When babies are first born into the world, they have no knowledge. Humans are born into the world as savages, naked and clueless. These babies eventually grow up, covered by clothes and clouded by materialism. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, after being freed from the mask of materialistic things, we can clearly see a character shift in all the boys. These well mannered, cultured and civilized boys transform into primitive beings. Golding shows that the removal of the cover of materialistic items exposes their inner selves exposed to be the savage like babies they were born as.
When Jack first came to the island, he was all dressed in a black chorus cap and outfit the only difference being he had a golden cap badge (16). He wanted law, order and peace amongst all the boys and wanted to help Ralph enforce the rules. He agreed with being civilized and not like animals. An example of this is when Jack says “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything.” (42). Jack has a much different mindset than he does later in the chapter. As Jack walks about the island with clothes he is enlightened with common sense. However, later in the chapter Jack changes
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Jack has this strange determination to kill a pig. At first he struggles, since his inner self was slowly becoming apparent. But eventually this becomes an obsession, and he won't stop until he kills the animal. Finally when Jack kills the pig he becomes savage. In fact, a quote from the text describing his hunt says “Jack transferred the knife to his left and smudged the blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair” (67). Jack is starting to change and it's very obvious he is no longer the cordial boy he was when he first came to the island. This proves that after the cloak of materialism is removed then his nuclear self is