In Lord of the Flies, some characters
are naturally inclined to behave wrongly in the absence of law, order, and justice. Jack
and his hunters turn into savages. Their behavior is reprehensible. They torture the sow
whose head becomes the symbol of the beast. Left to their own devices, Jack and his
hunters, especially Roger, act out in cruel, unnecessary
behavior:
They
go off on a hunt in which they kill a sow, gruesomely and cruelly. They cut off the
pig's head and mount it on a stick in sacrifice to the
beast.
While Jack and his
hunters react violently on their hunting trips, some of the other boys do not. Ralph,
Piggy, Simon and the twins do not act out in ways of savagery. They build shelters and
try to maintain some civilized conditions.
What this
proves is that savagery is innate in some individuals yet not others. Jack and his
hunters create a hunting reenactment. They build a hunting dance into a frenzy. When
Simon comes crawling out of the forest, they kill him with their bare hands and
teeth:
At
this moment, Simon emerges from the forest screaming about a dead man on a hill. He
wanders into the center of the circle. The boys mistake him for the beast, fall on him,
and beat him as he screams something about a body on the hill. Simon staggers to the
edge of the rocks and falls over onto the beach. The boys descend upon him again,
screaming and biting, and beat him to death in the
sand.
While Jack is
triumphant in his total anarchy, Ralph tries to hold hold on to his beliefs in civilized
order. He feels he is fighting a losing battle. In the end, he does end up alone,
fleeing for his very life. Roger pushed a rock and it knocked Piggy to his death. Now
Ralph is being hunted by Jack and his savage hunters.
No
doubt, Jack and his hunters have completely lost all forms of government. Without law
and order, the boys become animals.
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