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Notice Notice Notice ENG 107 Continuous Assessment (Assignment) *Compare and contrast the characters of Ralph and Jack in Lord of the Flies
Civilized vs savagery contrast
Notice Notice Notice ENG 107 Continuous Assessment (Assignment) *Compare and contrast the characters of Ralph and Jack in Lord of the Flies
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The Blood Spilling of a Friend
Can savagery drive someone to murder? The book Lord of the Flies by William Golding displays this situation. A group of children containing only males are trapped on an island and many turn towards savagery after being isolated. Jack is the main leader of the savage children while Ralph is still humane and civilized and is trying to restore order. The boys were driven towards savagery but still had the right and conscious mind to make a reasonable choice not to commit murder.
Simon’s death was not an act out of savagery, it was caused by the carelessness of Jack and his influence over his group. Jack’s statement “Do our dance! Come on! Dance! (Golding, Lord of the Flies 151)” caused the young and naive boys to get focused on killing which led to Simon’s death. Jack from the start tried to influence the children towards negativity
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and violence. Simon’s death was caused because of Jack and his evil nature. Ralph is an example of how savagery was not the reason Simon was murdered. Ralph’s statement “ I’ll blow the conch, said Ralph breathlessly, and call an assembly. (Golding, Lord of the Flies 151)” shows that not everyone had to turn to savagery, it was a choice. If Jack had not enforced and promoted savage actions Simon would still be alive. For these reasons, Jack should be held accountable for the death of Simon. Ralph is very hurt and upset about the death of Simon.
Ralph can not believe that these boys would be so violent and be so immature in a time of survival. The church’s views towards children and teenagers is similar to Ralph’s in this quote “At the age of 7, a child is considered by the Roman Catholic Church to have reached the ''age of reason'' and is entitled to receive communion. Some evangelical churches hold that a child of 7 can make an independent spiritual choice. (Sachs 1).” If you can make such large decisions at the age of seven for the church, you are more than capable to know right from wrong. The boys knew what they were doing was wrong but Jack kept them going. In this quote, Doctor Cole is as confused as Ralph is about Jack “No one, he said, is born bad. Yet, despite a lifetime of studying and listening to children, he was utterly confounded by the implications of the Chicago case. (Sachs 2)”. Jack was born and raised a mean and violent individual. These characteristics show in both Roger and Jack. Jack was able to influence and flare up Roger’s inner evil through the isolation of the
island. The island and the desire for survival caused a change in the boy's decision making skills. Some aspects of the island life drove the boys towards a savage way of living and thinking. In certain times, boys are more vicious as explained in this quote “Is it also true that the capacity of the young male to maim and torture is somehow connected to his long-forgotten beginning as a hunter and killer – a beginning that is very different from the female’s hearth? (Golding, “Why” 2).” Because of instinctive roles of males, they have a more violent and survivalistic aspect to their personality. If parents were on the island, the children would have been guided differently such as this quote explains “If there is no one around to guide children, then they go wrong. The people who guide children are their fathers and mothers. Children need both and in the later part of this century they often have neither. (Golding, “Why” 2).” Children need parents to help them grow and make more appropriate decisions like the boys on the island. Certainly all of these statements are true but still does not change the fact that the children murdered Simon. The children and their roles in society should have been enough to teach them right from wrong. Therefore it was Jack and his inner evil that he was born with that made him lead the other boys to savagery and murder. In conclusion, the inner evil within the boys takes over on the island and leads them to savagery. The murder of Simon was an act of Roger’s inner evil. Also, Jack had a large influence of savagery over the group of boys and was one of the main reasons why the boys went as far as murder. If an adult was there with them they would have stayed civilized and would not have had to worry about murder. For these reasons, Jack should be held accountable for the death of Simon.
There is evidence in both Lord of the Flies and A Separate Peace that display the savagery of man. In Lord of the Flies there is savagery found when the choir boys and most of the bigguns separate from Ralph’s authority and form their own tribe. In A Separate Peace, savagery is found in unnamed characters during Leper’s war experience - he feels such a need to escape from evil and savagery in the war that he takes the risk and actually does. In both of these novels, the archetype and motif of savagery is present in young boys, ultimately resulting in the downfall and degenerating of man.
Mankind is innately evil. The allegorical novel, The Lord of the Flies, allows for little interpretation about human nature. William Golding depicts the idea, “evil is an inborn trait of man” (Golding). Throughout the novel the children who have crash landed on the island begin to uncover their savage nature. Although all of the children somehow succumb to a heinous behaviour, Jack, Ralph, and Roger become most noticeably corrupt. Ultimately, it becomes clear that malicious intent is intrinsic in mankind.
In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Simon and Piggy are among a group of boys who become stranded on a deserted island. Left without any adults, the boys attempt to create an orderly society. However, as the novel progresses, the boys struggle to sustain civility. Slowly, Jack and his hunters begin to lose sight of being rescued and start to act more savagely, especially as fears about a beast on the island spread. As the conflict progresses, Jack and Ralph battle for power. The boys’ struggle with the physical obstacles of the island leads them to face a new unexpected challenge: human nature. One of the boys, Simon, soon discovers that the “beast” appears not to be something physical, but a flaw within all humans
In Lord of the Flies, a group of boys are stranded on a deserted island. It starts out fine, until one of the boys, Jack, becomes jealous that he isn’t in charge. He forms a separate tribe. One night they start a war type of dance, chanting and screaming. They mistake Simon for the beast and kill him screaming “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (Goulding 138) After the boys realize they had killed Simon, they realized that who else would give them hope that they could survive, and keep the peace around the island. After Simon died Jack started to gain more power, because Ralph had lost a valuable member of his
As Simon was trying to tell the boys that the beast did not exist, his death symbolises that mankind can’t face the truth about their inner desires. Part of Golding’s intent was to demonstrate that the evil is not recognised in specific populations or situations. On the island, the beast is manifest in the deadly tribal dances, war paint and manhunt; in the outside world, the same lust for power and control plays out as a nuclear war. Throughout ‘The Lord of the Flies’ Golding has managed to show that evil is present in everyone.
