Now I hope that Piggy and Simon are living happily in heaven and when Jack dies, there is only one place he should go…
Roger’s monologue
I shall blame Jack for killing Simon and Piggy. In court I will say that he forced me to dislodge the boulder and kill Piggy. Hahaha no one will know that it was my full intention to kill. I will play for the sympathy vote in court and put on my best act so that it is Jack who gets sent down, not me. I feel like I missed out, I could’ve tortured so many more people during my stay on the island. Oh well now its back to civilisation and rules and laws. How boring! I long for a chance to do everything again but this time I would make myself chief. I wonder what has happened to the beast. Maybe it will haunt that island forever. Now I am free because there isn’t any beastie where I live, hehe. I can do what I like.
Ralph seemed a good leader at first but he was too preoccupied with the ‘fire’ and rescue. Jack was a better leader but he never fully got to that stage of really wanting to cause pain to theto the other children on the island. Instead it was always hunting with him. He wasn’t able to see that I was bored hunting pigs. I wanted to hunt littluns.
Samneric’s monologue
We were scared of Jack, really really scared. We hope that Ralph doesn’t think that we betrayed him. We couldn’t help it Jack forced us to join him, he said that if we didn’t he would torture us. Roger also kept making threats to us and eventually it slipped out that you were hiding nearby. Our time in Jack’s tribe was really quite boring and scary. At all times we were frightened that if we did anything wrong, Jack or Roger would hurt us. Almost all of the boys felt that way, we only did what Jack told us to do because we were scared of him, there wasn’t any other reason. Poor Piggy, he was really dear to us and we miss him loads. We should’ve pushed Roger of from the cliff in retaliation but we were too stunned at the time. The shameful nature of our actions when were with Jack cannot be excused, especially the night Simon died. We didn’t leave early that night like we had told Ralph and Piggy but we saw and took part in the dance albeit on the outside. That island made fools out of us, we hope to never return their again. Looking back it is hard to see how things turned out so bad. Probably the main reason things got out of hand was Jack’s need for leadership. Many a time we saw that Jack hated following the orders of someone else.
We will try to forget this solemn event in our lives…
Evidence for the religious perspective:
Evil within man , island= eden, forget previous life, lack of moral/spiritual guidance caused sin+ destruction, created a primitive tribe religion, only god can save
1) evil with man→ golding believes this otherwise why make the character of Simon?(he is the one who says the beast is themselves)
2) eden, hmm not always, described as scar, other island has jagged rocks etc, but simon’s hideaway eden like, fruit is mentioned a LOT.
3) god does not save, simon fails, message that Golding is saying we cannot use God as an excuse for this, we must change this ourselves
4) much evidence for lack of moral guidance, no parent to give this, children think it is ok to torture each other + all the other horrible acts committed on the island
5) jack creates a ‘rival’ religion to Ralph’s one, boys like jack’s more due to the ancestral desire for meat, hunting. Ironically, there is a sort of ‘order’ in Jack’s religion because every1 is so scared of doing anything wrong, they don’t do anything. This works against them when they are ordered to kill, etc
The legal angle,
Cannot be held wholly responsible due to age, did they understand right from wrong?, premeditated?
1) well, ofc they cannot be held wholly responsible, they were only 12 years old
2) they could be because certainly Roger knew right from wrong, yet still he chose wrong, jack on the other hand was blinded by his passion for hunting
3) some actions were premeditated, the trap thought of by Jack at their new hideout
4) he sed that they cud use it to kill any1 who comes
5) simon’s death was not really premeditated, the boys got swept up in a mad deep passion which caused them to kill him
6) Roger+Jack however can be convicted of Piggy’s death, not of simon’s if some1 sed that they shud be convicted of simons death then all of the boys including Ralph+Piggy wud be convicted because of the first death caused by the huge fire, hmm maybe Piggy exempt+ littluns, rest convicted
The moral view→similar to psychiatrists view and parts of religious view.
The other children slowly absorb Jack’s views because he is the head of that particular family, jack however turned nasty due to a return to primeval instincts.
Cruelty flourishes in conditions where there is much fear, lack of parental guidance, feeling of nothing to lose , despair
Hard to see if Jack felt despair, but certainly Ralph and Piggy do, instead they do not give up hope→ golding says ‘capacity for selflessness and love’ this is shown by Piggy (towards littluns + Ralph (when he helps the crying one talk bout beastie))
Simon shows love towards all of nature, but he is not understood by others and is called ‘batty’.
Again lack of parental guidance to tell them right from wrong…+ children not on island are ‘going wrong’ so imagine the difficulty for children on an island…
Humanist view:
Fear- no one escapes fear, shown by the ‘beast’ not including simon (he is afraid of speaking out)
Tyranny,- Jack becomes a servant of his own thirst for blood,he does not rule himself, the hunger does, gets power and the situation becomes worse, breaks away from Ralph
On the island everything moral does not need to exist for them to survive, so some take advantage of it, and act the way they do,
