Essay/Term paper: Lord of the flies

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Cliff Notes

Lord of the Flies:  In his first novel, William Golding used a group of
boys stranded on a tropical island to illustrate the malicious nature of
mankind. Lord of the Flies dealt with changes that the boys underwent as they
gradually adapted to the isolated freedom from society.

In his first novel, William Golding used a group of boys stranded on a
tropical island to illustrate the malicious nature of mankind. Lord of the Flies
dealt with changes that the boys underwent as they gradually adapted to the
isolated freedom from society. Three main characters depicted different effects
on certain individuals under those circumstances. Jack Merridew began as the
arrogant and self-righteous leader of a choir. The freedom of the island allowed
him to further develop the darker side of his personality as the Chief of a
savage tribe. Ralph started as a self-assured boy whose confidence in himself
came from the acceptance of his peers. He had a fair nature as he was willing to
listen to Piggy. He became increasingly dependent on Piggy's wisdom and became
lost in the confusion around him. Towards the end of the story his rejection
from their society of savage boys forced him to fend for himself. Piggy was an
educated boy who had grown up as an outcast. Due to his academic childhood, he
was more mature than the others and retained his civilized behaviour. But his
experiences on the island gave him a more realistic understanding of the cruelty
possessed by some people. The ordeals of the three boys on the island made them
more aware of the evil inside themselves and in some cases, made the false
politeness that had clothed them dissipate. However, the changes experienced by
one boy differed from those endured by another. This is attributable to the
physical and mental dissimilarities between them.

Jack was first described with an ugly sense of cruelty that made him
naturally unlikeable. As leader of the choir and one of the tallest boys on the
island, Jack's physical height and authority matched his arrogant personality.
His desire to be Chief was clearly evident in his first appearance. When the
idea of having a Chief was mentioned Jack spoke out immediately. "I ought
to be chief," said Jack with simple arrogance, "because I'm chapter
chorister and head boy."  He led his choir by administering much
discipline resulting in forced obedience from the cloaked boys. His ill-nature
was well expressed through his impoliteness of saying, "Shut up,
Fatty." at Piggy. (p. 23) However, despite his unpleasant personality, his
lack of courage and his conscience prevented him from killing the first pig they
encountered. "They knew very well why he hadn't: because of the enormity of
the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable
blood." (p. 34) Even at the meetings, Jack was able to contain himself
under the leadership of Ralph. He had even suggested the implementation of rules
to regulate themselves. This was a Jack who was proud to be British, and who was
shaped and still bound by the laws of a civilized society. The freedom offered
to him by the island allowed Jack to express the darker sides of his personality
that he hid from the ideals of his past environment. Without adults as a
superior and responsible authority, he began to lose his fear of being punished
for improper actions and behaviours. This freedom coupled with his malicious and
arrogant personality made it possible for him to quickly degenerate into a
savage. He put on paint, first to camouflage himself from the pigs. But he
discovered that the paint allowed him to hide the forbidden thoughts in his mind
that his facial expressions would otherwise betray. "The mask was a thing
on its own behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and
self-consciousness." (p. 69) Through hunting, Jack lost his fear of blood
and of killing living animals. He reached a point where he actually enjoyed the
sensation of hunting a prey afraid of his spear and knife. His natural desire
for blood and violence was brought out by his hunting of pigs. As Ralph became
lost in his own confusion, Jack began to assert himself as chief. The boys
realizing that Jack was a stronger and more self-assured leader gave in easily
to the freedom of Jack's savagery. Placed in a position of power and with his
followers sharing his crazed hunger for violence, Jack gained encouragement to
commit the vile acts of thievery and murder. Freed from the conditions of a
regulated society, Jack gradually became more violent and the rules and proper
behaviour by which he was brought up were forgotten. The freedom given to him
unveiled his true self under the clothing worn by civilized people to hide his
darker characteristics.

Ralph was introduced as a fair and likeable boy whose self-assured mad him
feel secure even on the island without any adults. His interaction with Piggy
demonstrated his pleasant nature as he did not call him names with hateful
intent as Jack had. His good physique allowed him to be well accepted among his
peers, and this gave him enough confidence to speak out readily in public. His
handsome features and the conch as a symbol of power and order pointed him out
from the crowd of boys and proclaimed him Chief. "There was a stillness
about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive
appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerful, there was the conch."
(p. 24) From the quick decisions he made as Chief near the beginning of the
novel, it could be seen that Ralph was well-organized. But even so, Ralph began
repeatedly to long and daydream of his civilized and regular past. Gradually,
Ralph became confused and began to lose clarity in his thoughts and speeches.
"Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was
something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down." (p. 156) He
started to feel lost in their new environment as the boys, with the exception of
Piggy began to change and adapt to their freedom. As he did not lose his sense
of responsibility, his viewpoints and priorities began to differ from the
savages'. He was more influenced by Piggy than by Jack, who in a way could be
viewed as a source of evil. Even though the significance of the fire as a rescue
signal was slowly dismissed, Ralph continued to stress the importance of the
fire at the mountaintop. He also tried to reestablish the organization that had
helped to keep the island clean and free of potential fire hazards. This
difference made most of the boys less convinced of the integrity of Ralph. As
his supporters became fewer and Jack's insistence on being chief grew, his
strength as a leader diminished. But even though Ralph had retained much of his
past social conditioning, he too was not spared from the evil released by the
freedom from rules and adults. During the play-fight after their unsuccessful
hunt in the course of their search for the beast, Ralph for the first time, had
an opportunity to join the hunters and share their desire for violence.
"Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown,
vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering." (p.
126) Without rules to limit them, they were free to make their game as real as
they wanted. Ralph did not understand the hatred Jack had for him, nor did he
fully comprehend why their small and simple society deteriorated. This confusion
removed his self-confidence and made him more dependent on Piggy's judgement,
until Piggy began prompting him on what needed to be said and done. Towards the
end of the novel, Ralph was forced into independence when he lost all his
followers to Jack's savagery, and when Piggy and the conch were smashed by
Roger's boulder. He was forced to determine how to avoid Jack's savage hunters
alone. Ralph's more responsible behaviour set him apart from the other savage
boys and made it difficult for him to accept and realize the changes they were
undergoing. Becoming lost in his exposure to their inherent evil, Ralph's
confusion brought about the deterioration of his initial self-assurance and
ordered temperament, allowing him to experience brief outbursts of his beastly
self.

