jack’s blood hunger grew. This transition into darkness can be noted when Jack and his boys let the fire extinguish to slaughter a pig. The fire was their connection to the outside world, but on Jack’s orders they abandoned it to kill an animal- when they already had enough food. They chanted “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”(p.69), as they were corrupted with primal instinct and adrenaline. This act was shortsighted and gruesome, but it was not the end of Jack’s violence. Towards the end of the book, he …show more content…
set out to kill his former friend, Ralph. Though Ralph was already weakened, he hid so Jack was unable to find him. In a final act of desperation and rage, Jack forced his followers to light the entire island on fire to find Ralph, so one of his savages could skewer his severed head with a stick as a trophy. On page 197 Golding wrote, “They had smoked him [Ralph] out and set the island on fire.” This fire ended up causing their rescue, but the reasoning behind it’s creation was completely barbaric and vile. The deterioration of Jack’s humanity was mostly caused by his pre-existing personality, and not just the island.
While his situation allowed his personality to blossom into something horrible, the desire for blood and power already flowed through his veins. An example from the beginning, before the corruption of the boys, was when Jack first arrived at the meeting with his choir following behind. They were wearing their cloaks in the heat and Jack only let them rest after Simon had fainted. Jack’s controlling nature can be observed from the very beginning of the book. At this time, decorum still covered his bloodlust, but it was quickly triggered after he hadn’t been able to kill a pig. The text reads that “Next time there would be no mercy”(p.31) He was not only embarrassed of his weakness and wanted to uphold his status, but he was also losing the civility that an organized society ensured. The island was the key that unlocked Jack’s hidden, savage
behavior. As Jack was a leader to the younger children, they mimicked his actions. They impressionable boys were give fun and meat by Jack and his savage ways, so they joined him. With an army behind him, Jack could wreak havoc to all his heart’s desire. He could fulfill his two main needs- blood and power. One particularly corrupted child was Roger. Early in the book, Roger was sitting on the beach, playing. He was throwing nuts at another boy, but he “...threw it to miss”(p.62) This display of possible violence but with no intention of causing it displays that while Roger was a little naughty, he was still good natured. But by the end of the novel, Roger was committing revolting deeds. He was the one to kill Piggy, who was unthreatening and innocent. “...Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever.” (p. 180) This “delirious abandonment” was not present in Roger when they had arrived. Under Jack’s influence, Roger went from a impish little boy to a murderer. In Lord of the Flies, Jack went from a self-centered child into a ceaseless killer, because of his pre-existing characteristics that flourished on the secluded island, and changed the other boys into savages. His story shows that everyone has dark instincts and feelings, but if left alone to grow, disaster will happen.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
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.
...r hand, Jack attempts to murder Ralph because Jack has become so savage-like. Jacks plan to kill Ralph is to set the entire island on fire. Unfortunately, for Jack, Sam and Eric tell Ralph what is going to happen to him before it happens. Ralph escapes the fire unharmed. This is how Jack’s violence shows he is a dynamic character in the beginning of the novel.
As Jack hunts his “frustration seemed bolting and nearly mad” which shines in his slowly deranging eyes (Golding 67). In Lord Of The Flies by William Golding, stranded boys struggle to find order and civilization on an island with no other humans. After their plane crash lands, a few boys, such as Ralph and Piggy, are quick to set up standard rules. But, not everyone agrees that rules and rescue are what is most important. Jack, a boy who cares more about hunting, disrupts the goodness and order that remains in the boys. When a simulated hunting influenced and led by Jack goes awry, the boys kill Simon. The now deceased Simon is the purest and kindest of the boys. Jack leads the elimination of the only good left on their island. Whether it is his intention to kill him or not, Jack should be held responsible for Simon’s demise because he leads the group to kill him, regardless of his age.
One of the things that changes Jack was his hatred and drives him to the point where he was willing to kill. In the beginning he was a choir boy who knew nothing much, but his hatred grew when he was not elected leader. In the book it quote “And you shut up! Who are you anyway? Sitting here telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing-” (91). This quote shows that Jack had
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The flies’ presents us with a group of English boys who are isolated on a desert island, left to try and retain a civilised society. In this novel Golding manages to display the boys slow descent into savagery as democracy on the island diminishes.
