Different Changes In Different Characters Of Lord Essay, Research Paper

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 Fliesdealt with changes that the boys underwent as they gradually adapted to the isolated freedom from society. Three main characters depicted differenteffects on certain individuals under those circumstances. Jack Merridew began as the arrogant and self-righteous leader of a choir. The freedom ofthe 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 whoseconfidence in himself came from the acceptance of his peers. He had a fair nature as he was willing to listen to Piggy. He became increasinglydependent on Piggy s wisdom and became lost in the confusion around him. Towards the end of the story his rejection from their society of savageboys 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 moremature than the others and retained his civilized behaviour. But his experiences on the island gave him a more realistic understanding of the crueltypossessed 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, madethe false politeness that had clothed them dissipate. However, the changes experienced by one boy differed from those endured by another. This isattributable 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 theisland, 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 mchapter chorister and head boy.” He led his choir by administering much discipline resulting in forced obedience from the cloaked boys. Hisill-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 ofthe enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood.” (p. 34) Even at the meetings, Jack was able tocontain himself under the leadership of Ralph. He had even suggested the implementation of rules to regulate themselves. This was a Jack who wasproud 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 toexpress 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 personalitymade 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 thepaint allowed him to hide the forbidden thoughts in his mind that his facial expressions would otherwise betray. “The mask was a thing on its ownbehind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” (p. 69) Through hunting, Jack lost his fear of blood and of killing livinganimals. 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 andviolence was brought out by his hunting of pigs. As Ralph became lost in his own confusion, Jack began to assert himself as chief. The boysrealizing 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 andwith his followers sharing his crazed hunger for violence, Jack gained encouragement to commit the vile acts of thievery and murder. Freed from theconditions of a regulated society, Jack gradually became more violent and the rules and proper behaviour by which he was brought up wereforgotten. 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 withPiggy demonstrated his pleasant nature as he did not call him names with hateful intent as Jack had. His good physique allowed him to be wellaccepted among his peers, and this gave him enough confidence to speak out readily in public. His handsome features and the conch as a symbol ofpower 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 himout: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerful, there was the conch.” (p. 24) From the quick decisions hemade 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 anddaydream of his civilized and regular past. Gradually, Ralph became confused and began to lose clarity in his thoughts and speeches. “Ralph waspuzzled 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 tofeel 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 senseof responsibility, his viewpoints and priorities began to differ from the savages . He was more influenced by Piggy than by Jack, who in a waycould 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 theimportance 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 firehazards. This difference made most of the boys less convinced of the integrity of Ralph. As his supporters became fewer and Jack s insistence onbeing chief grew, his strength as a leader diminished. But even though Ralph had retained much of his past social conditioning, he too was notspared 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, theywere 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 theirsmall and simple society deteriorated. This confusion removed his self-confidence and made him more dependent on Piggy s judgement, until Piggybegan 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 hisfollowers 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 ssavage hunters alone. Ralph s more responsible behaviour set him apart from the other savage boys and made it difficult for him to accept and realizethe changes they were undergoing. Becoming lost in his exposure to their inherent evil, Ralph s confusion brought about the deterioration of hisinitial 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 hisisolation from the savage boys that had allowed him to remain mostly unchanged from his primitive experiences on the island. His unattractiveattributes 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 theboys 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 thatRalph was exposed to. Although he was easily intimidated by the other boys, especially by Jack, he did not lack the self-confidence to protest orspeak 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 notcome 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 inhaving 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 whythe rules were imposed, thereby ensuring that he would abide by them even when they were not enforced. When the boys flocked to the mountaintopto 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 plancarefully of the future. He shouted at the boys immature recklessness, “The first thing we ought to have made was shelters down there by thebeach… 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, hissense of responsibility set him apart from the other boys. The author used the image of long hair to illustrate Piggy s sustenance of his civilizedbehaviour. “He was the only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow.” (p. 70) The author s description of his baldness also presentedan 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 fargreater 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 task 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 tearsout of him as the suffering became intolerable. For a brief moment, Piggy s anger at the unfairness and his helplessness robbed him of his usuallogical reasoning, which returned when he was confronted with his fear of the savages. Piggy was an intelligent boy with a good understanding oftheir 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, hiswisdom and his isolation from the savage boys kept him from giving into the evil that had so easily consumed Jack and his followers. The resultingcruelty 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 authorwas 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 aworld 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 weredifficult for him to comprehend. He became confused and less capable of thinking clearly and independently. Although he too had experienced theurge for violence that had driven Jack and the hunters to momentary peaks of madness, his more sensitive personality and his sense of obligationsaved him from complete savagery. These two traits also helped to keep Piggy from becoming primitive in behaviour. He was made an outcast byhis undesirable physique and his superior intelligence. This isolation and wisdom also helped Piggy to retain his civilized behaviour. As well, hewas made painfully more aware of the great amount of injustice in the world. From these three characters, it could be seen that under the samecircumstances, different individuals can develop in different ways depending on the factors within themselves and how they interacted with eachother. 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 andsecurity.