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What Is Rogers Descent Into Savagery In Lord Of The Flies

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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. According to the text, “Roger found a lodgement for his point and began to push till he was leaning with his whole weight. The spear moved forward inch by inch and the terrified squeal became a high pitched scream” (Golding 135). The way Roger stabs the pig highlights his aggression and craving for violence. At that moment, he wanted to be in complete control of the pig and did so by killing her in a way that would be most painful. Although he is not yet hurting a human and instead a pig, his assault nevertheless demonstrates that his actions are motivated by the …show more content…

Roger, watching the fight and waiting on top of a mountain, pulls a lever under a boulder which sends it downhill and ultimately kills Piggy. According to the text, “Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (Golding 180). At this point in the book, Roger loses all sense of innocence and fully welcomes the evil in him, as he brutally murders someone without hesitation or remorse. Roger clearly enjoys and obsesses over the power that violence brings him. Roger has lost sight of all the societal rules and norms and now fully embraces his harmful nature. Through the measures that he takes, it is revealed that the nature of mankind is evil and

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The novel Lord of the Flies by Robert Golding is a story about a group of boys stuck on a tropical island. In chapters seven and eight, the power struggle between Jack and Ralph is becoming more prominent, eventually causing Jack to go off and form his own group. As the plot develops, the boys are becoming more and more savage. One example of this is when the boys have a mock hunt, using Robert as the pig. On page 114, Golding writes, “Kill the pig!

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985 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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201 Words | 1 Pages

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.

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767 Words | 4 Pages

(Golding 180-181) At this point in the story, Roger is acting on his primitive instincts and becoming the biggest savage on the island. Speaking about his savagery, Roger kills Piggy with a huge boulder, which not only kills Piggy but destroys the conch into smithereens. Savagery has overtaken Roger, and his murder of Piggy symbolizes savagery and the destruction of their civilization. This quote shows that Jack's cruelty is rubbed off on his people.

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448 Words | 2 Pages

However, we can make a prediction that Roger beat Samneric because they are just followers and do not stand up for themselves. Most Importantly, Roger murders Piggy at Castle Rock. “High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever.” (180) Roger was acting violently, knowing there would not be consequences, except for the death of Piggy.

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534 Words | 3 Pages

After being on the island for a long time, the boys start to become uncivilized too. After Roger already becomes a criminal by aiding in the murder of a boy, Simon, he murders Piggy on his own. Roger understood that he was committing murder, so he should be fully responsible for his actions. What Roger did is unacceptable, he murdered someone by choice. Because even though “We are born with evil in us...

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841 Words | 4 Pages

As the boys’ sense of morality dissolves, violence is promoted among them. In the following quote, something involuntary within Roger stops him from hitting Henry, “Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, which he dare

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821 Words | 4 Pages

As the text shows, Roger could not throw rocks because the old life of law and rules was still with him. But later in the book, as they start becoming savages, Roger doesn’t care anymore and decides to deliberately throw a boulder at Piggy, killing him. In the text it says “Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever.” This shows that Roger has abandoned his old life and all the rules the old civilization had for him. Roger has left his old life behind and left all the rules with his old life and has just become a

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635 Words | 3 Pages

At first, they did not believe it, but as time went on, they saw more and more signs that it was real, even though it was not. Many of the boys are scared, which leads them to think that one of the boys is the beast that they are all scared of. They kill the boy, which shows that fear and chaos not only affect Roger, but some of the other boys, too. This all causes Roger to become more violent, which is out of his own hands because of the conditions that he is put in, therefore not his

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755 Words | 4 Pages

Spill her blood!" (Golding,69). It shows the bloodthirst the boys have for hunting. When Roger killed the pig he stuck a spear up the pig's rear end and watched as the pig squealed in pain. The boys beat the pig while Jack pierces the pig's throat.

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726 Words | 3 Pages

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!

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731 Words | 3 Pages

When Roger is relentlessly described by the twins, William Golding is able to make the reader picture what other characters think of him. As Roger devises a plan to get rid of Ralph, he finally realizes that there is no one to stop him. The author presents: The chief and Roger--They hate you, Ralph. They 're going to do you, They’re going to hunt you down tomorrow.

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2061 Words | 9 Pages

He suggests that law and rescue is better than hunting and breaking things up. Roger pushes a huge rock off the cliff and onto Piggy. The rock falls from the cliff and strikes him, smashing the conch, and knocking him off the forty-foot embankment. Piggy lands below on out-jutting rock and his head smashes, the contents of his skull oozing out onto the rocks”(William Golding, chapter 11). Choosing this quote for savagery shows that the person in charge did what he needed to do to the people that didn’t want to follow.

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836 Words | 4 Pages

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).

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549 Words | 3 Pages

In the quote itself it says that Roger was taught by society that it wasn’t okay to pick on other kids, but him being away from society has allowed him to disobey that rule. Even if Roger wasn’t taught that he still wouldn’t dare harm the children because, as the quote says, the parents, school, and police would immediately stop him and punish him for his actions. Cruelty is something that’s present not only in The Lord of the Flies but also within reality. Golding used cruelty well in his book to convey his theme that cruelty is inside a majority of people, but society prevents it from ever appearing. Golding picked a very serious topic to talk about, and that topic is very much true in our world as we see tyrants and other such people cause suffering and

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