"Shut up, Fatty."
However, despite his unpleasant personality, his lack of courage and his conscience prevented him from killing the first pig they encountered.
"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."
Even at the meetings, Jack was able to contain himself under the leadership of Ralph. He had even suggested the implementation of rules to regulate themselves.
This was a Jack who was proud to be British, and who was shaped and still bound by the laws of a civilised society. The freedom offered to him by the island»allowed Jack to express the darker sides of his personality that he hid-t from the ideals of his past environment. Without adults as a superior and - -" responsible authority, he began to lose his fear of being punished for improper actions and behaviours.
This freedom coupled with his malicious and arrogant personality made it possible for him to quickly degenerate into a savage. He put on paint, first to camouflage himself from the pigs. But he discovered that the paint allowed him to hide the forbidden thoughts in his mind that his facial expressions otherwise betray.
"The mask was a thing on its own behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness."
Through hunting, Jack lost his fear of blood and of killing living animals. He reached a point where he actually enjoyed the sensation of hunting a prey afraid of his spear and knife. His hunting of pigs brought out his natural desire for blood and violence. As Ralph became lost in his own confusion, to assert himself as chief.
The boys realising that Jack was a stronger and more self-assured leader gave in easily to the freedom of Jack's savagery. Placed in a position of power and with his followers sharing his crazed hunger for violence, Jack gained encouragement to commit the vile acts of thievery and murder.
"We don't want you," Jack had said to Piggy."
Piggy was like an observer learning from the actions of others. His status in their society allowed him to look at the boys from an outsider's Perspective.
Jack uses Piggy not as a regular bully, he humiliates him for power, and the pleasure of being able to isolate him from other people, this isn't evil it is just natural child behaviour that is brought out stronger because the island effects them so much.
Jack was a spiteful boy at the start, he was a bully, a petty tyrant who ruled &s little choir with insults and name calling. Liberated from authority he created his own "rules".
"We'll have rules" "Lots of them!"
"whoever breaks them..."
Jack is the first to create order, but does not keep it. Ultimately Jack is a child he cannot stand not being the most important person.
Gradually, Ralph became confused and began to lose clarity in his thoughts and speeches.
"Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down."
He started to feel lost in their new environment as the boys, with the
exception of Piggy, began to change and adapt to their freedom. As he did not lose his sense of responsibility, his viewpoints and priorities began to differ from the savages.
He was more influenced by Piggy than by Jack, who in a way could be Viewed as a source of evil. Even though the significance of the fire as a rescue signal was slowly dismissed, Ralph continued to stress the importance of the fire at the mountaintop. He also tried to re-establish the organisation. That had helped to keep the island clean and free of potential fire hazards. This difference made most of the boys less convinced of the integrity of his views. Jack issolated him more and more, after all every power needs an anti power to fight against.
I believe that Jacks natural hatred towards Piggy's imperfect figure combined with Ralph's apparent liking of the character brought about his eventual, destruction. Notice that you never know the true name of Piggy, he is referred through the whole book, from the start to his death as Piggy, an animal of sorts ready for slaughter. I think this symbolises mankind's need for a victim whether he is nameless or not, he was enraged that Ralph preferred Piggy to him, even though it is never clear until Jack has turned on Ralph whether Piggy and him are even friends.
I see the fire as a glint of "hope, of civilisation, of organisation that if they could have worked together like they did on the first day, every thing would be fine, that they could make a new society free from the oppression of grown ups. Unfortunately the fire is slowly disregarded and only Simon, Ralph and Piggy are unaffected by the growing storm.
As his supporters became fewer and Jack's insistence on being chief grew, his strength as a leader diminished. But even though Ralph had retained much of his past social conditioning, he too was not spared from the evil released by the freedom from rules and adults. During the play fight after their unsuccessful hunt in the course of their search in the island for the beast, Ralph for the first time, had an opportunity to join the hunters and share their desire for violence.
"Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, flesh."
Though even Ralph is unaffected towards the end, he is wrapped up in the pleasure of the kill, nerstill remains connected but Jack's bearing savagery has converted everyone away from the 'Flame' of society and into the dark jungles.
The deaths of Piggy and Simon mark the height of Jacks growing insanity; obsessed now with blood and the hunt. Roger kills Piggy and they in a group kill Simon, a frenzy of sorts. Both of the victims were the only ones unaffected, Simon meets the devil himself on the way back from that dark mountain, and he knows the truth, there is no beast only the evil in the hearts of them, the evil of boys. The devil takes the form of a boars head, the hunters, the primal urges a sybol of the destruction we let loose when we lose control.
Whilst Piggy looks at things in a clear scientific view and is answered back with abuse and in the end death. Roger a hunter, a psychotic from the start you can see the evil of his character he is the one always with Jack, always on the hunt, always ready for the kill. The deaths of two innocents mark the end of the fire, the end of the conch the symbol of meeting. It means the end of society on the island, the end of law and the rule of justice.
In conclusion I think Golding knew exactly what boys are like, he made us see a compelling story, with vivid realism which tells a tale of the disintergration of a civilisation under the pressure of blood and savagery and a bloody climax. The book shows the fear of the dark in men's hearts, the loss of innocence, that society can easily be undone, that some times the people, with the most knowledge are shunned. Most of all it tells a tale of Jack, a boy turned into an evil savage, the most shocking of all the aspects in the book.
By James Goddardll.SJ
