What Is The Role Of Savagery In Lord Of The Flies

Jack’s long journey from civilization to savagery was stepwise. His affinity to hunting pigs was a good job but, in the process of hunting pigs, Jack’s mind begins to move rapidly away from civilization towards barbarism. In the beginning Jack shows much discipline and it was Jack who said, “I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all we’re not savages. We are English; and English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things” (Golding). Jack took the responsibility to burn fire on the mountain top but soon after his sense of responsibility begins to weaken. When the opportunity to kill a pig offers’ itself, he devotes his entire attention and energy to it, ignoring the fire. On scolding

Another act of savagery is that he raid Ralph’s shelter in the company of a couple of his savages and snatches away Piggy’s spectacles. Subsequently when Piggy insists on getting his spectacles back, Roger kills Piggy with a rock. The deaths of both Simon and Piggy are thus attributable to Jack’s brutality which is due to the great change that has come over Jack during the period of his stay on the island. When Ralph has fled to save his life, Jack orders a thorough search for Ralph. He gets a stick sharpened at both ends, evidently to torture Ralph to death after Ralph has been seized. He then orders his savages to roll down a rock which he thinks might crush Ralph in his hiding place. When this device has failed he orders his savages to set fire to the forest in order to smock out Ralph. His cruelty makes him bloodthirsty. In symbolic terms Jack represent the principle of evil. He represents savagery, brutality, inhumanity and bestiality as against sympathy, kindness and humanity. Jack is a follower of lord of the flies. He represents the reversion to primitivism and barbarism. Free from the restraints of school discipline, social discipline and the laws of his