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Human Savagery Analysis

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Recommended: Lord of the flies literary criticism

George R.R. Martin once said, “There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.” In the Lord of the Flies by William Golding the children have a savage beast hidden within them. Human savagery is influenced by power, status, and even possession of tools. Ralph and Jack, leaders of the group, allow for the beast to awaken in them as they struggle to survive on the island. Jack is the first character who is corrupted by his human savagery. Jack is the first to deviate from order. The first hunt that Jack goes on invigorates him, but he is unable to kill the pig that they caught. Jack then realizes that being nice won’t allow him to catch the pig, so he instills a ruthless …show more content…

Bash him in.” This unwillingness to kill the pig shows Jack's innocence. As seen, Jack slowly becomes mesmerized by the hunt. Eventually, Jack kills a pig, but at the cost of losing the fire they started. The lack of care of the fire is representative of Jack's lack of care for seeking a way off the island. The primitive behavior Jack showcases are amplified as he continues to hunt for pigs and neglect the opportunities to get off the island. This behavior then begins to come in the form of human savagery as he tortures those in Ralph’s camp and kills Simon and Piggy. Ultimately, the murder of Simon and Piggy is the peak of the Jack’s savagery. To imagine a group of children ages 6-14 murder two children out of sport is chilling. The book describes the murder of the children without even identifying who it is by describing the victim like an animal or beast, “The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. …show more content…

Ralph is introduced as a straightforward kid with the potential to be a great leader. Nevertheless, the island catches up with Ralph and his character devolves. Ralph becomes involved in the hunt and loses track of keeping order. Ralph even helps with the murder of Simon. However, by the end of the book, Ralph realizes the true enemy among the children, primitivity: "We start off with boys killing pigs, then boys pretending to kill boys who are pretending to be pigs, and finally Jack hunting down Ralph in pretend—maybe—hopes of impaling his head on a stick. The boys get eased into murder, just like we get eased into reading about it." By the end Ralph is described like an animal as he runs away from Jack. This description helps to emphasize the primal nature of the children’s savagery. Only when the adult arrives are the children able to cast away their savagery, but Ralph is no longer able to see the children the same

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Ralph is all by himself, with no one else to help him, but Jack has his overwhelming dominion over the boys, commanding them to do deeds for him. The alpha sends them out to hunt Ralph while dragging him to the open. Jack is the most captivating character because he is the most violent person on the island. The hunt leader creates a party to kill a pig and chooses not to focus on getting off the isle and draws attention to an act of violence; after returning from the hunt, Jack and the boys carry a pig’s head on a stick. The description of the offering amplifies the overuse of violence with the pig’s blood on the stick and the flies that swarm it.

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Ralph soon comes to a realization and can’t believe how powerful the evil that lives inside him is. It takes Ralph the loss of a true friend to realize who he has become “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy” (202). While Ralph is only twelve years old he has been through a ton in the last few weeks on the island alot for a child his age to go through. Golding uses the Naval Officer to rescue them because of how savagely the boys were acting that any adult most likely wouldn’t be able to contain them. Prior to the arrival of the officer the whole island is set on fire trying to smoke out Ralph.

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Cynicism has a prominent role in the creation of Lord of the Flies by William Golding. This characteristic of the author’s writing is found in every symbolic expression this book holds; the author ended this book in such a way that the pessimism throughout the novel is enhanced and elevated. The novel, Lord of the Flies, exhibits a pessimistic ending when Ralph is close to death, when the Navy arrives shortly after Piggy’s death, and when the boys are robbed of their innocence by selfishness and poor judgement. Ralph nearly dying at the end of the novel shows the readers that although Ralph had the utmost positivism for his time on the island in the beginning, the absence of rules and regulations of civilization can change the views of many for the worse. “Viciously, with full intention, he hurled his spear at Ralph.

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The book revolves around the actions of Ralph, the boys elected leader, Jack, the controlling, and aggressive choir boy, and Piggy, the smartest of the group yet least respected. Throughout the course of the book we see the grip had Ralph has on the group and their humanity slip away from minor acts of rebellion, the progression of killing animals and their reasoning with the loss. With their struggle of adjusting to living on the island with no order, superior intelligence, or real authority we see without the control civilization imposes on us we revert to more savage beings.

