Character Analysis Of Cole Matthews In 'Lord Of The Flies'

Socrates once said “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old but on building the new.” Cole Matthews is related to this quote because before he went to the island he was focusing all of his energy on fighting the old Cole instead of building the new. At the start of the book Cole is irresponsible, he doesn't own up to anything he does and always blame other people for things that he are his fault. Cole was disrespectful towards everyone and everything at the beginning of the book. He also was very grateful about everything and takes everything for granted. By the end of the book Cole changed 3 things about himself: he learned how to respect others and nature, he learned how to take responsibility for his actions , and he learned that his life has meaning and he should be grateful for it.

Cole Matthews was a very disrespectful person to everyone and everything until he tried to hurt the spirit bear. After the bear almost kills Cole he learns how to be respectful and why he needs to respect people and nature. “Pretending to aim towards the waves, he spit so the wind would catch the thick saliva and carried it back. The spit caught Edwin squarely and dragged across his faded shirt.”(Page 5) The quote takes place in the book when Cole, Edwin, and Garvey are on their way to the island for the first time. Cole was mad at everybody and he was mad at his life. Spitting on Edwin was like Cole trying to spit on his life, letting everyone know that he didn’t care. Cole learned respect from the spirit bear almost killing him, he realized that if he had left the bear alone and respected it, the bear would not have hurt