How Does Jack Change In Lord Of The Flies

The novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding was inspired by his time as a veteran in World War II. His goal was to portray the change in people’s morality that he witnessed because of the war. He reflected this situation-based change into his characters. The most evident of which was Jack, who, initially described as a proper, cultured choirboy, slowly transitioned into savagery. He conveyed Golding’s idea that civilization’s conditioning of right and wrong merely masks humans’ more primitive and barbaric nature. One change seen in Jack’s character was his loss of innocence. Like the rest of the boys on the island, Jack was relatively young. At his age, society expected certain behaviors from children. When they took off their clothes,

Initially, he goes along with the idea of an organized method of using the conch to keep the island functioning efficiently. However, when Ralph, as chief, begins holding more power than him, he looks for an alternative to the conch to assert his dominance. He does so through hunting. Since he was the only one who was able to kill a pig, the others began to regard him with awe and reverence. This helped Jack gain control through the emotions of others, and made his knife an important reflection of his character. It exemplified his ability to rule through fear and force, and demonstrated that Jack valued having a higher position in the tribe over the feelings of the others. Later in the novel, Jack’s hunter tribe destroyed the conch. He exclaims, “See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that! There isn’t a tribe for you anymore! The conch is gone—…I’m chief (Golding 181)!” This symbolized that order and structure, which had kept him from power, had been destroyed. Fire was also a huge representation of Jack’s chaotic tendencies. It initially signified hope, warmth, and safety. However when Jack wielded it, it was uncontrollable and unpredictable. When the entire island went up in flames at the end of the novel, it suggested that nothing was safe when Jack held power. The last symbolic piece of Jack’s development was color. White is typically attributed to purity and innocence in contrast to red, the color of blood, violence,

He was motivated by his desire for control over the others on the island. Jack’s loss of innocence occurred when he tried to demonstrate his abilities to kill in order to gain superiority over the others. His mindset changed when he created a new personality for himself that made him believe that he could do whatever he pleased. Killing the pigs gave him a reputation that nobody could take from him, and his thirst for blood caused him to be attributed to the downfall of the civilized practices on the