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How Does Jack Merridew Change In Lord Of The Flies

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The novel Lord of the Flies is one of the best examples of human instincts and the ability to become savage from one day to the next. All throughout William Golding’s novel there are signs of the characters changing from well behaved boys to complete savages. In the beginning of the novel, Lord of the Flies, Jack Merridew is one of the best examples of a boy who goes from a civilized manner to a complete savage. One of the first things Jack does is insults Piggy, an overweight boy who cannot do very much. “You’re talking too much… Shut up, Fatty” (21). This clearly shows how Jack is already losing his manners and slowly becoming uncivilized after only one day on the island. Jack became not only obsessed with the idea of hunting animals but now he and his hunters have attempted to kill a pig. He almost killed the pig but his conscience prevented him from carrying it out. He then talks to the chief of the island, Ralph about killing the pig next time, “But I shall! Next time! I’ve got to get a barb on this spear! We wounded a pig and the spear fell out. If we could only make barbs” (51). Jack will not only try to kill a pig next time but also try to change his appearance. …show more content…

Jack now decides to put face paint on so he will blend in with the surroundings and look like a real hunter. “Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw” (63). This is allowing him to forget his morals and rational thinking. Jack now will lose all rational thought when he kills a live pig for the first time, the first time he has ever killed

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At the end of the book, Jack has become a beast at heart who lusts for blood and blood alone. Jack and Ralph get into an argument for the right to use Piggy's glasses to cook the meat that they hunt. Jack starts to get violent and they start fighting each other for the glasses. In an act of trying to stop the fight, piggy grabs the conch shell to get the attention of everyone and tell them to stop fighting. Soon after the hunters notice Piggy, they push a boulder off a mountain to kill piggy.

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