Aggression In Lord Of The Flies

Aggression for Progression In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding Jack’s characteristics controls the movement of the plot which contributes to the boys’ survival. Jack’s decisions, aggression, and leadership influence the occurrences on the island. Jack’s decisions influence the other boys’ actions and push the plot forward. For example, Ralphs says to jack after the hunt, “You let the five go out” (Golding 69). Jack’s antagonistic character often disagrees with Ralph’s plan for survival. Unlike Ralph who believes that keeping the fire is key for being rescued, Jack only cares for hunting and having fun. This causes the boys to be careless and search for the pig, resulting in the fire to go out. Jack’s decision to focus on the

This latter group would, in fact, either break up and scatter and cease to live as a group, thus exposing each individual to the increased stresses of solitude, or the group would become extinct simply as a result of the group killing each other” (163-164). Montagu’s claim supports the fact that Jack’s aggression plays a key role on all the other boys. Jack is often hostile whether it comes to hunting, talking to littluns, or towards Piggy. This causes the boys to split into groups, but because of Jack’s aggression Simon and Piggy were killed. We can assume that if the boys were not rescued that they would not last much longer on the island because of Jack’s violence. They already burned all the food by just trying to capture Ralph, so if that did not kill them they would probably turn hostile towards each other and kill each other. Another point, Drs Nevit Sanford and Craig Cornstock explain, “The child’s natural potential for aggression does not become a source of destructiveness toward himself or others until aggressive impulses having specific objects and modes have been built up through experience. The crucially important experiences are losses or denials of love, weakness, and humiliation, unjust punishment, threats of bodily harm-experiences which the child interprets as having catastrophic implications” (qtd. in Montagu 101-102). Jack’s aggression is taken out on the other boys causing conflict with him, Ralph, Piggy, and Simon. We do not know what Jack’s life was like at home, school, and with his parents, but bad experiences with those could be the source of his aggression. It could also have been caused by humiliation, like when Ralph was voted chief at first instead of him. Jack’s aggressive behavior sparks events and implications leading the story into more