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Savagery In Lord Of The Flies Literary Analysis

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Social Destruction Lord of the flies is based on British boys getting stuck on a uninhabited island along comes the destruction of their small society. Upon landing, the boys attempt to establish a society with law and order. Although the boys get rescued at the end of the story, Golding uses Ralph and Jack to argue how savagery and the loss of civility leads to the destruction of society. While jack goes on a hunt he puts on war paint, he discovers that the mask he wears cover up his identity and insecurities. The conch represents civility once the boys stop respecting the conch their society starts to collapse. Once jack starts to hunt he wears a mask the mask changes him into a more …show more content…

leads into a more destructive society in which the boys live in. As time passes, the boys start to become more savage as does the hope of being rescued. When Samneric claim to have had an encounter with the beast the boys set off on a hunt for the beast. While they go hunting for the beast jack suggests that they go hunting for meat, after almost succeeding in killing the pig they become so exited that they start reenacting the encounter. “wedded to her in lust exited by the long chase and the dropped blood…the sow collapsed under them and they were heave and fulfilled upon.her”(Golding 108). The boys were no longer hunting just for meat they hunted for dear and pleasure, they not only just killed the sow they murdered her, they found pleasure in causing pain to a living being. As the time progressed it is shown that the boys are starting to become more savage just as their civility is starting to leave their nature. As time passes and the boys start loosing their civility they become more willing to commit gruesome acts without a second thought. After time passes the boys commit yet another cruel act they murder piggy and with that they loose intellect in their society. Following Piggy’s death comes the murder of Simon, after discovering the truth about the beast Simon tries to tell the rest of the boys it was just a dead parachutist they instead kill Simon.

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774 Words | 4 Pages

Evidence is shown when Jack makes himself a mask. As Jack is putting on the mask, “He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but an awesome stranger… the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (Golding, 63-64). With his mask, Jack feels liberated from shame and self-consciousness as he embraces his savage nature without feeling guilty. Jack uses this mask more often to feel free to behave like a bloodthirsty savage. Likewise, more evidence was seen when Jack had just killed a sow.

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Which is about a group of young boys that are marooned on an island for quite some time and have to make their own society. Ralph steps up as the leader of the boys but later on in the book, the position is taken by Jack which turns chaotic. The chaos leads to many problems within the group of boys. In the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it is shown that individuals make up society, Jack’s tribe shows this by controlling the boys with his beliefs, and making up his own rules that break the initial ones, although, the opposing side may say that society shapes the individuals. Beliefs are important in creating a society because it can organize the members values, however Jack does it tyrannically.

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654 Words | 3 Pages

Lord of the Flies is a book that shows how power corrupts a society even when isolated and the symbols relating to power. The story starts within a fictional war around 1950, when a group of British boys survive a plane crash and swim ashore. Having no adults or rules the island soon falls into chaos. Now Lord of the Flies is filled with symbolism all having an impact on the story and how the boys change throughout. Each Group of boys from Ralph's group, Jacks quire boys and even the littluns due that no power can be had without a large following that being the littluns.

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1431 Words | 6 Pages

In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding perpetuates the ideology of mankind being inherently evil. He successfully displays the boys descent into savagery and incorporates a balanced amount of external and internal dangers within the boys. The savagery on the island, also referred to as the “beastie”, only represents the boys internal battle with the savagery that resides in all of mankind. Golding ultimately uses prepubescent boys between the ages of 6-12 to display the corrupt intentions of all humans. Lord of the Flies displays loss of innocence by including murder, arson, and through constant rivalry and differences in mentalities between both Jack and Ralph.

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1166 Words | 5 Pages

Jack’s splitting from the group quickly prompts the rest of the boys to follow him one by one. As Ralph and Piggy realize what is happening, they pay a visit to Jack’s camp to check on Sam and Eric, the most recent departures from their group. Meanwhile, Simon awakens and sees the “beast” properly only to realize it is just a dead parachuter. He then proceeds to go tell the boys, who are now all on Jack’s beach. As Jack and Ralph argue, a storm breaks and Jack’s tribe begins their dance.

