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The Lord Of The Flies: Character Analysis

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Humans have multiple personalities for every environment and situation in the novel The Lord of the Flies. The character’s persona in the novel elevates drastically from the quick change of the environment and the uncivilized structure that is presented after the characters find out that no adults are present on the island. Golding is emphasizing through comprehensive events, that human nature has different facets to itself and ultimately that evil and good both coexist inside all of humans. The tribe of boys’ good human nature is immediately impacted upon arrival at the island. Jack believes if good is shown then it makes one weak and it holds him back from killing the piglet. To decimate fear, Jack simulates someone he is not by creating a mask and wearing it (63). While Jack puts on the mask he is insinuating that his evil side has taken over and there is …show more content…

Jack shows his evil multiple time throughout the novel, one of his most savage displays is when Robert says “You want a real pig... because you’ve got to kill him.” Jack replies “use a littlun.”(114). The comment made by Jack and the hunters is evil and savage because Jack’s comment is ultimately resembling a human sacrifice. Jack loses his sense of humanity after the rock strikes piggy and he destroys the conch (181). Jack cannot pay any attention to his murder of Piggy because he is too busy chasing Ralph trying to kill him also. Jack’s evil is an allegory of the present world that the boys live in, the hunters are also an allegory of evil because they are like the army. Golding is concluding that the environment and character’s personalities of The Lord of the Flies is a huge allegory for human nature for the Earth. Golding lived and fought through WW2 and he is giving the reader his perception of human nature. He wants to let the reader know that evil lives inside of all humans, even in today’s

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William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is an influential novel which reveals the darkness of mankind and evil inside of all humans. Lord of the Flies is set in the early 20th century, during a time when Europe is under attack and surrounded by war. For this reason, a plane carrying a group of British schoolboys is flown away from the chaos in hopes of bringing the boys to safety. Suddenly, the airliner is mistaken for a military aircraft and taken down. After all of the pandemonium the boys soon realize that they are the only survivors.

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Furthermore, later in the book Jack decides to leave the group and make his own tribe. It is characterized by the tribe that is fun and the one that hunts, “I’m going off by myself. He can catch his own pigs. Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too”(127). The pig’s head on a spear is a part of characterization as well.

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601 Words | 3 Pages

Golding's use of symbolism in Lord of the Flies conveys many different meanings to ordinary objects. For example a conch shell represents power and the beast represents the devil. William Golding's Lord of the Flies is about a group of boys that are stranded on an island. The book shows the boy’s changes morally and physically. During the book most of the boys change to savages to gain power.

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This foreshadows that if Jack was in the moment of adrenaline and had a place he would kill something. The concept to why Jack could not kill the piglet is that a living animal or species should be killed. 2.) Golding first presents Jack as intimidating, fierce, warrior-like, and rude. "The boy himself came forward, vaulted on to the platform with his cloak flying, and peered into what to him was almost complete darkness" (Golding 20).

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786 Words | 4 Pages

After this Jack starts to fight for total dominance, the harsh elements that occur on the island cause the deuteriation of some type of aspect in a normal society. The first fire causes the disappearance of the first child. These harsh elements in the setting seem to one by one bleach out any remaining ethics.   The overall aspect of the novel The Lord of the Flies completes a transition through the time period where the boys began losing all ideals, values, and society. We slowly see them start to fall apart and as we analyze the characterization, the setting in which it takes places, and the different symbols that play a part in the fate the boys.

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731 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding the ultimate one responsible for the destruction of the island is Jack. In the novel Golding has wrote about how a group of british boys crashed on a plane and landed on a island where there are no adults,just little british boys stranded on a island .In the beginning one of the boys Ralph was the responsible leader where he knew what to do an how to manage. But of course there was this one cureles jealous boy that wanted to be a leader,the one in charge. Because of how ruthless and savage Jack was he took the fear that the boys had within them and used it against them to make them join his tribe which started the destruction of the island.

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561 Words | 3 Pages

The style of writing is vivid and descriptive allowing one to see what was happening throughout the book as if we were on the island. At times it was harsh and brutal. In many of the scenes the colorful description of how they killed was very violent and bloody with torturous behaviors. Simon is savagely stabbed and killed by his friends after they lose control thinking he was the beast.

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655 Words | 3 Pages

This is only a small step of Jack's plan to earning the groups trust and gaining overall power. After the group leaves Ralph to join Jack, they kill a pig and leave its head for the beast, this is the turning point of where Jack has used his power of violence to corrupt the boys and turn them into what he is. This isn’t the only way he used violence to consume the boys.

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Jack has changed greatly, over the course of William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies. Crashing onto an island without adults and having to survive put a strain on all of the boys, but Jack’s personality altered the most due to this experience. He went from living as an ambitious choir boy, to being a vicious, brutal, beast. Many things changed Jack on the island, but most of all, he created the monster he became.

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In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, young boys get stranded on an island with no adults in the midst of a war. The boys were orderly and civilized in the beginning but then as they began killing pigs they slowly became savages and lost their civilization. The boys began turning on each other and the evil within them became present. Golding uses a variety of literary devices including personification, symbols, metaphors, and irony, to project the theme that pure and realistic people in the world can be unheard and destroyed by evil.

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When characters with malicious intent and borderline evil traits are thrown into the mix, it is bound to get out of hand. With the group of boys in Lord of The Flies, it is easy to place the blame on certain boys, however, it is wiser to place blame on the situation. The combination of pre-teen boys and the seclusion of reality lead to the impending doom of the whole island. With a power-hungry mind like Jacks’ merging with the fear of the other boys and the consequence-free setting, it is inevitable that chaos will ensue. Jack and the isolation from society is the ultimate demise of the island the boys found themselves on.

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Golding gives the reader a glimpse of the creeping darkness within man by creating several internal struggles within the characters of his novel. For example, Diane Jenningfeld commented in her essay “An overview of Lord of the Flies”, saying “During the first trip into the jungle, Jack is unable to kill the pig with his knife; by the end of the book he is hunting human quarry”. At the start of the novel, Jack Merridew struggles with his reluctance and desire to kill anything. He falters because society has taught him to suppress any evil and violent urges, but now on the island there is no one to stop or reprimand him. By the end, Jack no longer holds back, but gives in to the mad pleasure of killing pigs and even hunting humans.

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1397 Words | 6 Pages

Everyone has this underlying darkness within them that is hidden away deep inside the nooks and crannies of their hearts. Golding demonstrates this through the use of his major characters, Ralph and Jack. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, the author William Golding utilizes character development to suggest the idea that when individuals are separated from civilization, dark forces will arise and threaten unity and harmony. Golding presents the protagonist, Ralph, who is decently intelligent and completely civilized, to demonstrate how once individuals are pulled away from civilization, the dark forces within them will arise and change how they are for the time being.

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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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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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