Lord of the Flies - Character Analysis of Jack Merridew
In the novel Lord of the Flies, Jack is the character that goes through the most change of anyone throughout the story. He begins the novel as a somewhat arrogant choir boy, who we actually see cry when he is not elected leader of the island. Golding describes Jack's physical appearance as so, "Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin and bony; his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled and ugly without silliness" (p.20) Jack's original feelings were to keep an organized group on the island. The author has him agreeing with Ralph when he brings the group together. Jack says, "I agree with Ralph. We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are the best at everything. So we've got to do the right things." (p.42) Although we are shown a pretty normal boy, we start to see that Jack can be very hostile at the same time. While Piggy is talking, we see Jack exclaim, "You're talking to much. Shut up fatty." (p.21) Jack is made the leader of the hunting tribe. He and his hunters have much trouble trying to hunt and kill a pig. Coming from a place like England, he has not had any experience in anything like this before. He is struggling t
o be a hunter, because right now he still has not made his decent into primitive savagery , which is the way he ends up at the end of the story. But Jack is shown to have primitive urges early. The author says, "He [Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up." (p.51) So we see how Jack does have a certain urge to hunt and kill as one of his primitive desires. After a few tries, Jack and the hunters finally catch a pig. The boys and Jack brutally attack it and kill it. This is the first step of Jack's transaction into savage living. We see the loss of innocense because Jack has killed his first living creature, and also had a loss of innocence in a sexual standpoint. Now we see Jack become very confident in his hunting ability and we start to see him act more like a hunter. He now wears a mask over his face and always wants to hunt. The author has this to say about Jack and his mask, "...the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness." (p.62) Jack is now trying to transform himself into a different person. He seems to be happier as a hunter. The author also lets us into Jack's mind, for his thoughts on his first kill, "His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that ha
Some common words found in the essay are:
Coming England, Flies Jack, Piggy Ralph, English English, Ralph Piggy, Ralph Navy, Ralph We've, attack kill, step jack's, primitive urges, boys jack, hunt kill, author jack, ,
Approximate Word count = 871
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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