Throughout the novel several different characters are introduced to the reader, such as Ralph, Jack, Simon and Piggy. With all these characters presented to the reader, one can get to see into their minds-eye, which allows the reader to analyze their character. In this case one could examine their basic morals and distinguish between the person’s natural instinct to rely on civilization or savagery to solve their problems. The author of the novel, William Golding, had a “first-hand experience of battle line action during World War II” which caused him to realize, “[that] The war alone was not what appalled him, but what he had learnt of the natural - and original- sinfulness of mankind did. It was the evil seen daily as commonplace and repeated by events it was possible to read in any newspaper which, he asserted, were the matter of Lord of the Flies” (Foster, 7-10). This being said by Golding leads one to the central problem in the novel the Lord of the Flies, which can be regarded as the distinction between civility and savagery. This can be seen through the characters that are presented in the novel, and how these boys go from a disciplined lifestyle, to now having to adapt to an unstructured and barbaric one in the jungle.
Lord of the Flies - Savagery “There are too many people, and too few human beings.” (Robert Zend) Even though there are many people on this planet, there are very few civilized people. Most of them are naturally savage. In the book, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, boys are stranded on an island far away, with no connections to the adult world.
The Lord of the Flies is rich in figurative language such as personification and imagery, and in Simon’s death, it is used to completely express the role of fear and how it is complementary to their innate evil. Golding illustrates an ominous and dark tone towards the death of Simon by exaggerating the setting and personifying the group of boys. At first, the boys are afraid of the lightning and weather, so Jack, sensing that fear has the ability to unleash uncontrollable chaos, commands the group to “dance.” Jack uses the dance which forms group
In our society today, abortion is a huge controversial issue due to the beliefs of abortion being evil. “What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?” (William Golding, Lord of the Flies). In the novel, “Lord of the Flies”, the author William Golding, leads the reader into dismissing savagery as an act of violent cruelty by portraying murder, an uncivilized manner, and an increasing disregard of the rules. Murder is symbolized in savagery throughout the novel. The boys act in an uncivilized manner. The rules that were made to help keep order in the island, are being broken.
Imagine flying on a plane and crash landing on an unknown island with a select group of people. How would humans deal as a result of this horrific situation? Is cruelty and violence the only solution when it comes down to it? In Lord of the Flies, William Golding explores the relationship between children in a similar conflict and shows how savagery takes over civilization. Lord of the Flies proves to show that the natural human instincts of cruelty and savagery will take over instead of logic and reasoning. William shows how Jack, the perpetrator in the book, uses cruelty and fear for social and political gain to ultimately take over, while on the other hand shows how Ralph falters and loses power without using cruelty and fear. In Lord of
Lord of the Flies is a story of hardships, death and ultimately, survival. The island on which the boys are on presented many difficulties. In this situation, there was no time for fun and games, work was much more important. The group consisted completely of pre-pubescent young boys and the thing that destroyed their democratic ways was the allure of having lots of fun, swimming, feasts and other enjoyable activities. If the splitting of the groups, i.e when Ralph and Jack went their separate ways, the bloodshed would have been prevented. But when the decision came to be made, the promise of "..having fun.." from Jack was too much for most of the boys, and that decision they made turned them into the bloodthirsty savages who murdered two innocent boys.
The Lord of the Flies suggests that his presence is the reason for the boys’ descent into savagery and madness, beginning with the children’s fear of the beast’s existence, followed by Jack’s brutality when killing the pig as well as his transformation into a savage, finally culminating in the frenzied murder of Simon at the hands of the children who mistake him for the beast. While they are beating Simon to death, they are also chanting "Kill the beast!" Cut his throat. Spill his blood. (Golding 168) and dancing around him, similarly to a tribe of savages.
The nature of Simon’s death by the members of the group thinking that he is the beast, who is going to attack them, becomes very prominent with foreshadowing throughout the novel because it implies that he is going to get defeated by acts of savage displaying his death. A scene that foreshadows this defeat of Simon takes place when he is hallucinating to "The Lord of the Flies" in the jungle." You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?.....We are going to have fun on the island! So don't try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else"(158). "Lord of the Flies" declares that Simon will never have the ability to escape him due to him being within all the humans. This enhances that there is no beast, and that the beast on the island is actually the boys themselves. This foreshadowing approaches when "Lord of the Flies" promises to have some “fun” with Simon, which results in him getting hurt by the ‘beast’ (also known
In the Lord of the Flies the boys began to act in a savage type of way. They began to compete for power and where more than willing to act in a violent manner to get it. When Jack and Ralph split up into different groups, Jacks group was stealing, torturing and killing people in Ralph’s group. These actions were due to the situation and environment these kids were put in. They originally came from a civilized nation and then suddenly they found themselves in an environment where there were no laws or morals that kept them from doing bad. They could now act like savages and there was no punishment for doing so. Not to mention the fear put into everybody about “the beastie” makes people act differently. Fear makes people do irrational things,
In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, symbolism and allegories were used to show how the children who are stranded on an island have a huge struggle with civilization and savagery. Ralph, Piggy, Jack, and Simon are the ones in the novel that struggle with this the most.