Lord of the Flies - The Evil in Us All
" 'The choir belongs to you of course.'
'They could be the army-.'
'or hunters'" ( Lord of the Flies pg. 21 ).
That was Ralph's big mistake, giving Jack that power and the right to be hunters. That
power led to the fall of their civilization and the take over of Jack's savage tribe. There is
evil within everyone and everything, it is just a matter of whether or not you let it take
control of you. That is what The Lord of the Flies , a novel by William Golding, tries to
express. Through analyzing the character of Jack you can see how the savagery takes him
over little by little as he develops mentally, physically, and emotionally throughout the
Jack declined more than developed mentally throughout the book. " 'I ought to be
chief,' said Jack with simple arrogance, 'because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I
can sing a C sharp'" ( pg. 21 ). Jack was a normal young boy, maybe a bossy one, but
still a boy. " 'They hate you Ralph. They're going to do you. They're going to hunt you
tomorrow- Jack, the chief says it's going to be dangerous, and to throw our spears like at
a pig'" ( pg. 172 ). Jack was a boy who became a savage beast. The more power Jack
gained over the other boys the less he cared about civilization, and the more he declined
mentally. What force could cause someone to hunt a fellow man like he was an animal?
As well as changing mentally Jack also changed physically.
"The creature was a party of boys, dressed in strangely eccentric clothing.
Shorts, shirts, and different garments they carried in their hands; but each boy
wore a square black cap with a silver badge on it. Their bodies, from throat to
ankle, were hidden by black cloaks which bore a long silver cross on the left
breast and each neck was finished...