The tragic irony gets worse as they stab him about times. THe boys were in a frenzy when they killed Simon and I do believe many of them knew exactly who they were killing. Simon was a "Christ figure" and had to be killed by his own people. By this time the boys act as one blood thirsty animal rather than individual boys with the normal faculties of perception.
THe irony of thinking their saviour was the beast is not lost on the reader. The boys are in a frenzy, they're dancing and chanting. Simon's emergence from the forest is taken as the appearance of the beast, that's what they initially believe they're surrounding. The sow's head becomes covered with flies, creatures that lack the capacity to feel compassion for or empathy with the dead sow, occupied entirely by their need to eat and multiply.
That compassion is one of the key dividers between humanity and animality; tellingly, Jack lacks compassion for the littluns and the vulnerable Piggy. Soon his hunters lose their compassion as well, seeking only to hunt meat and increase the numbers of their tribe or kill those who will not join. When Simon hallucinates that the staked head is speaking to him, his perception of the other boys as the island's true threat is confirmed.
The Lord of the Flies confirms that "You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are? Note that the literal translation of the Greek word Beelzebub, a term used for the Judeo-Christian idea of Satan, is "lord of the flies," and flies feast on dead animals and excrement. When Simon asks the assembly "What's the dirtiest thing there is? Ironically, Jack's excretory answer is partially correct. Jack provides more insight into the beast's identity when he asserts that "The beast is a hunter," unwittingly implicating himself as part of the problem, a source of the boys' fears.
We may stay here till we die" Since Piggy exposes their real conditions on the island, Ralph begins to assume a mature role. Therefore, Ralph learns from Piggy and is capable of becoming more aware of the atrocious outcome if they do nothing quickly to be saved. That is why when all the children get together by the lagoon, Ralph utters their first priority, "We've got to decide about being rescued" So far, Ralph has learned to be more responsible and more understanding.
We can observe that when Jack verbally attacks Piggy for the first time by shouting at him, "You're talking to much. Shut up, fatty. Lamentably, in his haste to defend Piggy, he lets everybody know what the overweight boy's nickname is, and this suggests that, although Ralph has started to change, he is still quiet inexperienced to deal with serious affairs.
We can estimate that both, Ralph and Piggy, like most of the children, represent pure innocence and civilization. Piggy is the intellectual leader who measures the realistic conditions of their loss on the island and consequently provides reasonable solutions to their problems. Ralph, on his hand, has the necessary physical requirements and credibility to lead the children. So, both working as a team can assure their eagerness to be rescued. Unfortunately, their willingness to set a society is threatened by the disruptive and overbearing presence of Jack Merridew whose constant ambition for power causes friction between the leader and himself until he scatters the oneness of the children and besieges with a kingdom of destructiveness and beastly felonies.
Therefore, William Golding's theme in Lord of the Flies refers to the truth of our vicious, depraved and belligerent human nature. Evil happens to be a ferocious inner force that endlessly operates on our human code as we are tempted to perform mundane and insane acts in order to destroy our own kind.
Then, if we are naturally evil, we will never be able to reach real civilization. This is the central idea of the novel because just having "one" Jack in one society, it is enough to disintegrate civilization. We can witness that the collapse of the social order the children try to set in a wild spot of the island, is directly caused by, on the one hand, their own wicked personal limitations, and on the other hand, the diabolical machinations of Jack to achieve his macabre purposes.
Then, because of their weaknesses, the boys of the island lose their innocence to acquire the inmost brutal level of degeneration. Along the action of the novel, all the limitations of the boys are clearly displayed. After the exploration of Jack, Ralph and Simon on top of the mountain to ve rify if they are on an island, the boys again summon an assembly in which they confront reality. They discover that their situation is cumbersome, and in this sense, they have to talk about priorities.
They realize they are lonely; for this, they have to get food, find shelter to protect from the weather, adhere to a system of rules and the use of the conch, defend from the possible existence of a beast on the island, and most importantly, determine the way they can be rescued, which undoubtedly is their most urgent priority.
These concerns let us see again that a society is being established by the boys as they have the mutual disposition of living together and organizing themselves to solve their inconveniences of loneliness, hunger, helplessness, defenselessness and rescue; that is to say, they are operating on a reasonable conception of civilization.
However, we are about to see that their plans for bringing up a social system is going to be ruined by their own inconcinnities. In order to satisfy their necessity of food, Ralph empowers Jack to be the chief of the hunters, who are only those involved in the choir.
Ralph already knows that Jack has been resented as a result of not having been chosen as the leader, so there is already a high rivalry between these two boys, although Ralph never intended to maintain such aversion. Ralph presumes his opponent is going to aggrieve and revenge sooner or later; in consequence, he is prepared to appraise Jack as a brave hunter to make him feel as an important adventurous chief for hunting and bringing food for everyone. Ironically, Jack is never satisfied of being promoted to a second position, and this suggests that he is plotting an intense offense against Ralph.
