Jack Merridew Character Analysis

In the book Lord Of the Flies by William Golding good is the idea of a civilized society using law and order, while bad or chaos is savagery or primitive ideas. primitive by the fact that their is no repercussions for your actions. Fire doesn't change depending on who’s using it, the person with the tool of fire chooses how to use it. In the story the idea of law and order in a civilization changes to primitive actions without repercussions.

“The Word, that understandable and lawful Word, was slipping away.” (Golding 82). Ralph, the original leader of the boys in the Lord of The Flies, is initially a great leader and person. Ralph soon becomes pulled by his desires, a recurring theme of human nature seen frequently. Ralph experiences a man vs. societal conflict due to Jack’s influence but is resolved through the arrival of the long-awaited Naval officer.

On one hand, Jack is right on certain decisions. He uses his authority to lead people into the direction he wants to go, therefore making him a great leader. Being the leader of the choir boys shows that he has experience of leading others. On page 51 for example, “He (Jack) tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up” which shows Jack’s transformation from a civilized kid, into a boy who is obsessed with hunting (Golding 51). Even so, Jack is one to set goals for himself and the group. He wants to kill a pig because the group needs something to eat to survive. By him setting this goal, he saves the group from starvation. Even though Jack wants to kill the pig as much as Ralph wants to get rescued,

In the novel Lord of the Flies, Golding unknowingly uses Simon, Piggy, Ralph, and Jack to illustrate id, ego, and superego. The id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego. Golding shows the id, ego, and superego with Jack being the id, Ralph being the ego, and Piggy as the superego.

The boys were running as fast as they could to keep up with the pig they hit with the spear. They all haven’t had meat in days and they were craving it, they were losing their innocence and becoming savages. This is one thing in the book, Lord of the Flies, that shows a loss of innocence. This is a common theme throughout this book, a loss of innocence. Some examples of this are the killing of Piggy, the hunts, the actions of the tribe, and just Jack in general. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses foreshadowing, symbolism, and characterization to show the book has a theme of the boy’s loss of innocence.

In William Golding 's Lord of the Flies, Jack 's ideas are more effective than Ralph 's. They are not the brightest, but they supply the littluns with gratification. Ralph 's plans would be better for older children because they are more logical and lead to the desired result in a more timely fashion. Hence, Ralph tries to dissolve the fear by telling the boys how irrational it is. He takes a more mature stance on these issues. Jack also knows that there is no beastie, but he uses their lack of knowledge to his advantage. He wants them to stay loyal and feel like they are needed in the tribe. Jack 's bravado helps keeps the littluns calm through fear. They need a higher being to look up to and be protected by. Also, they are too

This only further proves my point that jack represents savagery in this novel. Due to Jacks overwhelming desire to hunt a pig he along with a small group of boys go into the jungle to try their luck. Because of Jacks carelessness, though the fire is extinguished and they lost a chance of being rescued. We also learn in this chapter that the fire symbolizes the hope they share a group, when the fire went out so did their hope, but when they relight it they regain some of their hope. Piggy being the “fat nerd” of the group his thoughts and beliefs are immediately shot down, its only when Ralph tells them to do the suggested task do they listen. In this instance this shows that Ralph is the hero (even though he may not seem like one) and Piggy is a type of side kick to

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a novel that revolves around the concept of civilization versus savagery. The boys argue about points that eventually split the boys amongst themselves. These disputes come up multiple times over the course of the novel. One of which being the fight over the leader of the boys. Some believed the leader should be Jack while others believed it should be Ralph. 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.

Lord of the Flies teaches us to not misuse our authority by showing us how to be good leaders. Neither Jack nor Ralph could be considered a good leader, but neither one of them are necessarily a bad leader either. They each possess qualities that could make them a good leader, but they each lack a few qualities as well. Jack lead his people based on a tactic of fear and fun. It appeared that he was

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. This shows evilness because all throughout the story the littluns and even some of the biguns were fearful of the beast, yet Jack has influenced them to help him offer it to the beast. This also shows evilness because some of the

Jack has a knife and is able to kill pigs in order for them to eat meat instead of tasteless fruits. That is why he is now seen as a capable leader. Jack doesn’t become this powerful overnight though. He stayed with everyone for some time, but they still believed he wasn’t equipped enough to be a leader, which caused him to feel powerless. A defining point for Jack is when he finally catches and kills a pig. He feels very alive and wears face paint in order to mask his old self. When Jack first arrived his choir was given the responsibility of hunters and fire keepers. He and his choir capture their first pig, and when they return with the bounty Ralph is standing angrily waiting for him by the burnt out signal fire. Ralph lashed out at Jack for letting the fire go out. “There was a ship. Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair” (71). Jack was upset by the outburst and took his anger out on Piggy, a chubby boy who has asthma, by punching him in the stomach. Jack began to calm down, but he will never forget how Ralph embarrassed him in front of

Ralph is realistic with his attempts to keep the fire consistently lit. Ralph says to the boys, “‘Theres’s another thing. We can help them find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.’” (Golding 37) This quote explains the need for fire and that Ralph has a clear view of what the boys need to be rescued. The other boys do not understand the true importance of the fire since they remain unrealistic in their pursuit of following Jack. Jack is putting all of his focus towards killing a pig because he thinks on the scale of events, that is the more important task to complete, therefore Jack and the boys have lost focus. Ralph knows that the only good chance the boys have of being rescued is that if a passing ship sees the fire. All of the other boys are still harbouring the idea that someone will eventually come and find them, which is also unrealistic. Ralph is the only boy who is not living in a fantasy world and knows what they have to do to get rescued. Another thing that makes Ralph realistic is the fact that he instills rules amongst the boys to create

Imagine you're on an Island stranded, filled with fear trying to survive. Do you feel you could stay calm and handle it in way an “adult” would or could the fear bring out the inner beast which hides deep down inside all of us. The novella Lord of The Flies by George Orwell, tells a story about a group of british boys who crash a plane on an inhabited island. These kids have to work together with the help of a leader to govern themselves yet they find the results to be disastrous. This novella implements a lot of irony and symbolism throughout the entire work.

In Lord of The Flies Jack Merridew symbolizes chaos by demanding, “’ We want meat’” (51). All throughout the beginning of the novel while the others are trying to prepare camp before nightfall. Merridew is the one character who tends to make it harder for the rest of the characters in the novel. Jack never can agree with the entire group, unless in consists with hunting or being in power, which this says a lot about his personality. In the novel Jack ends up letting the fire out. Infuriating Ralph because he seen a ship off the horizon going a different direction. The ship did not see the smoke to rescue the boys from the island because Jack was more worried about hunting a pig instead of maintaining the fire while the others worked on other things for the camp.

Evil has always been evident, throughout the history of man examples of evil are apparent, so why would our literature be any different? Written in 1959 William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies is no different, as its theme explores the natural evils of man through the plot. The book tells of the events that occur after a group of young boys are marooned on an island, the main characters Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and Simon, grapple with finding food and water while they struggle with the return of more animalistic instincts without the guiding hand of civilization. The intrinsic evil and unavoidable sins of man are are exposed through William Golding’s characterization and overlying themes in Lord of the Flies.