When the boys first start hunting it could be argued that they do genially do it to eat meat, and when Jack is first confronted with the opportunity to kill a pig he can't, because of everything he had been taught to live by. The rules of society stopped him. And at this moment in the novel he can not bring himself to take the life of a living thing:
‘They knew very well why he hadn’t: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood’
But as time passes the boys start to live without the morals they were brought up with, and the realization of the fact they will not be punished for what they do, the blood lust and desire to kill increases. By the end it is obvious that the boys hunt for pleasure, it describes them as being ‘Wedded to her in lust’ when they are hunting a sow. They enjoy the excitement and the feeling of power they get from playing God and taking a creatures life.
‘Taken away its life like a long satisfying drink’
When both Piggy and Simon are murdered, the words that Jack said when the boys first ended up on the island are brought back and seem so ironic:
“‘After all, we’re not savages. We’re English; and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things.”’
Ralph is the only one on the island to care about the dirtiness of the boys:
‘Ralph looked at the filthy objects before him and sighed’
He seems to think if they were ‘how they used to be’; clean, groomed and clothed, that things would then be how they once were. Even though he too is dirty, he is the only one who minds, who doesn’t want to be. It’s as though the other boys have accepted the slow regression they are making back to primitive times.
The feelings felt about the killing of Simon were only shown by Piggy, Samneric and Ralph. Ralph is shaken by the fact he played a part in the murder, and the more he talks about it, the more he distances himself it:
‘“Didn’t you see what we- they did?”’
And by the end he writes himself out of being involved in any way:
‘“I was on the outside too”’
Ralph hates the fact that he was drawn into it, and he attempts to explain to Piggy what he was feeling:
‘“I wasn’t Scared” Said Ralph slowly “I was- I don’t know what I was!”’
Ralph, even though he is the one with the most common sense, was drawn in by the same lust of taking a life as the other boys; it shows that there is still darkness present in even the best of us. Piggy was mainly in denial, trying to convince Ralph that is wasn’t murder and that it couldn’t be helped, and Samneric obviously felt awkward and embarrassed:
‘They flushed and looked past him into the air’
Piggy’s murder has no excuses. It is pure cold blooded murder. Once Piggy is dead and the conch is destroyed, the boys realize that they can now do as the please, that there are no rules and regulations, that no one controls them and that they can not be punished for their actions. Though Simon’s death is described more I think Piggy’s is more significant to the boys, this is when there is no longer anything holding the boys back from being savages. Before there was something there, stopping them, the rules and regulations they had been brought up to respect and follow, also, Piggy and the conch are both destroyed at the same time, then bond between Piggy and the conch were never broken, and it is significant that the person who stood for the adult world, and sense of reality disappeared along with the rules and knowledge of what is right and wrong.
You see how each boy reacts to the instincts of savagery Piggy shows no indication of savagery, not even physically. His hair does not grow, and his physique does not change, he also is not attracted to the hunting of the pigs or drawn to the fire, where are Roger barely remembers the rules to civilisation, and he is the only boy who kills a human alone, the murder of Simon was done as a group, but the murder of Piggy was Roger alone. You see how the instinct of savagery soon over takes the instinct of civilization, and even though the boys have been brought up well and told how to live and act, they forget this for something that they haven’t been taught, but for something that is there inside them and can not be ignored, it also has more of an appeal to the boys, the style of living and the rush of excitement they get from it compensate for the loss of their rules, regulations and safety. Even the chanting about the pig is a sign of the boys’ regression for they are all one syllable words, and very aggressive:
‘Kill the Pig, cut her throat, spill her blood’
They change from an orderly group of school boys, to a ‘Pack of painted savages’, the regression does start slow, with the disguarding of their garments, and it slowly builds up until they are total savages, talking about human sacrifices to the beats.
The beast that frightens all the boys stands for the primal instinct of savagery that exists within all human beings. The boys are afraid of the beast, but only Simon reaches the realization that they fear the beast because it exists within each of them. As the boys descend further into savagery, their belief in the beast grows stronger. By the end of the novel, the boys are leaving it sacrifices as people used to please a god. The boys’ behaviour is what brings the beast into existence, so the more savagely the boys act, the more real the beast seems to become.
