Lord Of The Flies Development Essay, Research Paper

How Do the Main Characters in Lord of the Flies Develop in the First Six Chapters?

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding experiments with what could happen to a group of young of boys left in new surroundings with no adults present. The main characters of this novel are quickly established and are the oldest or tallest of the boys. All the characters change and develop enormously over the period of time when they have to adjust to living on the island.

The reader is introduced to Ralph first, as the boy with fair hair . Ralph enjoys standing on his head and shows how impulsive he is when he dives straight into the water. This suggests that he has little common sense and so may be irresponsible. He also appears to be a daydreamer and is convinced that his father will rescue him so does not face the reality of what has actually happened.

how does he know were here? because, thought Ralph because because.

Ralphs father being in the navy could mean that Ralph has had a privileged upbringing which might be why he feels superior to Piggy and doesn t think much of him. This is shown when Ralph orders Piggy to get my clothes , and when he broke his promise by telling the boys his nickname was Piggy. Ralph had possession of the conch, used it to bring the boys together and had a good physique (tall, blonde, built like a boxer ), so he easily earned the respect of the boys and was immediately accepted.

There was a stillness about Ralph that marked him out his size and attractive appearance, most obscurely the conch

The first thing Ralph says as leader is I can t decide what to do straight of . He does not display authority or apply a task to anyone, so the boys have to find their own things to do, so he does not seem to have the qualities to make a good leader. However, the fact that his main priority is to get rescued and build shelters to survive, and that he tries to keep the island civilised shows that his common sense is developing.

Similar to most other boys, Ralph enjoyed the absence of adults on the island and the island itself. Everyone wanted to have fun, but Ralph also wanted to be rescued so understood the importance of the fire. By the third chapter Ralph feels depressed because he cannot convince the boys of the necessity of the shelters.

The decline in order, Jack beginning to gain more power, no-one following the rules or helping with the shelters and fire, the continual rivalry of Jack and the savagery in Jack himself are factors which contribute to Ralph changing. He begins to appreciate Piggy more and appraises what he says according to how practical it is. He also wishes for help from the adults as this quotation shows.

If only they can send us something grown up a sign or something

Piggy is the character who seems to change the least in the story. He remains an outcast but he does have some influence on the boys for a while through Ralph, who uses several of his ideas, for example the shelters.

The first thing we ought to have made were shelters down there buy the beach

In chapter one it is obvious that Piggy cannot do anything by himself because he depends on his aunt who has spoilt him. This becomes apparent when Piggy frequently says my aunt says . . He is very intelligent but no-one, except perhaps Ralph later on in the story, realises this. Instead, the first thing they see is his fatness, glasses and asthma which make him appear weak and an easy target for mocking. As a result of this mocking Piggy stays civilised because no-one allows him to join in

{Jack} we don t want you

Piggy always showed the maturity of an adult, for example when he describes the boys as acting like a bunch of kids . He also found it hard to understand the beastie because he always explained life using science, but in his mind nothing was able to rationalise the beastie. Golding emphasises the fact that he doesn t change much, by making him stay the same physically whereas all the other boys become thinner and have longer hair.

He was the only boy on the island who s hair never seemed to grow

The boys think Simon is queer and batty , and so he is a bit of an outsider, similar to Piggy. At first Golding describes Simon as being

skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and course

The reader can see that Simon relates to nature when he sees certain bushes on the island as candle buds , whereas Jack slashes them and Ralph says they re like candles, but you can t light them. Simon is helpful and friendly He shows this when he helps Ralph build the shelters and when he picks the fruit for the littleuns. Simon does not appear to be frightened of the island-instead he wonders around the island, even at night especially to his secret place . As Simon connects more to nature he develops more spiritually and seems to have psychic ability which he shows when he tells Ralph you ll get back where you came from . However as Simon begins to understand, he struggles more to communicate his feelings and can only manage to imply what he actually means

maybe its only us. Simon becomes inarticulate in his effort to express mankind s essential illness

As the story progresses Simon seems to gain more knowledge and recluses more in to nature, because he can relate more to nature than the boys. Simon becomes more spiritual which he shows when he meditates, which makes him resemble Jesus Christ who also meditated, helped people, new mankind s essential illness and was unafraid.

From the beginning the reader can see that the choir are going to represent evil from the way Golding describes them

Something dark was fumbling along .marching approximately with a hambone frill

This makes them sound sinister and similar to an army. The fact that Jack is the boy who controlled them shows his authority and strength. The red hair reinforces the sinister feeling and suggests he has a fiery temper. He also appears to be arrogant when he sees the group of boys he does not introduce himself but instead asks where s the man with the trumpet , and when he saw Ralph he peered down on him and the conch. Jack is used to being a leader and says I ought to be chief and he often tries to undermine Ralph. Jack has said on numerous occasions shut up Fatty and so he does not listen to Piggy because of his appearance. Jack s violent nature is already hinted at in the first chapter when he insists his choir should be the hunters and him owning a knife. The style which Golding uses to describe Jacks actions also hints at his violence

Jack snatched from behind him a sizeable sheath-knife and clouted it into a trunk ..Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly

The civilisation in Jack which prevented him killing the first pig soon dissolves as his passion for hunting and killing animals increases.

All the same you need an army for hunting

This comment from Jack shows that he is becoming more interested in hunting than building shelters or being rescued. Jack realises he can do what he wants because there will be no adults to punish him. The reader can easily see the drastic change in Jack, for example earlier on in the novel he says we ve got to have rules and obey them , but when his dark side is showing more he says bollocks to the rules . Jack also appears to become more bloodthirsty, as this following quotation implies

but if there is a snake, we d hunt it and kill it

Jack associated everything he sees with hunting, for example he uses the fire for heating up meat he has hunted instead of as a way to get rescued and he doesn t believe in the beastie but likes the idea of hunting it down.. Jack mainly changes physically and mentally in chapters three and four as the following quotation show

his nose only a few inches from the humid earth dog-like…bolting…he became a furtive thing, ape-like . His hair, longer peeling sunburn he was naked . eyes that in this frustration seemed bolting and nearly mad .the madness came into his eyes rage compulsion .

swung hurled strength hard castanet seductive maddening rushed snatched

The quotation explains what Jack feels when he hunts and animal and the exhilaration he gets. Jack is so infatuated with hunting that he forgets what rescue is and has to think for a moment to try and remember. The civilisation in Jack completely disappears when he puts the mask on and becomes the awesome stranger . When Jack kills the pig he describes what happens with relish, which completely contrasts with the first time he attempted to kill a pig when he let it free because he thought of cutting into living flesh the unbearable blood.

All the characters in the story develop, in general the evil side of the character is unleashed, like in Jack or the characters become better, like Simon. Either way Golding developed each character in their own individual way so that they represented different types of people in the supposedly civilised adult world.