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Various Essays On Goldings "Lord Of The Flies"

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1. Given that Piggy represents society and its rules, he must have found his situation on the island disturbing at the least. At first, there is no organized social structure of any kind; no position of leadership existed. There was an absence of rules. This must have been very disturbing to Piggy. Then, as the story progresses, a sort of chain of leadership emerges with Ralph being voted as “chief.” “Ralph raised his hand for silence. ‘All right. Who wants Jack for chief?’ With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands. ‘Who wants me?’ Every hand outside the choir except Piggy’s was raised immediately. Then, Piggy too, raised his hand grudgingly into the air. Ralph counted. ‘I’m chief then.’”(LoF p21). Then, a little bit later, Ralph brings up the idea of rules: “Jack was on his feet. ‘We’ll have rules!’ he cried excitedly. Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks them-’”(LoF p33). When the “hunters” kill their first pig is when we start to see signs of a more primal society, or lack thereof. They repeat the chant, “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” Piggy obviously if fed up with Jack and his hunters, asking, “What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?’”(LoF p.91). And then, Ralph’s authority is challenged by Jack. Jack first disregards the rule of letting the person with conch speak without interruption. Then he directly challenges Ralph, saying, “And you shut up! Who are you, anyway? Sitting there, telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing-’”(LoF p91). From this confrontation is goes downhill on the island. On pg. 114, a “game” gets a little out of hand, when Robert pretends to be the pig, and the others pretend to hunt him, but then they become more serious and actually hurt him. He is not killed, however. Eventually, Jack and some of the other boys split apart from Ralph and his “group.” Jack and his hunting band kill another pig savagely, reveling in its agony. The “peak of their decline” was when they killed Simon, calling him a beast, during the storm. Then Piggy is killed, and the conch is shattered, and that is when I consider them to be at the absolute lowest in society: nothing more than savages. 2. In the novel, Sam and Eric are introduced early as two separate people, beings, that resemble one entity. “Even while he blew, Ralph noticed the last pai... ... middle of paper ... ... stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary astonishment.”(LoF p200). The attire of the boys and the officer also stand in stark contrast. The officer is dressed with a military neatness, with a clean, decorated uniform, most likely clean, shaved, etc. The boys, however are in need of hair cuts, most of them are covered with clay, and they’re probably wearing the tattered remains of shorts or pants. Despite how much more “civilized” the officer must look than the children, an irony remains. This officer represents adult life, responsible, capable, but really bearing the same prospect for evil as the “savages”. This officer, who interrupted a manhunt, is going to rescue the children and take them off of the island, but to where? To a cruiser that will soon be hunting its enemy in the sam way as the savages hunted Ralph. To me, the irony is that although the officer and his cruiser seem to be so much more civilized than these little savages, he isn’t. It’s just like what “the Beast” told Simon. No matter where you go, you can’t get away from him. Because this “Beast”, this capability for evil, exists in everyone.
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