This is of course, the first limitation of the boys because both authorities, the chief of their whole new society and the chief of hunters, hold an extreme opposition as they start a senseless struggle for power. Their second limitation resides on their failure to built shelter. First, because the children are not disciplined to help with hard work, and therefore, only Ralph and Simon end up building huts, which is a labor that goes beyond their physical possibilities.
We observe that they can hardly erect two unsteady, quivering huts while a third one is in ruins. For instance, Piggy abhors doing hard physical effort so he rather prefers to hide in the weeds for not being involved in the huts construction.
Second, because the chief of the hunters, Jack, gradually becomes obsessed for hunting until the point he is completely careless of building any kind of civilized refuge. He prefers to creep in the forest with his hunters to train themselves in view of killing piglets. At a critical moment when Ralph is indignant because of the boys' negligence, he says to Jack, "the best thing we can do is to get ourselves rescued". Then Jack replies, "Rescue?
Yes, of course! All the same, I'd like to catch a pig first" Jack's comment reveals that he is practically adjusting to his new life and does not need any kind of rescue as long as he can hunt pigs. In fact, he is severely disappointed with himself after a frustrating day trying to get any prey.
In addition to these weaknesses, the rest of the children, the littluns and the remaining biguns, procrastinate all the time spending long hours lying on the beach or just playing around. The ideal of society is already broken up. This number of limitations demonstrates that these human beings cannot longer yearn for a society because they are entirely devoid of a sense of cooperativeness, responsibility and compromise, and without these basic human principles, they obviously cannot succeed in their enterprise.
They are so immature and somehow innocent to harmonize and bring into agreement their various differing interests, their diversity of goals and their personal characteristics, that their intention to keep their human, civilized and social dignity becomes technically ineffective.
Surprisingly, all the boys concern about their own business and leave all the responsibility on Ralph's shoulders. William Golding certainly wanted to show how easily our own society can collapse due to our carelessness, selfish purposes and corruptive actions, because after all, a social order consists of the mutual interests and companionship of every single human being in search of a common goal. It also seems that the author of Lord of the Flies wanted to give us a warning and a guideline to be aware of our own incendiary evil conduct in this modern society.
Indeed, one of the major incidents that elucidates the failure of the boys to live in harmony, is when they let part of the island get aflame. Ralph announces that if they want to be rescued, they immediately have to start a fire. There is an instantaneous reaction; the boys split out following Jack in search of wood. Here, the boys demonstrate how unprepared they are to deal with those affairs related to their own survival.
They collect a huge heap of firewood, but then they find themselves inevitably inept to light it up. Ralph shouts at Piggy, "Have you got any matches? This question indicates the absurdity of their plan to start a fire. To what extend could it be possible that a boy had any matches in the middle of wilderness after being wrecked in the sea?
At a first sight, Ralph's question and the situation in which they are involved may look ridiculous and funny. However, this event clearly points out the pathetic condition of the children on the island because they are not suitable for these hard times as they lack the simple judgment, that for starting a fire, at least in civilizable terms, matches are needed. Thus, they will never be able to measure the consequences of their acts, and this remarks again the immaturity and innocence of the boys to pursue their goal of establishing a society.
On the contrary, they progressively move away from social decency. Since they are incompetent to light the fire, the unbecoming reaction of Jack is to grab Piggy's glasses against his will. The rest of the children get excited about this unbridled outburst and as a sign of approval there are "pushing and pulling and officious cries" 40 which imply that all the boys perform the first aggressive physical assault to the poor Piggy who is, at this moment, totally blind without his glasses.
Unfortunately, his physical disabilities make him fearful of attack, and Jack is wise to discover this. Radically, one of their brutal laws is here stated, only the strongest are those who have privilege to be respected, those who are weak are ineluctably compelled to be abused and sacrificed.
As the children over-collect wood and are at the risk of starting a huge fire, Piggy, the intelligent and reasonable boy, holds the conch, which is the symbol of democratic participation, to have the right to speak in order to persuade them of their mistake, but they inexorably refuse his warning, " 'I got the conch', said Piggy indignantly.
Jack initiates his dominion of repression since he despoils Piggy to express his viewpoint on democratic basis. Paradoxically, Jack holds out his hands for the conch and proclaims, "We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything. So we've got to do the right thing" In this particular instance, we can witness the immorality and dishonesty of Jack as a human being. First, he exercises all his detrimental despotism upon Piggy to not let him speak, breaking in this way the rules of social order with which Piggy has the human right to speak.
Then, contradictorily, he publicly declares the others to follow the rules because they are not "savages". But indeed, his act of having repressed the asthmatic fat boy to warn them about the danger with the fire is a heightening expression of savagery. Therefore, Jack is a manipulator whose persuasive ideas have a misleading intention that affirms his fraudulent and corruptive nature. Deep inside, he strategically wants to stand out to gain status with his statement of following the rules due to the fact that he looks forwards for snatching Ralph's leadership and becoming the absolute ruler.
