Lord of the Flies: Behavior Changes of the Boys
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody” (Mark Twain). People always showed their bright side to others, but without rules and civilization, how would they act, and would their dark side appear? What would happen to a group of boys if they were stuck on an island that was away from civilization? In the book Lord of the Flies, the author William Golding described a story that a plane with a group of British boys was shot down during a war. These well-mannered boys were stucked on the island without any adults, so they made their own rules to try to keep civilization. But after staying too long on the island, the savagery that exists in human nature started to grow among the boys. The dark and evil sides of the boys were swollen in the absence of constraints. As the desire and barbarism of human nature gradually increased, the boys' behaviors started to change. Three main characters who changed their behaviors because of the lack of
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Jack was the main character that shows this change. One change on Jack is his behavior on hunting. At the beginning of the story, when the boys first encounter the pig, Jack was unable to kill it because of “the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood” (Golding 31). But soon after he became addictive on hunting. He painted his face to help hunting. Under that mask he lost his self-consciousness and shame. He was intoxicated the power that killing pigs gave him. Jack thought of nothing but hunting. “They’re going to hunt you tomorrow” (Golding 188). By the end of the book, Jack has moved on even further - he wanted to hunt Ralph. Without the constraint of society, adult and rules, Jack gained authority by violence, and this made him feel powerful and exalted. In the end of the story, he became completely savagery and