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Dehumanization In Lord Of The Flies

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A psychology professor Phillip Zimbardo once explained "people are seduced into evil by dehumanizing and labeling others." I believe this is true labeling and dehumanizing others can make it particularly easy to forget all of your moral codes amd forget about the goodness inside you. A lot of this is seen in William Goldings book Lord of the Flies, a story is told about a group of British school boys who are stranded on an island after their plane crashes. The boys are left without adults so one boy named Ralph steps up to power and leads them all. There is a struggle for power when a boy named Jack seeks to be leader, but he has different ways of leading then Ralph. Through Jacks leadership we see institutions of law being order ignored and swept under the rug, enabling the boys to become more primitive and …show more content…

We can find an example of this when Jack is on one of his first hunts and he is down on all fours like a wild animal "Then dog-like, uncomfortably on all fours yet unheeding his discomfort, he stole forward five yards and stopped." Page (50). This moment is one of the first that we see one of the boys being changed by this island that has no adults or laws to keep them in line and away from a primitive nature. The discomfort Jack feels in this moment is not affecting him at all and it really shows that he is letting this wild side of him out and he's not afraid of it. We see another example of this when Jack is still on his same hunt when he hears noises coming from all around in the forest. " Jack himself shrank at this cry with a hiss of indrawn breath, and for a minute became less a hunter than a furtive thing, ape-like among the tangle of trees. Page (51). The way that Jack is described as an "ape-like" thing shows that Jack is becoming less of a hunter and more like a wild animal that is hunting for its next

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Lord of the Flies is a book based around boys that have been marooned on a small island. Eventually, these children resort to drastic measures to ensure their survival. The Stanford prison experiment was based on men getting sent to prison, and it highly resembled the events that took place in the novel Lord of the Flies. The basic premises of the two are to show the effects of savagery and dehumanization. Lord of the Flies and the prison experiment both offer a surplus of symbolism and characterization.

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Envision this: you’re a young schoolboy on an island with other boys your age, no parents, and a beast. What could this beast possibly be though? In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, young schoolboys have run away from their homes to fend-off rules and wind up coming in contact with a beast. This beast evolves throughout the story and appears to symbolize a multitude of things.

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Jack’s tribe is unquestionably innocent of civil disobedience. Jack’s tribe did contribute to the make-shift society on the island as well as the well-being of its inhabitants. After a long, hard day of hunting Jack comes back and provides his tribe with food, heat, and protection. He does this in an almost fatherly manner. “[Jack] even [stands] up and [waves] his spear to tell his tribe [to] take [Ralph and Piggy] some meat.”

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At the beginning of the novel, Jack is pretty confident and would never be caught without his formal gown. He wore a black gown with a special hat for his choir. Here in the story, he maintained his usual self and had some sort of connection with civilization. When he was assigned the role as to lead the hunters, he caught his first pig and couldn't bring himself to stab it. This shows that he is still holding onto the order or his old life.

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In the novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding the ultimate one responsible for the destruction of the island is Jack. In the novel Golding has wrote about how a group of british boys crashed on a plane and landed on a island where there are no adults,just little british boys stranded on a island .In the beginning one of the boys Ralph was the responsible leader where he knew what to do an how to manage. But of course there was this one cureles jealous boy that wanted to be a leader,the one in charge. Because of how ruthless and savage Jack was he took the fear that the boys had within them and used it against them to make them join his tribe which started the destruction of the island.

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Jack Merridew is by far the most powerful individual on the island. He influences the boys to do things by yelling at them throughout the book. Just as it is stated in The Perils of Obedience by Kendra Cherry, “The physical presence of an authority figure dramatically increased compliance,” (Cherry 2). Jack is the main authority figure that has a lot of power of the kids because of his appeal to what they want and to the way he runs things. He runs his tribe like a dictatorship over the rest of the boys, but because they do what they want to do they comply with what he says, even though it is not the right thing.

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854 Words | 4 Pages

One of these things is that he whips one of his tribe members, Wilfred, “The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him. The newly beaten and untied Wilfred was sniffing noisily in the background”(176) to ascertain that Jack has become savage, he has apparently beaten Wilfred for no reason and has taken to covering his face with paint. Another thing Jack does is lie to his tribe to keep them under control, “he came-disguised. He may come again even though we gave him the head of our kill to eat.

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Should the boys’ savage and immoral behavior be blamed on the situation/environment or on the biological factors? I think that the boys’ savage and immoral behavior should be blamed on biological factors. Your decisions and behavior reflects your brain and your biological factors. In the novel, “Lord of the Flies”, by William Golding, he writes about characters who are lost on an island after their plane crashed.

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He approaches it with a very interesting mindset, he believes that it is something anyone can easily kill. Jack was not a hunter in England, but the island presented an opportunity to create a new persona for himself. Perhaps, the savagery is some sort of sanctuary for him, away from scrutiny and just decisions. On this island, with a tribe of his own, he is able to create his own rules. The boys that blindly follow Jack give him something very valuable.

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After a few days of hunting Jack became obsessed with this activity, and it was all he ever wanted to do. This fixation on hunting caused Jack to turn into a savage. He turned into a barbarian and didn’t show mercy to anyone, especially the animals. Goldings writes, "He [Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling" (pg. 58). This shows, Jack losing the civility he once had, his laughing uncontrollably becoming snarling.

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To start, when the boys first arrive on the island after the crash, Jack had a knife that he carried around with him. He constantly hits it into nearby objects to instill fear in the other boys. For example, during a meeting the boys are all talking about what their plan should be while they are on the island. Jack suddenly stands up. On page 33, the narrator says, “Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked around challengingly.”

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1057 Words | 5 Pages

Jack proposes that he forms his own tribe.. Within this rebel tribe he suggests that they act only as savages. The temptation to hunt won many of the boys over in favor of orderly society as suggested by Ralph. The two groups of boys reach the culmination of the conflict when logic battles savagery; “ ‘Which is

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549 Words | 3 Pages

In William Golding's The Lord of the Flies, boys trapped on an island turn into deranged savages and kill each other after they fail to follow the rules of their made-up tribe. Cruelty is used by Golding as a way to communicate his theme which could be that cruelty is in nearly everybody, but civilization’s laws and control prevent that trait from prevailing. The author leaves some evidence of him trying to convey this theme throughout the book. A part of the book that shows this theme being shown would be the demise of Piggy and civilization.

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1702 Words | 7 Pages

Jack’s hunters follow his every demand and now the tribe has inherited a part of evil in as followed by the quote, “Boys armed with sticks” (Golding 157). Jack has trained his tribe to be armed at all times and he even refers to the boys as “hunters.” Hunting with his followers gives him a rush of adrenaline and he thrives off the power. Jack uses his surroundings as an advantage to him in order to control, which corrupts innocence. In response, Woodward adds, “This is evil, an action, like Jack’s, so reprehensible that we cannot imagine a punishment for it” (Woodward 60).

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663 Words | 3 Pages

But, as the story continues, the freedom the island has gets into Jack's mind and causes him to becomes power-hungry, evil and savage. His hunger for power starts off small with comments he makes like this one he says in the beginning of the book, "I ought to be chief, because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp" (chapter 8 page 21). But the hunger for power gets out of control and he

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