In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the reactions of Jack, Ralph, and Piggy concerning the signal fire going out when a ship passed by reveals the motives and feelings behind each of their characters. For Jack, his reaction reveals that he cares more about hunting and having fun than keeping up the fire in order to be rescued. “‘The fire’s only been out an hour or two. We can light up again…You should have seen the blood!’” (70). Jack only cares about having fun on the island and killing pigs, basically acting like a child and taking no responsibility. His reaction to the fire going out reveals about his character that he is willing to drop anything, even if it helps the safety of the group, in order to have some fun. Ralph’s reaction reveals …show more content…
Out there. You said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out…They might have seen us. We might have gone home’”(70). Ralph is angry about the fire going out, angry that the boys had the chance to go home but didn’t all because Jack and his group abandoned the fire to go hunting. Ralph’s reaction shows that he is the opposite of Jack, that he is willing to be more mature and take responsibility so that the group of boys can be saved. Piggy had the same reaction as Ralph but to a greater scale and for slightly different reasons. “This was too bitter for Piggy, who forgot his timidity in the agony of his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly: ‘You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home-‘”(70). Piggy is angry at Jack, probably angrier than Ralph, because they had the chance to go home and Jack ruined it for everyone with his bloodlust. What this reveals about Piggy’s character is that Piggy can lose his timidness when he is feeling extreme agony and anger. Piggy’s reaction shows how much he values civilization and by Jack’s selfish actions, Piggy sees it as Jack condemning the group to stay on the island. That also highlights the huge amount of selfishness that Jack had in letting the fire
When Piggy is “crushed” and brings it up to him, Ralph reluctantly decides against “further insult”(27) and the dismisses him. Even Piggy, poor rational, bullied, bespectacled Piggy is aggressive in his mannerisms: “He said scornfully”, “Piggy watched him in disgust”(46), “daring, indignant, Piggy took the conch”(53), “Piggy lost his temper”(56), “cried Piggy indignantly”(57). And that’s just eleven pages. This isn’t only seen in the main characters. Towards the beginning of the book, the boys(first Ralph and Simon and then others) make fun of Jack for not be able to murder a pig. In other words, scorning him because he wasn’t violent enough. Furthermore, their scorn hurts Jack’s ego, resulting in this response: “he snatched his knife out of the sheath and slammed it into a tree trunk. Next time there would be no mercy. He looked round fiercely, daring them to contradict.” (Golding 36) In Chapter 2, the majority surrounds Piggy to steal his glasses, which shows aggression and apathy. At the end of the book, everyone who isn’t dead(or Ralph) is in Jack’s tribe. With quotes such as, “Roger admired. ‘He’s a proper chief, isn’t he?’” when talking about boulder weaponry and ‘[Jack] got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He’s been’—he giggled excitedly— ‘he’s been tied for hours,
In this moment Jack and the hunters have killed their first pig, and they were excited to tell everyone as they were chanting “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood (69).” Jack’s excitement went away when Ralph told him that a boat passed away and that he and his hunters were suppose to keep the fire going, but they did not. Jack did not do his part of the job to being rescued by not keeping up with the fire as he instead went to go hunt. When Piggy held Jack responsible for the fire, they began to argue and Jack punched Piggy in the stomach and smacked Piggy in the head. Piggy’s glasses went flying and one of his lenses broke. Jack apologizes about the fire, but he does not apologize to Piggy for breaking his glasses. This is significant
Piggy’s responsibility set him apart from the other boys, like Ralph. When Piggy cried out, “I don’t ask for my glasses back, not as a favour. I don’t ask you to be a sport, I’ll say, not because you’re strong, but because what’s right’s right” (190). For a moment, Piggy’s anger with unfairness and helplessness he felt took away from his logical reasoning but returned as soon as he was confronted by the savages. When Piggy asked, "Which is better- to be a pack of painted niggers like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?"(200) it demonstrated a change in Piggy's nature. Piggy learned to stand up for himself against Jack and the savages. He was able to think clearly and plan ahead of his encounter with the savage boys. The cruelty Jack showed towards him taught Piggy how much more pain there was in the
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of young British boys are left stranded on an island after a fatal plane crash in the midst of a World War. With no communication to the outer world and no presence or influence of adults on the island, Ralph, Jack Merridew, and Piggy are forced to take initiative if the group of hopeless boys want to survive. The group of boys experience a drastic change throughout their time on the island, a change that no one would ever expect to occur to a young group of primed British boys. The leader of the stranded choirists on the island, Jack Merridew, shows such a change that he soon persuades other boys to follow his savage actions as the novel progresses. Though the changes to Jack’s mental and physical characteristics advance slowly at first, the final personality of Jack is instantly taken over at the climax of the novel to a dehumanized savage. Jack’s innocence is corrupted by his inability to withstand a society without rules proving man's good essential nature is altered by the evil within society.
