Merridew's Savagery

Stuck on an island with kids and an unknown “beast” what is it? The story of Lord of the Flies occurs during World War 2 on a deserted island after a plane filled with children crashed and where a new beast takes over . What is the beast? The beast in Lord of the Flies is constantly changing from fear to war then to savagery. So what is the meaning of the beast in the Lord of the Flies?

Innocence is only shown unless yourself or someone else tarnishes it. Those who tarnish other’s innocence still show innocence in a way. Those people are innocent to the idea that the innocence is being taken away and they are to blame. In Lord of The Flies, Jack tarnishes the boy’s innocence by exposing them to savagery. William Golding proves that without rules to live by, people will eventually become savage.

In my project, I depicted the symbolism of Jack and the pig in William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies. In the beginning, Jack names himself a hunter; this illustrates the savage side of human nature. As the novel continues, and the desire to hunt and kill increases, and Jack finds himself not only a hunter but also feeling like he is being hunted. This change represents how fear overpowers hope and fuels the dominance of savagery. In the end of the novel, Jack turns from hunting pigs to hunting Ralph. This futile pursuit exemplifies the double-sided spear of the id. Overall, the change in Jack’s character shows the never ending spiral of violence.

Thesis Statement: The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding portrays the theme that regardless of each person’s different background and characteristics, every individual has the ability to commit brutal acts. While this book depicts Ralph and Piggy as the most civilized characters, and Jack and his hunters as young English choir boys, their actions reveal that they all have the capability to act violently.

The image of choir boys makes many think of a group of young innocent boys, but as William Golding, in the Lord of the Flies, shows even the most angelic people can mentally change. Golding chose to make Jack and some of the other children choir boys to show that when people face fear and a lack of moral guidance even young “angelic” people will fall into a life of evil and savagery. Lord of the Flies presents the idea that innocence is lost not when you turn a certain age, but rather when you question authority and civilization. In an ironic twist it is Jack, one of the choir boys, who actually becomes a violent dictator. At the beginning of the book all of the boys took a vote to see who should be chief and Ralph won; but he knew that

Fear made Jack indignant. When Jack didn’t get leader, he wanted to prove himself in another way; he wanted to prove himself by hunting. The beast gave him motivation to kill. Jack took his fear, and turned into hunger for blood. Eventually fear, and the surfeit of pleasure Jack got from killing, lead him into power. Jack hated the idea of rescue, not because he did not want to be rescued, but because if he promoted it, it would make Jack look he was giving into fear. Instead, he condoned rescue, and put the idea of killing the beast into people’s heads. The fear of the beast got him into power, and made not only leader, but savage. The more and more he kept hunting, the more and more his savage side came out. Until, he finally killed the “beast.” Ralph and Piggy are trying to bring the boys back to their tribe. They showed how Jack isn’t thinking about the future or rescue. It made the boys uneasy and frightened that their leader was not great and special as they thought. Jack shut all this talk out, by making them do their dance and getting them rallied up. They were in a trance. Mesmerized and scared at the same time: “The best

The Lord of the Flies explores the facts that some children can become savages and start to kill anything blindly that can get in their way. The Lord of the Flies starts out with Ralph meeting Piggy. Their conversation started out with the background of the situation and thinking they were the only ones on the island. More boys appeared from sea. All the boys were on the same plane and crashed but made it out separately and at different times. The boys lost their innocence when they began killing the mama pig, then the little boy named Simon, and they are hunting the boy named Ralph.

Thomas Hobbes remarks that“The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone”. Humans are not born flawless, they are born with an evil within them. The choices and actions they make are a representation of their inner selves. The evil within humans cause them to revolt against those of their kind. Similarly, in the novel, Lord of the Flies, a group of school boys have crashed onto a deserted island and must make means work. There is a constant struggle between what is considered to be good and what is considered to be bad. We witness each one of the boys evil within them and see their struggles. Most of the boys are lost in their evil actions, however a couple do redeem themselves by not

Fear is an inevitable characteristic of human nature. In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, a group of boys find themselves stranded on an isolated island, cut off from any contact with civilization. Though they begin as well mannered schoolboys, they are shaped into barbaric monsters as order crumbles and the ultimate source of fear changes. From the beginning they are terrified of a “beastie” after the younger children claim to spot one on the island. It starts as a nagging feeling in the back of their minds, but grows to a massive fear among the boys of a god-like monster that lives on the island preying on them. While none of this is real, it gives significant insight to human nature and the true beast in humanity. They are merely

The Congo Free State was a huge region comprising of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was privately owned by the King of Belgium, King Leopold II. The rubber plantations down there were horrific to say the least and one description in King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild by an Englishman that was a witness to this, “...was to arrive in canoes at a village...they attacked the natives until able to seize their women… [the women] were kept as hostages until the chief of the district brought in the required number of kilograms of rubber.” (Hochschild 161). Nowadays, we are utterly shocked in disbelief that such a system could arise but the emotion of fear can explain this. William Golding in his Lord of the Flies shows how a utopian

An English philosopher Thomas Hobbes once said, “The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.” In the society we live in, rules keep us in check. But what if the rules disappeared? In the book “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding delineates the life of a group of boys separated from modern civilization. Crash landed onto an island, the group of boys face a challenge of survival, as adults are not to be found. Without authority or guidelines to abide by, the boys are taken into their dark side. When authority and rules disappears, a spark, allowing their inner savage surfaces. The boys slowly return back to the primitive stage we once experienced. Golding is trying to communicate the inner “beastie” humans contain

In the dystopian novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, shows the importance of civilization and the dangers of evil inside all of us. There are difficult factors within ourselves we have to face. Everyone has the ability of good and evil, anyone can be tempted to cross each line when pressured by a situation; this reveals itself in the novel through major characters such as Jack, Ralph and Piggy.

Explanation: And here we have one of the most painful parts of the book to read. It started as a game, but it didn’t take long for it to spiral downhill. That mob-mentality thing I was talking about before horrifically comes into play here. The paragraph starts with saying Simon was crying, but as soon as the mob turns on him he’s described as they see it, the beast, degraded to an it. Nothing but the tearing of teeth, in other words they kept attacking even after he was dead. Simon represented the goodness of humanity and true kindness, and after this there’s nothing but horror and evil. When Simon died the good parts of the island left with him.

Golding gives the reader a glimpse of the creeping darkness within man by creating several internal struggles within the characters of his novel. For example, Diane Jenningfeld commented in her essay “An overview of Lord of the Flies”, saying “During the first trip into the jungle, Jack is unable to kill the pig with his knife; by the end of the book he is hunting human quarry”. At the start of the novel, Jack Merridew struggles with his reluctance and desire to kill anything. He falters because society has taught him to suppress any evil and violent urges, but now on the island there is no one to stop or reprimand him. By the end, Jack no longer holds back, but gives in to the mad pleasure of killing pigs and even hunting humans. Jack isn’t

“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” This is the savage chant used when they first killed a pig in chapter 4. What they said sounds very chaotic and is not something normally said in society. You can tell they are completely fine with killing a pig, spilling its blood and be chaotic. This shows that chaos dominates among the boys, rather than order.