Piggy was an educated boy rejected by the kids of his age group on account of
his being overweight. It was his academic background and his isolation from the
savage boys that had allowed him to remain mostly unchanged from his primitive
experiences on the island. His unattractive attributes segregated him from the
other boys on the island. He was not welcomed on their first exploratory trip of
the island. "We don't want you," Jack had said to Piggy. (p. 26) Piggy
was like an observer learning from the actions of others. His status in their
society allowed him to look at the boys from an outsider's perspective. He could
learn of the hatred being brought out of the boys without having to experience
the thirst for blood that Ralph was exposed to. Although he was easily
intimidated by the other boys, especially by Jack, he did not lack the
self-confidence to protest or speak out against the indignities from the boys as
the shy former choirboy Simon did. This self-confidence differed from that of
Ralph's as it did not come from his acceptance by their peers nor did it come
from the authority and power Jack had grown accustomed to. It came from the
pride in having accumulated the wisdom that was obviously greater than that of
most of the other kids at his age. Piggy not only knew what the rules were, as
all the other boys did, but he also had the patience to at least wonder why the
rules existed. This intuition made Piggy not only more aware of why the rules
were imposed, thereby ensuring that he would abide by them even when they were
not enforced. When the boys flocked to the mountaintop to build their fire,
Piggy shouted after them, "Acting like a crowd of kids!" (p. 42) Piggy
was a very liable person who could look ahead and plan carefully of the future.
He shouted at the boys' immature recklessness, "The first thing we ought to
have made was shelters down there by the beach... Then when you get here you
build a bonfire that isn't no use. Now you been and set the whole island on
fire." (p.. 50) Like Ralph, his sense of responsibility set him apart from
the other boys. The author used the image of long hair to illustrate Piggy's
sustenance of his civilized behaviour. "He was the only boy on the island
whose hair never seemed to grow." (p. 70) The author's description of his
baldness also presented an image of old age and made Piggy seem to lack the
strength of youth. The increasing injustice Piggy endured towards the end of the
novel was far greater than any that he had encountered previously. In his fit of
anger, 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." (p. 189) This new standard of harshness brought
tears out of him as the suffering became intolerable. For a brief moment,
Piggy's anger at the unfairness and his helplessness robbed him of his usual
logical reasoning, which returned when he was confronted with his fear of the
savages. Piggy was an intelligent boy with a good understanding of their
situation on the island. He was able to think clearly and plan ahead with
caution so that even in the freedom of their unregulated world, his wisdom and
his isolation from the savage boys kept him from giving into the evil that had
so easily consumed Jack and his followers. The resulting cruelty Jack inflicted
upon him taught Piggy how much more pain there was in the world.

Lord of the flies used changes experienced by boys on an uninhabited island
to show the evil nature of man. By using different characters the author was
able to portray various types of people found in our society. Their true selves
were revealed in the freedom from the laws and punishment of a world with
adults. Under the power and regulations of their former society, Jack's inner
evil was suppressed. But when the rules no longer existed, he was free to do
what malice he desired. Ralph had grown so used to the regularity of a civilized
world, that the changes they underwent were difficult for him to comprehend. He
became confused and less capable of thinking clearly and independently. Although
he too had experienced the urge for violence that had driven Jack and the
hunters to momentary peaks of madness, his more sensitive personality and his
sense of obligation saved him from complete savagery. These two traits also
helped to keep Piggy from becoming primitive in behaviour. He was made an
outcast by his undesirable physique and his superior intelligence. This
isolation and wisdom also helped Piggy to retain his civilized behaviour. As
well, he was made painfully more aware of the great amount of injustice in the
world. From these three characters, it could be seen that under the same
circumstances, different individuals can develop in different ways depending on
the factors within themselves and how they interacted with each other. Their
personalities and what they knew can determine how they would interpret and
adapt to a new environment such as the tropical island. Not everyone has so much
malevolence hidden inside themselves as to become complete savages when released
from the boundaries of our society. Some people will, because of the ways they
were conditioned, remember and abide by the rules they had depended on for
social organization and security.