Jack’s hunters show the “darkness of man's heart” and the evil of killing when they start to brutally kill pigs and enjoy it. When the hunters successfully kill their first pig, they start to celebrate in a not so sane way. They start chanting “Kill the pig, cut her throat, spill her blood”(69). By the hunters chanting this, it shows that they enjoyed killing the pig. Killing the pig was a necessary task for obtaining food but it was turned into a form of bloody enjoyment. Later when Jack and his group stumble across another pig, they kill it in a not so quick and efficient way. They all jump the pig and “Roger ran round the heap, prodding with his spear wherever pig flesh appeared”(135). Jack helps out by repeatedly stabbing down on it with
Their ignorance is evident when Ralph persuades the boys to accept his authority by claiming he wants to both survive and enjoy himself on the island: “This is what I thought. We want to have fun. And we want to be rescued” (p.37). But when he fails to prove such by prioritizing the fire, Jack uses it to his advantage when taking control, as seen when Ralph says to the remaining boys: “Sit down all of you. They raided us for fire. They 're having fun” (p.141), and when Jack attempts to recruit boys by saying: “Who’ll join my tribe and have fun?” (p.150). Jack uses the boys’ desire to have fun to gain support and popularity. Having fun is easy, careless, and freeing, which can often quickly turn into reckless and thoughtless. When they are given the choice choice to be free or listen to instruction, they choose the easiest and most appealing option, which does not include maintaining civil order. Piggy’s intelligence is also ignored by the boys such as when Piggy has the conch and claims he has the right to speak, but: “[The boys] looked at him with eyes that lacked interest in what they saw” (p.44). An overload of knowledge, like in Piggy’s case, can bore one’s audience and make people dread their appearance, and lead to mockery and chaos. Also, Piggy falls into the category of the stereotypical “nerd”. This is evident from the beginning: “He came
Piggy urges Ralph to use what power he has left by calling a meeting: “’What’s grown-ups going to say?’ cried Piggy again…The sound of mock hunting, hysterical laughter, and real terror came from the beach. ‘Blow the conch, Ralph...You got to be tough now. Make ‘em do what you want.’ Ralph answered in the cautious voice of one who rehearses a theorem. ‘If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued.’” In this situation, Piggy is still worried about the punishment of his previous life. He is the closest thing to an adult on the island, and Ralph is the only one who advocates listening to him, illustrating Ralph’s connection to the rules of traditional civilization, which the other boys despise and want to escape through the island. After showing blatant disregard to their “chief’s” rules, they decide to escape the constraints of Ralph’s assemblies and embrace their inner savagery with Jack. Piggy urges Ralph to blow the conch, the symbol of his power throughout the book, but Ralph understands that his form of leadership is becoming the less desirable option to the boys: if he calls an assembly and the other boys do not respond, its power, and his civilization, will have completely disintegrated. Ralph constantly emphasizes their responsibilities on the island—specifically, tending to the signal fire.
Jack stole Piggy’s glasses, and without them Piggy wasn't himself. He could barely see and he couldn't think straight. Ralph decided they needed the fire if they wanted to be rescued and Piggy and the boys risked their lives to go and get them from Ralph. “Which is better—to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? . . . Which is better—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?” (Golding. 11) After sticking up to Jack and his pack, the boys were laughing at Piggy, they didn't take anything he said seriously. We see once again Piggy acting as the parent, and coming up with intelligent things to do and say unlike
Throughout the novel of Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the way Jack is described changes. Not only how other characters view him but also the way he is described throughout the book. At his first appearance he is described as tall thin and bony with red hair, that his face is ugly and freckled. His blue eyes looked like they were ready to turn into anger. The other characters progressively start to see him as evil and violent as he craves to become leader over Ralph. His main conflict is believing that he deserves to be in charge and Ralph does not. Killing turns into a nature although he struggled at the beginning. Jack becomes viewed as an animal as he becomes so obsessed with being leader, when he struggles to kill the pig it shows his true humanity.