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We’re going to hunt pigs to get meat for everybody” (Golding 44). From that moment forth, Jack starts to lose his young innocent British schoolboy image and slowly turns into a savage. He breaks the rules of good British propriety by hunting instead of helping carry out important tasks, kills a pig for the first time, breaks away from the original group of boys, paints his face like a savage, and instigates the murder of other boys on the island. Jack, once respectable leader of the

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1505 Words | 7 Pages

The boys have now developed a daily routine and are talking about the “beastie” lurking around the island. Jack is now obsessed with the idea of killing a pig, so he paints his face and approaches the jungle chanting, “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in.’ Ralph watched them envious and resentful.

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1619 Words | 7 Pages

How Savagery Takes Over George R.R. Martin once said, “There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.” William Golding demonstrates that every person has savagery inside of him in his novel, Lord of the Flies. In this novel, Golding shows us that civilization is lost and savagery begins when the urge to kill takes hold of us. William Golding’s character development of Jack and motif of weapons help develop his point.

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When Ralph declares Jack the head of hunters, Jack takes this power to another level of jealousy and greed and becomes savage. After he kills his first pig he puts blood on his face and creates a mask. Jack's hunters immediately follow his footsteps creating what appears to be an army with Jack as the general. Having an army eventually leads to having a war which happens towards the end of the book. This represents a futuristic nuclear war which is happening while the boys are stranded on the island.

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555 Words | 3 Pages

Another act of savagery is that he raid Ralph’s shelter in the company of a couple of his savages and snatches away Piggy’s spectacles. Subsequently when Piggy insists on getting his spectacles back, Roger kills Piggy with a rock. The deaths of both Simon and Piggy are thus attributable to Jack’s brutality which is due to the great change that has come over Jack during the period of his stay on the island. When Ralph has fled to save his life, Jack orders a thorough search for Ralph. He gets a stick sharpened at both ends, evidently to torture Ralph to death after Ralph has been seized.

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1397 Words | 6 Pages

Ralph is first introduced as the fair boy who is a natural born leader. He applies Piggy’s intelligence to think of a way to summon the other survivors on the island. Ralph follows through with Piggy’s idea and uses the conch which emits a loud sound that can be hear through the island. The sound eventually lures the group of boys towards them. His leader instincts are best portrayed when he’s able to side with Jack after offering to share his power: “The suffusion drained away from Jack’s face.

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In this fight for control over the boys, Ralph calls Jack a beast which proves simon foreshadowing that the beast is inside us and not something you can hunt and kill. Ralph also accuses Jack for stealing their fire and piggy’s spec which does not matter anymore since there is no longer a civilization. The evolution of the boys on the island shows how savage a person can get in the absences of law and

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431 Words | 2 Pages

As the novel develops, the boys are left to their own devices and morals to survive on the island. Golding implies that when this happens, people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery and a human evil that he believes is in everyone. When Jack kills the mother pig, he is in great triumph over outwitting a living thing. This shows that he has become a savage through his time on the island, and his inner evil has taken over him. It also shows that Jack has become more violent over time, as if killing pigs is normal to him.

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583 Words | 3 Pages

Lastly, Jack is known as the rebel of the story who disagrees with the leaders, and is pure evil from middle to end. Although Jack is evil, his bad character trait ensures his survival and alliance with the boys. The first example of when Jack’s evilness is shown in the story is when Jack hunts the pig and puts its head on a stick, the line says “ Jack held the head up and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick” ( Golding, 150). This shows Jack’s evilness because instead of fearing the beast he is offering him the head of the pig that he just brutally murdered.

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Jack. He starts to become aggravated, and throws stones and “flings sand” at the “littluns.” He also eventually kills Piggy, and like Jack, thrives on violence and being in control of the mental torture of the other boys. Unlike Jack and Roger, Ralph, the novel’s protagonist, uses his power in a positive way and shelters the boys from the dangers of the

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1127 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the novel of Lord of the Flies, William Golding provides a profound insight into human nature. Golding builds on a message that all human beings have natural evil inside them. To emphasize, the innate evil is revealed when there’s lack of civilization. The boys are constantly faced with numerous fears and eventually break up into two different groups. Although the boys believe the beast lives in the jungle, Golding makes it clear that it lurks in their hearts.

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