The boys quickly discover that part of the island is on fire. The bonfire they have lit has gone out of hands and they are powerless to stop it.
With this disgraceful accident William Golding seems to consider that our brutal stubbornness and our instinctual impulses devastate our civilized condition.
Piggy's worries, which stand for the pure intellectuality of man, are destroyed by Jack, who represents our innermost inane and primitive bestial side. Once our bestial part has caused damage, it is impossible to remedy and restore things, because in many cases, like it is presented in this incident, rationality is so completely crushed by the ignorance of our own thoughtless actions that, in fact, there is nothing to be done in order to save civilization. Jack's limitation to maintain the fire going also needs to be carefully accounted.
He himself compromises when he says "Ralph, I'll split up the choir - my hunters, that is- into groups, and we'll be responsible for keeping the fire going-" However, he ignores his task when he starts developing an uncontrollable obsession for killing piglets.
He knows that his act of killing not only grants his manhood, but strongly ratifies his dexterity to dominate nature, and in this way, to dominate every alive creature on the island. We can notice that the first time he sees a piglet he is ossified to stab the animal with his knife "because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood" He is still quiet innocent and civilized to kill an animal, but he is instinctively turning into a savage primitive level because he believes that meat is vital to live; and to obtain meat, he must challenge himself to use his knife, which is the symbol of lustful rapacity.
In this sense, as a wild carnivorous animal, his existence will be subsisted on live prey, so later he will be delighted to assume a predator animal role as a means of capturing piglets to maintain himself alive and subsequently, to victimize those of his own kind. Eventually, as soon as he accomplishes his fixed plan of hunting a piglet, he totally loses the remains of his boyish innocent behavior and starts to develop a spirit of riotous perverseness since he is convinced that the act of killing assures him the privilege to be honored and respected by the rest of the boys.
He is aware that, in one sense, he is more powerful than Ralph because, while Ralph spends his time trying to built shelter, that is to say, concerns the priority of hiding from danger in order to survive, Jack, in contrast, bravely confronts danger in order to be the dominant and not the dominated, and for Jack's code, being a courageous warrior is the main requirement to be addressed as a chief.
That is why he emerges as a bloodthirsty to start gaining power. A great significant revelation in Lord of the Flies is that the boys not only fail in their endeavor to set civilization on the island because of their vicious natures of selfishness, competitiveness, cruelty and irresponsibility; but most striking, because they also lack the traditional restraints of society that, to a certain extend, would have controlled their degeneration.
For instance, they never adhere to any strong moral doctrine, to an ethical code, to a religious creed, to an intellectual disposition, to a legal system, or at least, to a conduct of good manners. It is meant that as soon as they reach the island, they distort all of the valuable elements they brought from their traditional, social and cultural English background.
The fact that they intend to establish a democratic society based on the proper use of the conc h but it does not work, clearly suggests their incapacity to maintain a close adherence to their previous coherent structure of social organization. Besides, as the boys experience a successive chain of frustrating attempts, they reach to the point of displaying the natural corruption every human being unconsciously holds inside.
They realize that it is less complicated to act without restrictions than to depend on the traditional complexities of civilization. Once Jack has lost his innocence after killing a piglet, he manages to engage a fight with Ralph, proclaims to establish his new kingdom based on his own rules and persuades the boys to join his tribe.
Jack adopts both, a mental perversion and a physical deterioration. He and all of the boys of the choir, who are now hunters, walk semi-naked in the woods, have already long hair, and have gotten their faces and bodies painted. They use white clay and charcoal, and are so transformed that they do not recognize themselves. Their decadent physical change is caused by the necessity of killing a prey so that the piglets will not sense them when hunting.
Now that Jack is transformed into a savagery and his identity is hidden behind his painted face, he is "liberated from shame and self-consciousness" This is the frightening truth about the human nature. Jack and his hunters become the antithesis of civilization since they acquire the attitude of primitive creatures who content with the simple satisfaction of eating meat.
Their whole existence depends on the gratification to please their physical needs and appetites. Symbolically, Jack and his hunters are now survivors of the stone age bearing the row meat to their cave from the kill in the jungle. These events, therefore, introduce a tone of the total brutality which Ralph and Piggy are about to undergo. His obsession for meat leads Jack to kill a pig; however, the fire has gone out.
Ralph, Piggy, and the other children go through an instance of agony and despair because they have missed the chance to be rescued. Meanwhile, the hunters, who should have kept the fire going, return with their first piglet as they boast over their heroic daring. Unavoidably, there is a direct defiance between Ralph and Jack. We've killed a pig- we stop up on them- we got in a circle-'. Ralph spoke. Jack spoke again, hoarsely. He had not moved. He looked at the twins and the back at Ralph.
We can light up again-' " This is the ineffectual encounter between reason and brutality. Ralph and Jack are two opponent forces from two opposite ways of assuming life. In the examination of this hostile conflict, it is indicated that Ralph embodies the whole reasoning capacity of man while Jack stands for the instinctual darkness of the soul. One is stronger than the other.
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