How Is Jack Merridew Ruthless In Lord Of The Flies

Jack Merridew is one of the main characters in the novel, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding. Jack came across as a natural leader partially because of his attitude, stature, and desires to have fun. Jack’s regular behavior and cruel nature says about who he is as a human being. Since Jack does come across as a natural leader, he lacks the ability to be one, and rather acts as a dictator. This dictatorship that Jack is trying to create causes himself to act merciless and unforgiving towards others. However in this case, and out of all of the words to choose from, the best word that entirely sums up Jack’s personality is ruthless. Jack is ruthless because of his normal behavior throughout the book and how it revolves around the environment that he’s faced with, as well as the people he

Jack’s cruel nature starts to show as he begins to lose control of his temper along with him being pretentious: “ ‘I cut the pig’s throat,’ Jack said, proudly … ‘There was lashings of blood,’ said Jack, laughing” (Golding 69). Although Jack is feeling proud of himself, there are still some qualities in need of assessment. For one, Jack is one of the only children on the island that would do that. Others may have killed the pig but Jack was vicious enough to cut the pig’s throat. This explains that Jack had the guts to murder an animal, which also implies that he is just a little heartless. Looking deeper into the quote, we see that after Jack tells Ralph about how he killed the pig, the author states that Jack is laughing. The act of laughing means that one is enjoying something or that they find something amusing. In this section of the book, Jack finds killing a pig fun and amusing, and how there were “lashings of blood”. Jack could have taken a different route in killing the pig, but he just had to kill it this way. Jack’s behavior shows that he is just flat out