However this fairness and democracy is an aspect of Ralph that others exploit, others playing whilst he and Simon build essential shelters. When he gives Jack his choir, he also gives Jack a power base, which later leads to Jack rebelling, and forming a separate group, which results in two deaths and Ralph’s name nearly being added to that. Ultimately, Ralph’s fairness and democracy is short-sighted.
Jack is also first introduced by his hair; being described as a red haired boy. The colour of red is usually associated with fire or in a human’s case, a fiery temper. The name Jack also means “one who supplants” in Hebrew, a choice name by Golding, as with many of the other names. His temper is shown when he rebels to create his own, superior group. Those who do eventually join his “tribe” are ruled by fear; Sam and Eric, the twins in the book, are punished for sticking with Ralph’s then smaller group by being hit. This is also evidence for their distancing from civilised ways, turning to the primitive, instinctive side of living.
The small society in which the boys exist for this time deteriorates throughout the book. When the boys first get there, Jack cannot bring himself to kill a piglet for food, “Jack drew his knife again with a flourish. The raised his arm in the air. There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm.” The passage begins with a couple of short sentences, showing his initial excitement, followed by one with commas in it; time in which Jack is seeing why he shouldn’t slaughter this innocent being. He draws his knife with intent to kill, almost instinctively, only to realise how hard it is to take an innocent life, the irony being that he later attempts to kill fellow humans. After the piglet runs away, he makes up excuses, showing his embarrassment, seeing himself as weak in someway. It is this ideology that overcomes his rational, civilised conscience as the book develops, leading to deaths of key characters. This quote shows his still strong link to the “civilised” world, to which he then conforms, whereas later on he does so with glee, even going as far as to stick it’s head on a stick as a “sacrifice” for the Beast – something we would consider an ancient practice. Piggy also, in Chapter 1 makes a point of pulling up his socks, as to look smart, then just a while later Ralph is swimming in a pool naked, having disregarded his clothing, and a link to civilisation. The Choir do the same; they quite happily take of their uniforms, rendering them a rougher, “unbritish” group, with a barbaric, imposing appearance, much akin to the Celtic tribes of Scotland around two millennia ago – the war paints, savage nature and worship through sacrifice to an aggressively portrayed idol exemplify this.
The Conch, found early in Chapter 1, brings a part of their civilised, democratic ways back to them at gatherings, when they have to be holding the Conch to talk. This allows for more organised and civilised debates, without the inevitable talking over each other that most adults do today. Jack, however, ignores the Conch for most of the book, and, seeing that it represents democracy and civilisation, shows he is turning from civilisation. Jack says, “The conch doesn’t count here.” This shows how he exploits anything that will give him any sort of power – in this case freedom from the rules laid down by Ralph, allowing for a space to roam free and perhaps execute a plan against the leadership on the isle. This quote also shows Jacks attitude to their situation; he thinks that it is all a game, the word “count” making it seem as if there are points to be gained and lost against Ralph. The power of leadership is a virtue that Jack values above almost everything else, even life towards the end of the book – it makes the others listen to him over Jack, holding power that Jack desperately wants. In the last chapter, however, the conch is destroyed, along with Piggy, representing the destruction of democracy and civilisation; from then on Jack’s tribe are totally barbaric, fuelled by a primitive desire for blood, and try to kill Ralph – the first time they had purposely attempted to kill a fellow man.
Destruction is a theme that appears quite frequently throughout the novel; Ralph, Jack and Simon tip over a huge boulder during their first exploration of the island, which subsequently rips a path through much of the forested section of the island. This is an example of primitive instinct shining through once more, though it is a well known fact that most young boys do things like this for no good reason, other than that it’d be fun. This is also severe short-sightedness; none of them gave a thought to the fact that it could have injured someone had it headed for their base area. It would have also destroyed much of the growth that they would have needed the fruits of. This event foreshadows Piggy’s murder – a boulder is levered off a perch and crashes down onto the virtually blind Piggy, after which Jack doesn’t show any sort of remorse, but issues it as a warning to Ralph.
Later on in the novel a large fire is set up, with the good intent that passing ships or planes seeing them will come to rescue them. Their over-enthusiasm results in the burning of an entire side of the mountain and, more tragically, one of the “littleuns” – identified as “the boy with the mulberry birthmark”.
Jack again shows short-sightedness when he hunts and kills a sow, which could have easily been one of the breeding pigs on the island. Killing it would have starved several piglets somewhere, which, if they were to be staying there for a longer time, would have meant that there were fewer pigs to kill for food, causing possibly the extinction of pigs from that island; they would lose an invaluable source of essential food.
