“‛I ought to be chief,’ said Jack with simple arrogance, ‘because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.” This shows the early signs of the tension between Jack and Ralph, and it also shows Jack’s pride.
They elect a leader, Ralph, who could think rationally and who talks about getting rescued.
Right from the start Jack took possession of hunting. He wanted his people to hunt and wanted to be their leader. Jack wanted to control people and make them do what he wants from the start.
At the end of chapter one we read of Jack’s first attempt to kill a pig. While his first attempt fails, his quote "next time..." foreshadowed his future of savage hunting.
By now things look promising on the island because they have everything they need to survive and have also organized themselves.
They also make new rules. “we cant have everybody talking at once. We’ll have to have “hands up” like at school”. This shows that they still stick to rules and find them very useful.
One of the first signs of things deteriorating is the mentioning of the “beastie”, and what seems strange is that Ralph, the leader and sensible one of the lot laughs at the little boy and does not listen to him.
The rising action starts in the middle of chapter 2 where the boys attempt to make a signal fire but it rages out of control. Rules are all abandoned at the mention of making a fire and chaos over takes. This leads to the death of one of the kids which shows that rules will be broken again later on in the book and it wont stop at the death of one kid accidentally. After this, order is slowly lost and chaos slowly takes its place.
When Piggy asks to talk and takes the conch Jake doesn’t care. The conch represents law and order and when Jack disregards it, it shows that he will disregard all rules later on in the book.
Jack also shows signs of belligerence when he argues with Ralph about the signal fire, and claims that "The conch doesn't count on the mountain!"
At chapter three Jack is hunting and is acting very much like a predator hunting its prey.
When he meets Ralph and Simon he doesn’t even notice the huts they’ve tried very hard to build. The explanation he gives for not helping them is “we need meat”. Jack is solely concerned with hunting, and cannot see the necessity of other things that can keep them live. Killing a pig has being an obsession for Jack. This shows that slowly Jack is drifting away from society and is loosing his innocence.
Ralph and Jack are really beginning to fight in this chapter, and it foreshadows much more future conflicts down the line.
Maryam Ali
