When the voice of piggy shouts out, he stops and waits. This shows us an insight that he is willing to wait for this unknown person, but he “jerks up his stockings” Golding uses this to show us that he is impatient too.
Later on in the chapter we see Ralph being “offhand” and “obviously uninterested” towards Piggy. We feel sympathetic to Piggy as he is seen as an outcast from the very beginning.
We can see that Piggy is knowledgeable as he spots the conch, and knows what it is. Although Piggy found it, Ralph is the person who swims down to the bottom of the lagoon and collects it from the reeds, showing us that he is clearly strong and fit, as he can swim.
The conch symbolises power, leadership and civilisation. Ralph is the first person to blow the conch “a low harsh note boomed under the palms.” This simple act has transformed him from a schoolboy into a leader.
To start with Ralph is a strong confident chief, throughout the first couple of chapters we see him making quick decisive decisions such as “We will build the fire here. Fire means survival. We will keep the fire burning all day and night. We must.” The use of these short sentences shows us that this is a quick, assured order.
In the later chapters Ralph has started to get fed up with the once “paradise” of the island. When the only food that they can eat gives them terrible stomach problems, they are watching the moral and comfort of life decline.
As the novel continues, Ralph begins to be questioned about his leadership. This makes Ralph nervous and unsure and he tries to keep civilisation by retaking command. “I’m chief. We wont have the fire anywhere but on the mountain. Ever.” In this assembly fully realises the threat of Ralph’s rival, Jack.
Jack stats off as a friend and a supporter of Ralph and his ideas, “I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all we’re not savages.” This is extremely ironic, as in the later chapters this is exactly what Jack and the other boys become.
Jack’s eyes are always used in the novel to depict his emotions, “Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger.” The eyes are said to be the mirrors of the soul, and we can see in this extract that perhaps he could be a danger.
The next chapter comer opens on Jack in mid-hunt, “then doglike…Jack crouched…” Golding uses emotive language like “doglike” and “crouched” to show that Jack is turning to savage ways. Golding even uses the term; “and the for a minute became less a hunter than a furtive thing, ape-like among a tangle of trees.” This again uses an animal to describe him.
His appearance has changed dramatically from the first couple of chapters, “marching in step…their bodies from throat to ankle, were hidden by black cloaks which bore a silver cross on the breast and each neck was finished off with a hambone frill.” This shows us a frilly white choirboy, whereas no in the jungle he is a hunter, “His sandy hair considerably…[It] was lighter now…except for a pair of tattered shorts. Held up but his knife belt, he was naked.” This nakedness shows us that he is returning to nature. He has come to terms that he is stuck on the island and could be for a while.
Although he has changed considerably since arriving on the island the biggest change is yet to come. In the chapter entitled “Painted faces and long hair” Jack decides to go hunting for food. He camouflages his face with “red and white eyes…red cheek…and slashed a black bar of charcoal across his face.“ Jacks only human thing is no covered up and no longer visible. His transformation from good to evil is complete. With his face covered up he know conceals all of his civilised emotions and shows his primitive roots, “He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger.”
Jack has been transformed by Golding’s use of colour, the red cheeks symbolise blood, pain and the danger that has been threatening to escape form Jack since the beginning. The way Jack moves and acts “doglike and ape-like” and finally his painted face, hiding all innocents and his sinister side. Near the end of the novel, he feels no shame about the deaths of Simon and Piggy, nor his attempts to kill Ralph. In the novel Jack and his tribe represent anarchy and the downward spiral of civilisation. This is most seen when the conch, which throughout the novel is the symbol of humanity and civilisation, is smashed.
Both Ralph and Jack have changed throughout the novel. Golding presents both of them as young innocent children at the beginning. They are almost unrecognisable by the end. They have changed both physical and mentally. There is an intervention at the end: the Naval officer, jokes about them “having a war or something?” and this of course is exactly what is happening.
The moral of the novel is with out intervention, which will win, good or evil?