Piggy is first described in this book as “very fat”, his first sentence grammatically incorrect. “I can’t hardly move with all these creeper things.” The use of double negatives making him say something he didn’t mean to and the ignorance that comes across with “things” making him come across as not as clever as all of the other boys with speech or description. He is also short-sighted and wears glasses, upon which he relies on to function normally. There is an irony in these qualities in that although he may speak poorly and appear stupid, he comes out with some of the most profound thoughts and often suggests to Ralph ideas, from which Ralph gets the credit. Ralph even looks to Piggy for advice frequently during the novel. He is one of the most mentally adult people on the island, suggesting name taking at the boys’ first meeting and even suggesting that it is only their imaginations producing the Beast, after which he is laughed at. He can also be seen as a voice of reason, though this often gets him into trouble; no one, apart from Ralph and Simon, respects him, so any sensible and clever comments he puts forward are shoved back at him, or in the case of when he stands up to jack for the first time, receives a punch. These sorts of reactions hold him from speaking out more of his reasonable suggestions, resulting in more mishaps, which could have potentially been avoided. Golding uses Piggy’s murder as a tool to get us to relate it to the Holocaust – where the Jews were murdered in their millions by Hitler, who Jack can be seen to represent in this book.
Piggy could be seen as the adult on the island – he calls the boys when they thoughtlessly run up the mountain to build a fire “a bunch of kids”, the irony being that they are just that. Piggy and The Naval Officer, an adult who appears at the end, both say the same thing: “are there any adults here?” as one of their first sentences, Golding wants us to forge that link, to show how even respectable figures, such as a captain, can think the same things as a poorly-spoken boy. This emphasises Piggy’s maturity, and the strength of Ralph’s underlying leadership qualities – Jack backs off and Ralph steps forward when the leader is asked for; Jack doesn’t object, maybe finally coming to the realisation that he is a bad leader, and that Ralph is his superior or maybe that he doesn’t want the responsibility for the events on the island.
Piggy, along with Simon, is also the only person to think that the “Beast” is them; he is laughed at for this, as the other boys are too set on their previous prejudices. They believe that the Beast is many things over the course of the book, and give it various names. In the first chapter, the Beast’s first manifestation is that of the choir – “Something was fumbling along.” This gives the impression of some uncoordinated being, much like a typical film-zombie or monster. It evolves into a group of humans, marching in step. “This sweaty march.” Is then used to describe Jack’s choir, showing how Jack would prefer a good appearance than comfort and practicality. Golding makes the choir’s description seem in tune with that of the Nazi’s – the uniform and synchronised march invoking this impression, aiding the imagery of Jack being like Hitler; now he has his followers, his army. The Beast then takes the form of a “Beastie” when a shy littleun says he saw it in the trees. The way it is called a Beastie gives it a less credible and almost fairy-tale sound, causing the other boys to not believe him. It is now when we see a representation of the evil and fear, though it is hidden away. The littleuns, being the most innocent, see it first.
The Beast shape-shifts over the course of the book from the incredible “Beastie” to a feeling that they are being watched to a “dense black mass that revolved”. The Beast then starts becoming more like man, as a parachutist who appears to Sam and Eric as a dragon-like creature to a “Great Ape”. The appearance of the parachutist is a reminder that there is a war going on outside of the boys’ civilisation – the external war became internal, affecting those not even very aware of it. This mirrors the microcosm of the island’s war that the boys are fighting, forging another link between the boys, who are supposedly innocent, and the outside world at large. The boys’ imaginations tell them it is getting more powerful, so they believe that it does exist, although none of them have got solid evidence. Here Golding is saying that as the Beast grows in power, as it is essentially the evil of man, so does the evil grow – the evil that ends up affecting Piggy and Simon severely: When Simon staggers into the clearing where the rest of the boys, including Ralph and Piggy, are dancing and singing a chant about killing the beast, it isn’t surprising that they mob him and murder him, taking him for the beast in a frenzy of mass hysteria.
Golding has written a novel which can be seen at many levels. It was his personal fight to warn the world of potential evil – even seemingly innocent children such as those in his book had the capacity for evil, which manifest it’s self in the most dramatic, horrifying way, resulting in the deaths of three innocent people, all of whom were more innocent at their end than their killers, Piggy and Simon were attempting to do positive things for their killers, in fact – Simon was confirming the non-existence of the Beast (the irony being that he was killed for being a manifestation of the Beast), Piggy, with Ralph, trying to come to an agreement with Jack. Golding stated that “man produces evil as a bee produces honey”. He has shown how the civilisation on the island has broken down into anarchy and terror “because the boys are suffering from the terrible disease of being human”.