One day while one of Jack's hunters were supposed to keep watch over the fire, they went on a hunt with Jack to kill a pig. Meanwhile on the beach, Ralph, Simon, and Piggy are building forts when they realize that a ship is passing over the island. Then, they realize that the fire is out, so they sprint up the mountain but by the time they get there, the ship was gone. At the same time, Jack and the hunters had just come back from the hunt. They see Ralph and know exactly what their mistake was. So, Jack tries to lighten up the mood by saying to Ralph that he should have been there because it was so much fun. Ralph gets very angry at them and says that they could have been rescued if they had been watching the fire. In retaliation to Ralph's anger, Jack takes Piggy's glasses and breaks one of the specs. Then they try to rebuild the fire while Ralph is blocking them, and Ralph doesn't move. (Golding 65-75). "No one, not even Jack would ask him to move and in the end they had to build the fire three yards away and in a place not really as convenient. So Ralph asserted his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought for days. Against his weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built, they
Now that Jack is the new leader, he became increasingly greedy and mean and exiled Ralph and Piggy from the rest of the group and left them with nothing, except the symbolic origin of fire, Piggy’s glasses. But instead of using fire to divide the group they really needed everyone to come together to create a controlled fire so they can get off the island. While Ralph and Piggy were away Jack tried to create a signal fire, but instead he created a bonfire that ended up burning a quarter of the island down. Piggy walks up to Jack and told him (because he was mad): “‘You got your small fire all right.’ ...the boys were falling still and silent, feeling the beginnings of awe at the power set free below them” (55). Jack knew they needed a fire, but in reality Jack did not understand how destructive a fire can be, and ended up killing one of the members of the group with the fire he started. With the group divided and life in danger, the symbolic meaning of fire is displayed in this quote because it demonstrates the order and or chaos that is on the island and how nearly all of the social structure on the island could be lost as quickly as the time it takes to snap Piggy’s glasses in half.
When the group were discussing about the fire, Piggy says, “ ‘Cos the smoke's a signal and we can't be rescued if we don't have smoke” (173). Piggy is working to help out the boys by trying to inform them about their situation, and how they can fix it together. Piggy is the voice of reason out of all the boys by telling them how things will affect them as a group, and that is just like how the superego tells the ego on how the action will influence society. Piggy always wants what is best for the group, and wants them all to get off the island safely. When the group decided to move the fire from the mountain, Golding describes, “Piggy was so full of delight and expanding liberty in Jack's departure, so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood” (129). Piggy wants to guide the boys on the right path of survival, and enjoys when he is able to help. His involvement in book by helping Ralph and the other boys is based on the focus of the superego to help the needs of society.
In conclusion, Civilization remains Ralph’s aim and his prediction happens to be the saviour of the day; the smoke. An officer sees the fire and comes to their rescue. Ironically, what seems to be the end of Ralph revives civilization back in place. Jack’s habitual act of savagery annihilates civilization in the Group of British boys which turns them into savages. To recapitulate, violence does not bring power, but bloodshed and loss of lives. Jack assumes violence as the only key to power. Hunting is not a game of power and authority. Jack uses his hunting skills to search for Ralph towards the end of the novel. This implies that Jack is a brutal dictator who thinks that hunting is the only way to seek for power. Jack’s ill-behaviour and thirst
Many times throughout the book, Piggy is the voice of reason and helps to guide Ralph along that same road if he loses his way. After scolding Samneric for being pessimistic about their fate, Ralph momentarily forgets the reasons why the signal fire is so important. "He tried to remember. Smoke, he said, we want smoke. Course we have. Cos the smoke's a signal and we can't be rescued if we don't have smoke. I knew that! Shouted Ralph" (Golding 172). Ralph begins to lose his initial cheerfulness and enthusiasm and replaces it with disinterest and pessimism. Piggy and Ralph separate themselves from Jack and his tribe and continue to maintain their "government". However, when Jack and his tribe kill a pig and invite Ralph and Piggy to join their feast, the two accept and cannot resist the temptation of the meat. Later on in the celebration, Jack and his tribe perform a ritualistic dance, in which Piggy and Ralph later join. "Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society" (Golding 152). They realize that the dance fueled the boys to murder Simon, and later deny their participance in it. "We left early, said Piggy quickly, because we were tired" (Golding 158). Ralph and Piggy recognize the evil in the dance, and know that if the others found out about their participance in it, then the boys would claim that Piggy and Ralph would be
Ralph concentrates on being rescued and Jack goes along taking on the responsibility that he and his choir will mind the fire. “We’ll be responsible for keeping the fire going-”, (Page 38) but while Ralph remains focused on being rescued, Jack’s new-found interest in hunting leads him to forget about rescue. “Jack had to think for a moment before he could remember what rescue was. “Rescue? Yes, of course! All the same, I’d like to catch a pig first-.” (Page 58) This also starts to show that Jack has entered the realm of savagery.