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Lord of the flies Jack character analysis essay
Lord of the flies Jack character analysis essay
Lord of the flies Jack character analysis essay
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Although this might have seemed like such a little thing to worry about, this caused Jack to feel like he was finally filling up his eagerness for power. As the book went on, he started to become more animalistic. One quote that revealed his feelings towards the conch was when it was destroyed. “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist”(181). Even though Roger was the one who killed Piggy, his death was intentional.
Roger chose to torture the boys, and eventually he chose to kill Piggy. The experience of the island pulled something ugly out of him specifically, but in all the ways that matter, he was fully aware and in control of his choice to murder another person. The other murder, Simon’s, is different in that no one person chose to kill the boy. No one in particular summoned the malice to beat him to death, but the group as a whole lost their individual values and assimilated into the group. Chapter 2 of Opening Skinner’s Box explains that people abandon their core beliefs in order to satisfy some primal need to conform.
So far the worst thing Roger has done is torture a pig, but he soon will take it up a notch and make his biggest act of cruelty: murder. In the middle of a stand off, Roger, “...[leans with] all his weight on the lever. … The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee…” (180-181) By committing murder, Roger has completed a heartless act, making him the most savage person on the island and revealing how his morals are wrong.
Despite Roger being “a terror” (175) and the one the boys fear the most, Jack still wields the most authority as chief, proving that fear alone cannot be effective. Jack remains in authority, using the boys’ desire for fun and meat and the threat of torture. Ralph loses his authority, and Piggy is unable to gain a position of authority,
Roger’s descent into savagery in Lord of the Flies reveals the true nature of mankind. Throughout the course of the book, Roger seems to lose grip on civilization slowly and begins to show signs of aggression and the need for power. From the beginning of the book when he stabs a pig and towards the end when he ultimately kills Piggy, Roger’s development into savagery becomes more apparent. Through the character of Roger, Golding is trying to show mankind’s nature is to be aggressive and authoritative. Roger’s violent nature begins to fully emerge during one of the boys’ pig hunts where Roger impales a pig.
The conch is gone-[Golding, 201]. In this quote, Jack is taking responsibility for Roger’s actions of being Piggy’s murder. By doing so Jack now seems more powerful to the other boys, therefore resulting in a more feared leader. Along with being power hungry, Jack has a more democratic leading style. He constantly brainwashes the little uns, by telling his that Ralph is boring and wrong and he only hunts and has fun.”
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.
When Piggy was trying to reason with Jack to give him back his glasses, Roger lets loose a boulder that “struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee […] Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went […] Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea” (163). Piggy’s death was ironically cruel and barbaric during what was supposed to be a civilized, orderly plead to Jack showing that the innate evil of human nature will always overcome any attempts to remain civilized. Sadly, Jack tries to justify this and make a scapegoat out of Piggy by wildly screaming, “‘See? See? That’s what you’ll get!
Readers know that Jack, who represents brutality and the hunger for power, is constantly trying to overthrow Ralph for his position as leader. However, even Jack respects the conch at first, though it represents the exact opposite of his character. Simon is the only person that symbolizes true purity and goodness. He is only one who understands that the island is changing them and that their fear of the beast will eventually cause them to develop into beasts themselves. The conch, much like Simon, represents morality and harmony.
The events of original evil which ironically issued positive results prove Ralph’s success as an individual in contrast to his responsibilities as a leader. Even though he finds trouble accepting his flaws as an untrusted leader, he uses his beliefs in self-importance to overlook the negative possibilities to his selfishness. Piggy recognizes Ralph’s individuality due to his lack of attention and care toward him concerning the respect of his appearance from the other boys on the island. Ralph’s introduction to the conch open the eyes of the boys to a new way of life and hopeful survival, while Jack’s approach to culture on the island institutes the idea of corruption. It is then distinctive that Ralph, “the being that had blown [the conch][...]was set apart” from the rest of the boys (Golding 22).
In the midst of the 1950 's, the Cold War begins. While in that period, William Golding creates Lord of the Flies published in 1954. This is a novel about young school boys crash landing on an island. The boys on the island let the fear of something inside of them be in control. In the story, there are lots of events that take place and characters that take part.
His brutal behavior reveals when he kills the character of Piggy by throwing the stone. He throws it intentionally without any sorrow. Roger becomes a savage totally and brutal when he enjoys the murder of Piggy: “The storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred high overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (Golding, 222).
Similarly, in Lord of the Flies, Piggy dies while opposing Jack’s leadership. While Ralph and Piggy argue with Jack about what is necessary for survival (i.e. hunting and chaos or law and rescue), Roger, acting in accordance with Jack’s desires, pushes a rock on Piggy and kills him (Golding). Like Macbeth and Banquo, Jack saw Piggy and Ralph as direct opposition and thus obstacles to his rule and sought to eliminate it. Throughout the novel, Piggy and Ralph consistently have ideological conflicts with Jack
Jack’s tribe refuses to return Piggy’s glasses, and as a result, a fight ensues, killing Piggy. While this fight is occurring, Roger is watching like a hawk in his perch waiting for his prey, Piggy. “High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (141). Roger notices the powerless Piggy is standing beneath him and leans his weight on the lever, triggering the release of a giant boulder. Roger is now a murderer and is seen as a true savage.
He uses Ralph and Piggy to describe the well-educated that attempt to grasp civilisation, but ultimately fail to deliver. His symbol of Roger as an ordinary person that breaks loose of the chains of society once disconnected from it. Finally, the nature of Jack is a depiction of the power hungry that will do anything to lead. Firstly, Golding uses Ralph and Piggy to portray that human nature is hidden by society to continue civilisation.
