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Different Changes In Different Characters Of 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. 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.
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