In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ralph and Jack clash constantly over maintaining a mimicry of a proper English societal structure or discarding it in favor of a more wild and chaotic way of life.
Ralph has noticed a drifting between the boys, due to both of him lacking leadership, and to the hunters’ growing free-spirited but crazy morals. He noticed the longer they were away from home, the more sanity they loss. Within the last few weeks, Ralph lost his two only friends due to the horrid actions of the hunters. Seeing Stanley killed for the humor of a hunter, and glimpsing at Simon being stabbed and torn apart both made Ralph realized that not only the voice of reason and justice is gone, but also their hope of redemption, to be rescued. Even after counseling and therapy, Ralph himself felt like those mere five weeks were dreading, endless years, as if he matured throughout time spent on the
The boys basically set the whole island on fire to get Ralph out of hiding. Due to this outrage, it worked to their advantage because it brought them rescue. In this novel fire is an enemy and an ally. The fire has helped the boys through the hard times yet made some hard times. The fire shows that humans have paradoxical objects in life.
In the book, Jack represents the primal aspect of humanity and is shown to be both bloodthirsty and power-hungry. When Jack and Ralph begin to duel with wooden spears on top of the mountain, Jack attempt to kill Ralph by, “with full intention, he hurled his spear at Ralph. The point tore the skin (Golding 163)” The ferocity and desire for power of Jack makes him kill the person that he once worked with. The charisma and power of jack begin to transmit the “it” amon the kids.
He becomes one of the prominent leadership figures and his interest in establishing a society aligns with Ralph’s, the first elected leader, but he shows a propensity for aggressive behavior by yelling that it would "serve [them] right if something did get [them], you useless lot of cry-babies!" (Golding 64). Choosing to attack the young boys for their fears plays into Jack’s fanaticism about his nearly-embraced island life. Becoming defensive about what he is doing for the group, he attacks the same people he attempts to govern. Later, the ideological differences between Jack and Ralph prove too great, and Jack sets fire to the island in his bid to kill him, “smoke...seeping through the branches in white and yellow wisps, the patch of blue sky overhead turned to the color of a storm cloud” (152).
Name: Adrian Galvan___________________________ Text: lord of the flies_____________________________ Chapter(s): 9-12________________________ Pages: _145-208___________________________ Page # Important Ideas and Information in the Text My Thoughts, Feelings, Questions Page 148 Page 149 Page150 Page 152 Page 153 Page156 Page 156 Page 161 Page 175 Page 176 Page 179 Page 184 Page 189 Page 200 “Perhaps we ought to go to….I mean to make sure nothing happens.” “take them some meat” “ And the conch doesn’t count at this end of the island.” “Kill the beast!
Ralph says, “The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don’t keep a fire going? Is a fire too much for us to make” (80). As an effort to show the boys their dire circumstances, he tries to convict them, including himself, of their ignorance. On the contrary, Jack Merridew counters Ralph’s authority with the proposition of thrill and amusement.
Ralph was the leader of the civilized group, and Jack was the leader of the savage and bloodthirsty hunting group. Important arguments between the civilized boys and savage boys come up in three important moments throughout the book: when the signal fire is allowed to go out and a boat passes by the island, when Jack leaves the civilized group to create his group of savages, and when the savages steal Piggy’s glasses to make their own fire. The first key moment near the beginning of the book shows the growing tension between civilization and savagery. It comes up when
Lord of The Flies “Lord of The Flies” by William Golding is a novel with a key incident. Goldings shows the significance of the key incident through use of characterization, plot, language and exploration of themes of innate. Savagery, civility, fear, violence and murder. The novel features a group of boys who are marooned on a tropical island. The main characters are Ralph, Jack and Piggy.
(Ralph) ‘We saw-’ ‘the beast.’” (98). As some boys on the island found the beast, big things happened. The beast demonstrated each beast inside of the boys, and it caused the boys to bring out their inner beast due to the fact their terrified of the beast. The weather shows that there is a big plot change and Golding wants us to recognize it. Ralph has started to worry and the beast inside of him has started to show.
Lastly, Jack is known as the rebel of the story who disagrees with the leaders, and is pure evil from middle to end. Although Jack is evil, his bad character trait ensures his survival and alliance with the boys. The first example of when Jack’s evilness is shown in the story is when Jack hunts the pig and puts its head on a stick, the line says “ Jack held the head up and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick” ( Golding, 150). This shows Jack’s evilness because instead of fearing the beast he is offering him the head of the pig that he just brutally murdered.
Whilst Ralph tries to keep his group civilized the savagery from the boys breaks through ending in a climax where all hell breaks loose on the island. Throughout the
Chapter 1. “Ender walked around him and kicked him again… Stilson could not make a sound; he only doubled up and tears streamed out of his eyes… ‘You could probably beat me up pretty bad. But just remember what I do to people who try to hurt me.’ ” (7)
At the end of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the children whose actions were chronicled in the book committed atrocities like murder and torture. Regular children somehow did things worse than anything that they ever could have imagined back at home. This begs the question of what prompted what once were normal children to snap: the circumstances or something that was inside of them all along. The answer in my mind isn’t as simple as one or the other. A winning combination of both spurred average boys into becoming killers, because without something dark being triggered in some of the boys, no one would have even thought about the horrible things that ended up happening. The deciding factor for these boys and their horrible acts was their
The woman with the long black skirt opened the door, while wiping the tears from her eyes. A man on the other side of the door asked the woman, do you want to save your son. A boy with fair hair came running to the door when he heard the murmurs of his mother. The boy with the fair hair tried to listen but wasn 't able to hear the response the woman gave the man. The woman didn 't know if she should go through the nuclear war together or should save her son.