The torture of humans and the talk of human sacrifice are also very primitive. Roger is the one really enjoys torturing others, he is the Satanist. When Jack is prodding at Samneric with a spear Roger says:
‘”That’s not the way”’
When Jack’s tribe plan to kill Ralph, Samneric tell him that:
‘”Roger sharpened a stick at both ends.’’’
They were planning to do to Ralph what they had done to the pig who’s head was put on a stick as a sacrifice.
The realization of the fact there are no rules tie in with the boys savage behavior, if there were adults on the island and people to enforce rules and regulations they would not be running around dirty and painted. But it is this realization and feeling of freedom that pushes them to act like that, they know they can do as they please and that they can get away with it.
I think the reason Ralph and Jack stood for two opposing natures of man was to make it like the world the boys came from, like with democracy. The little island the boys have been stranded on becomes their own world, there is a vote and a leader is elected. Jack stands for dictatorship, Ralph stands for democracy. With the boys you see how they vote for Ralph because he has the conch, but as the respect for the conch fades, so does the respect for Ralph. This is because Ralph wants the best for the boys, and in doing this makes things dull and boring for them, what Ralph and Jack stand for very different things in the boy’s eyes:
‘There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled common-sense.’
The boys are constantly pushed towards Jack due to all the failures of Ralph, like the huts and the promise of rescue, but the boys can not see that the only reason he is failing is because they refuse to help, where as Jack promised the boys meat, he gave them it, he promised them fun, and once again delivered it. He keeps his word because he promises easy things, Ralph can not possibly build huts and keep a signal fire going with no help from the others.
Ralph doesn’t have the power to make the boys obey the rules, he does not like to impose his will upon the others and make them do as he wishes, though he has many qualities of a leader, this is the one he lacks, and this is the one he needs the most for Jack is not bothered by what the boys want or think, he makes them do as he wants when he wants. So when the boys go off on a hunt with Jack instead of telling them off, Ralph merely whines at them telling them that they should help to build huts.
Things start to break up because of Ralph’s failures. Most of the boys are pushed towards Jack, and Ralph is left only with Samneric, Piggy, Simon and The Littluns. The boys are divided into two groups, Jack and the savages, and Ralph and the others. But by the end all except Ralph and the Littluns are savages or dead.
The boys can not resist the destructive nature that they feel. They enjoy the exhilaration and excitement they get from hunting and taking the lives of living things. But when the boys first come to be on the island, though the feeling is present soon the boys can not act upon it.:
‘Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law.’
This is an early step in the boys decline into savagery. The civilized instinct still dominates the savage instinct. But savagery is beginning to take over, and it is obvious with more of the older boys in their willingness to use physical force and violence to give themselves a sense of superiority over the smaller boys. Roger feels the urge to torment Henry by pelting him with stones, but the vestiges of socially imposed standards of behaviour are still too strong for him to give in completely to his savage urges. At this point, Roger still feels constrained by morals and laws. But most of the boys lose their respect for these forces. Violence, torture, and murder break out as the savage instinct replaces the instinct for civilization among them.
The rolling of the rock is also an example of how the boys caused destruction. Simon and Ralph were friends with Jack at this point, this was before things began to ‘break up’ as it were. As the boys roll the rock, and it smashes through the under growth one of them describes it as being ‘like a bomb’ even rolling a rock is like a game of war to the boys. They naturally have a destructive nature and they find excitement from destroying things.
Even Ralph holds the desire to inflict pain and take the life of another. The only boy who doesn’t seem to hold the power to harm another is Simon, and he is the first boy to be murdered. He talks to ‘The Lord of the Flies’ and finds out that the beast the boys made up was a rotting corpse, yet he is un-able to free the boys from this burden. The sow’s head that Simon talks to explains to him what the real danger on the island is:
‘“There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast . . . Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . . You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are the way they are?”’
These words confirm Simon’s speculation that the beast is in fact the boys themselves. The Lord of the Flies identifies itself as the beast and tells Simon that it exists within every human being. This darkness each of the boys has inside of them is the reason why things break up. At the end Ralph realises that everyone holds this desire to kill:
‘Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.’
The rescue is not a moment of happiness for Ralph even though it was all he seemed to want. He realizes that although he is saved from death on the island, he is not safe from the darkness. He has lost his innocence and learned about the evil that is within every human. Even at the height of civilisation and in children, ment to be the most innocent of people, there is this overwhelming presence of savagery.
