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What Does Jack Symbolize In Lord Of The Flies

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In the novel, Lord of the Flies, the author William Golding transforms young boys into savages, "What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?" (Golding, William 91). After being stranded on an island with nothing but other boys and some pigs, the boys are alone on the island. In the story, a boy named Jack goes through a strong evolution of being civil and wild. In The Lord of the Flies, Golding transforms Jack using symbols such as jealousy, leadership, and hunting to evolve him into a barbaric boy. After the voting went and Ralph was named chief of the boys, Jack went through changes, "The circle of boys broke into applause. Even the choir applauded; Jack's face disappeared under a blush of mortification" (23). Jack is used as a symbol in the story by bringing hatred out of his civil nature towards Ralph because of jealousy. He is jealous of the power that was handed off to Ralph, that he thinks he should get. The hatred in his mind is building as Ralph takes more and more power away temporarily because Ralph is becoming more powerful as he takes away some of Jack's responsibilities. As both of the boys are put up against society as individuals fighting for power Jack has respect for …show more content…

In the story, Jack is used as a symbol in the terms of hunting. Jack uses this excuse to cover the savage and the violence that he wants to the lash out on others and that is to get food. He always makes the claim that he hunts for food because the boys need it, but he really hunts for the sport. When he hunts he uses paint to cover himself from the animals he is killing, but he uses it to cover his identity and the mask labels him as a savage, "'Well, we won't be painted,' said Ralph, 'because we aren't savages.'" (172) Jack hunts for the sport and has the adrenaline, he couldn't care less if they had food to eat. Jack just wanted to kill, which led him to try to kill

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In William Golding’s book, Lord of the Flies, plenty of boys are stuck on an island. As the book progresses, they reveal individual traits and who stands out the most. Jack promotes these traits that set him apart from the other boys by being power-hungry and violent. As the most intriguing character, Jack uses the power of fear and manipulation to gain dominance over the boys. It begins when the dead parachutist lands on the island.

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At the beginning of the story, Jack is civilized and wants to be rescued like the other boys. He is assigned to be the lead hunter, but when he sees his first pig, he cannot kill it. Eventually, he is a savage and he has no problem killing pigs and in some cases, other boys. “At once the crowd surged after him, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

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In the allegorical novel Lord of the Flies, Golding incorporates violent imagery, personification, metaphor, and the characterization of Ralph and Jack as character foils in order to illustrate two vastly different approaches to creating a community; thus showing Ralph’s civilized leadership through intelligence and logic versus Jack’s savage leadership through intimidation and fear. In this scene, the reader views these two differing styles of leadership through the eyes of Simon, one of the older boys on the island. Jack and the hunters return from the forest marching as a group and proudly displaying their slaughter of a wild pig. Although, they are proud of their prized pig, they have neglected their responsibilities or keeping the

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When babies are first born into the world, they have no knowledge. Humans are born into the world as savages, naked and clueless. These babies eventually grow up, covered by clothes and clouded by materialism. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, after being freed from the mask of materialistic things, we can clearly see a character shift in all the boys. These well mannered, cultured and civilized boys transform into primitive beings.

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When children are put in a environment with no adult supervision they believe that there will be no consequences for their actions and act on their bad decisions. In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the themes are always changing and are best suited with the current situation the boys find themselves in. Jack, Ralph, and Simon are three of the main characters, and always find themselves having to deal with a new problem day by day on the island. Jack is a very easy character to describe, his name having the meaning “to seize by force”.

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In the beginning of the book, Jack wishes to have rules and order. However, Jack begins to change and it is first noticed when the group of boys choose a chief to lead them. Jack then begins to turn his ways as he is not chosen to lead and a boy named Ralph was. Jack, believing that hunting is the most important part of surviving the island, turns on Ralph as Ralph believes that to get off the island they were stuck on, they have to light a fire that

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All the rules they once lived by are severed. Ralph care about the good of the society while Jack only cares about himself and what he thinks is right. Although there are many traits that could describe Jack, ambitious is the most prominent trait that fits Jack's behavior. He shows this by challenging the society.

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He takes part in killing one of the boys with everyone else. Even though it was an accident, he was very violent. These acts of Jack represent the theme that the absence of civilization leads to

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Jack’s appearance is an indicator of his status as he uses paint on his face to intimidate the boys, this distinguishes the differences in status that they have. Golding describes Jack as “The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red,” as “the tribe lay in a semicircle before him” (Golding 160). Jack being “naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red,” suggests that he is recognized as the new chief. Jack having his chest out and “his face blocked out with red and white” paint resembles that of a tribal leader, this distinguishes the difference of status that he and the boys have. It also suggests Jack has significant influence over the boys because he makes them “lay in a semicircle

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Jack knowingly leaves everyone else so he can be chief and run things his own ways, and he is successful in doing so. When Jack reveals his plan to the boys about them hunting and he being chief, the

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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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Like the others, JACK has lost his connections to reasoning and reality in exchange for power through extortion and fear. Ralph and JACK’s confrontation, essentially, sets the stage for the competition between Ralph’s path of civility and order versus JACK’s path of evil and demagoguery. When JACK wins the battle against Ralph, he immediately utilizes the BOYS’ fears of the BEAST in order to bolster his power. Within the process of conformity and deindividuation, the BOYS, desensitized, do not question JACK’s power while he commits acts like “beat[ing] Wilfred” (159) for no reason. Golding specifically denounces JACK’s actions and portrays him like an animal.

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Human society has been long perceived as a mechanism to restrain humans from their natural inclinations towards evil and savagery. However, William Golding's novel the Lord of the Flies argues that despite society’s attempts to civilize and domesticate, human beings are inherently capable of committing evil and violent acts. Published in 1954, Golding used his experience in the Royal Navy as inspiration to write the novel based on World War 2. The Lord of the Flies follows a group of British Boys that are left stranded on a deserted island and their gradual descent into savagery despite the boys attempts to civilize. Golding backs this statement by showing the reader the effects of fear and how it inflicts itself on the boys.

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Jack said, “See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that!”2 Jack knows it was an accident to what happened, but took it as a consideration that he planned it. This explains that due to their careless act, it resulted into someone’s death.

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987 Words | 4 Pages

When Jack first arrives on the island, his savage nature does not show itself yet, and he is unable to fathom taking life from this Earth: “They knew very well why he hadn’t [killed the pig]: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood” (Golding 31). Jack is unwilling to commit acts of violence with the conditioning of his previous environment fresh in his mind. However, the longer Jack stays on the island, the more violent he becomes; he begins to obsess over hunting and killing pigs, eventually even taking part in taking a human

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