Jack was defiant from the start and showed how he was giving into the darkness. Since the boys first arrived on the island, Jack seemed to stray away from the beaten path in the sense that whatever the rest of the group decided Jack wanted to question, oppose, or downright argue with until he was finally given command of his own men. On page 22, Jack says, "I ought to be chief,”[…]” because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.” This shows that Jack is selfish and only wants to be in control, never thinking of the others around him. Jack still has some good in him at this time. Early on, Jack was faced with the temptation of the darkness inside of him, but at this point, he was still trying to fight it. Page 51
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 the book, Lord of the Flies, William Golding writes an artistic and gruesome story of a group of boys whose plane crashes on a remote island and leaves them stranded without any adult supervision. Ralph’s main focus is on finding a way off of the island. Jack’s main focus is being the leader and creating ways to survive on the island. Instead of killing Ralph, the fire Jack sets gets them rescued. By analyzing the increase amount of blood spillage throughout Lord of the Flies, one can see how Jack’s desire for control results in great amount of spilled blood and increased lust for domination over the boys, reflecting society’s dangerous desire power and domination, including the changement of the boys’ attitudes from beginning to end.
Jack’s totalitarian ideals meant that due to his wild rampage of death and destruction, his bloodlust made him descend into savagery. His eventual fall into savagery begins with the sighting of a wild pig. He is fascinated but cannot bring himself to kill it due to “the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood”. This shows his innocence at the start of the novel, but his lust for blood soon overcomes the battle against his inner self. “He tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up.” When he first killed the pig, Jack is ecstatic. Killing becomes an obsession to him. “His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them
Jack has always been an ill-natued boy even from the start of the book when he told Piggy to "Shut up, Fatty." (p.23). Dispite Jack’s unpleasent personality, his lack of courage and his conscience preventing him from killing the first pig they encountered. "They knew very well why he hadn’t; because of the enormity of the knife decending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood." (p.34)
Jack knows that the boys need food and shelter, he has the ability and the follower size to provide both of those. Jack also has a strong pushing force towards others, even though he is too harsh sometimes, he always gets people to listen to him. He promised himself that he would do anything to kill a pig, showing no mercy next time. After not being able to kill the pig, Jack thought “next time there would be no mercy” (Golding 29).
Through hunting and his failure to make anything of it, Jack loses the fear of bloodshed and starts to revel in the fact he can make his prey afraid of him. You can see the island and Jack’s determination to kill the pig transform him. Golding describes Jack like an animal searching for prey “dog-like, uncomfortably on all fours” with eyes that are “bolting and nearly mad” (48). His savagery is unexplainable except by explaining the innate primal instinct to do whatever it takes to survive. Even when he tries Jack can’t “convey the compulsion to track down and kill” to others but can only convince himself that he must do it (51). Jack’s need to prove himself caused an obsession, which has now turned to an unsatisfied
Jack corrodes the group using the beast as during the meal Jack screams “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” Jack didn’t care to first scout out or pursue who the beast was and ended up killing Simon, who just came to explain his discovery of the beast. In this incident Jack caused the group to cross the boundary line to savages who lack rational thinking because of they had murdered Simon.
In Lord of the Flies, Jack’s desire to be in charge is shown from the beginning when he says, “‘I ought to be chief’ said Jack with simple arrogance…” (22). The boys decide to elect Ralph instead (23) and because of this Jack begins to look for ways to become more powerful. Though Jack clearly wanted to be in charge, he had been content with just being a hunter in the beginning. But as time goes on, there is a clear trend shown in Jack’s behavior. As his greed increases, his savagery does as well. This is shown first during the argument of meat versus survival: “Ralph spoke. ‘You let the fire go out’ Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to let it worry him… ‘I cut the pig’s throat,’ said Jack, proudly, and yet he twitched as he said it.” (69). Savagery, as previously stated, also has a connotation of being primitive or uncivilized and as Jack slips away from rules and organization, Jack’s desire for power grows, causing him to use violence to assert his status in the group instead of merely letting go of regulations. This eventually escalates to the dance scene where they kill Simon--where Jack’s savagery begins to intoxicate the other boys to such an