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935 Words | 4 Pages

He can catch his own pigs. Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too. "(Golding 96). Jack is now showing his difference in being a leader, he is more of a hunter who wants to go about finding and killing the beast in a different way than Ralph. He now separates from Ralph’s group and make his own tribe that soon will overpower Ralph’s.

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628 Words | 3 Pages

“The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee” (Golding 181). This quote shows that Piggy was killed by a boulder pushed by the boys during the day and how they killed him intentionally. “At once the crowd surged after it poured down the rock, leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore” (Golding 153). As shown above the boys brutally beat Simon until he was killed although the boys use the excuse of it being dark out they still killed Simon who was trying to speak to them right before he got killed. Piggy and Simons deaths were significant because Simon was killed by the boys but they tried to play it off as it being night so they couldn’t tell it was him, whereas Piggy was killed in the daylight deliberately by the boys which is what makes them savage because they can’t blame it on being dark out.

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707 Words | 3 Pages

Jack then sticks the head of a pig that he killed on

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Jack shows numerous times that he can be considered a savage. When Jack goes hunting, Golding depicts how Jack gets ready, “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. He looked in the pool for his reflection, but his breathing troubled the mirror” (63). This shows he is willing to change and become a savage by changing the image of how he looks.

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536 Words | 3 Pages

The characters are frightened of the alleged beast, but only Simon reaches the realization that they fear the beast because it lives inside all of them. As the characters. As the boys grow more brutal, their belief in the beast grows ever stronger.. At the closing of the novel, the boys are abandoning the sacrifices and treating it as a spiritual god. The boy 's personalities is what carries the beast into reality, so the more brutality the the boys act, the more realistic the beast seems to manifest.

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428 Words | 2 Pages

“Look.”(135). Jack has not only killed a pig, but he looks upon the action as a pleasurable experience. Jack, the former choir boy, becomes more and more savage and is able to jump from killing a pig to actually killing a fellow choirboy. Indeed, under Jack's leadership, the boys become inhuman and like animals as they violently attack and kill Simon. “There were no words, and no movement but the tearing of teeth and claws.

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1216 Words | 5 Pages

As time goes on throughout the island, the boys start to become increasingly barbaric. This is shown when the boys “pick up the pig” that they had just hunted and put its head on a stick as “a gift” for “the beast” (Golding 137). This scene represents the boys' increasing acceptance of violence and death as a normal part of their lives on the island. It is also significant because it shows that the boys are starting to lose their sense of humanity and are becoming more like the animals they are hunting. Moreover, the boys' actions with the pig's head also reflect their belief in the existence of the "beast," which represents their fear and primal instincts.

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733 Words | 3 Pages

The collective fear of the unknown leads to the untimely and accidental death of Simon. The distress present in the boys causes their impulsive action, of Simon’s horrific murder. Fear of “the beast” an imaginary creature causes the boys to act irrational, and provokes survival instincts as a result of life threatening terror. The fear of the boys in this moment is epitomized when they chant, “Kill the beast!, Cut his throat, Spill his blood!” (168).

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658 Words | 3 Pages

The boys interaction with the sow demonstrates their loss of morality through Jack's actions. “Jack held up the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick … a little blood dribbling down the stick” (Golding 136-137). There was a major use of imagery, which helped to set an ominous mood, in Golding's description of the sow's head being mounted for the beast. Jack uses this act to to his advantage, scaring the boys even further into the places of his devoted savage-servants. Simon's death was one of the boys ultimate losses of morality.

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910 Words | 4 Pages

(Golding 35) Ralph and Jack knew consciously that killing the pig was inhumane, even if it was for means of survival. As the story progresses, Jack becomes more aggressive, while Ralph slips into submission. After Jack successfully kills a pig, anarchy forms. The boys start to shout [Kill the beast!

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