Lord Of Flies

The novel Lord of the flies by William Golding presents and defends a theme that human

nature is essential evil, and that a person removed from society will be allowed to let

their evil instincts to manifest themselves as the person becomes increasingly savage. In

this novel, Golding presents a character (Jack) who takes on and exemplifies this

transition to savagery through out the course of the book as the evil inside him is set

free. We see Jack, who at first cannot even kill a pig caught in the creepers, fall

deeper in deeper into his savage ways as his killing of one pig, and his focus on the

hunt turns to bloodlust. Then as it progresses his bloodlust begins to drive more than

just the hunt for food as he leaves the dead as sacrifice for the beast, and he begins to

turn his violence out towards the other boys, not just his pray. As a final decent into

the evil that has consumed him the pray becomes one of the boys as Ralph is hunted with

the intent to kill, sacrifice and possibly even eat in an act of cannibalism. Before the

evil began to grow in strength within Jack, he was a boy much like the others and like

the others he found the concept of killing another living thing was not something easy to

digest, but Jack learned.

How ever hard it was for Jack to first kill a pig, spilling its blood on his bare hands,

once he had first killed another living thing his path towards evil and savagery was well

one its way. Early on in the novel we find Ralph, Simon and Jack walking through the

forest when they come across a small pig tangled and caught in the creepers. Although

Jack does have a knife with him his hesitation combined with the overwhelming reality of

the situation keeps Jack stunned in his place and the pig escapes untouched. Jack swears

to himself and the others that he will kill the next pig and this pressure to perform to

prove himself a true and worthy hunter, leads him to obsession over the hunt. To Jack the

hunt becomes more than just a game, or a source of food, it becomes his mission, duty and

purpose on the island. When Jack makes his first kill he is spellbound by the power of

life and death he exerts on the pig and is fascinated by the warm blood that pours from

the wound he cuts to slit the pigs throat. Now the hunt has become something more for

Jack as lust for blood begins to stir in him and the hunger for that feeling of power

over another beings mortality grows. The others on the island begin to take interest and

excitement in the hunt as Jack has provided meat, and the draw of the hunt and its bloody

gore begin to stir in the other boys. This acts as a catalyst to the fall of the brittle

society Ralph protects as the boys through Jack see the chaotic and savage game of the

hunt and the prospect of more meat far more amusing and pleasing than even getting home.

Jack denies the importance of the fire or shelters suggesting he is in complete obedience

to the draw of the hunt, and the inherent evil that comes with. Cruel as slitting a pigs

throat may at first seem to Jack, as the lust for blood that stirs in him begins to

escalate, so does the power of evil deep within him, and for Jack the hunt becomes that

much more lust full and primal.

As Jack's grasp on the forgotten reality he left behind fades away, the new more savage

ways of his tribe of hunters begins to shape a culture around the evil of the island.

Jack's kills, as time passes become more and more brutal and without mercy as he begins

to loss any morel structure or compassion for other living beings. When hunting one day

he manages to track a sow with young still suckling at her teat and he leads the boys in

a perverse, and lust full slaughter of the mother pig. He does not consider what damage

he is doing or the morality that would come into to play had he not been so far from

modern civilization. The head of the sow is mounted on a stick as a sacrifice to the

beast who to the savages that where once boys, has become a sort of symbolic vengeful and

evil god who the boys commit wrong doings in the name of. The beast in the novel

represents the evil that exists within Jack and the boys themselves and thus the

sacrifice to the beast represents them giving in even further to their own evil. The boys

are giving into their own savage, primal ways more and more as the innocence that they

bore when they arrived on the islands begins to come crashing down even further. Jack

focuses his violent energies for the most part into the hunt, but as the hunt and the

primal forces of evil he exerts on the hunt become more and more a part of him it begins

to seep into the interactions he has between him and the other boys.

As Jack, through his action, denies membership to any civilized society on the island he

beings to show egocentric behavior toward any group but the hunters and his separate

tribe

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