Kylie MinardiMs.
CortenEnglish II – 4th Block Red18 January 2018Character Analysis Essay A typical 12 year old boy is playing video games or reading books, but not stranded on an island fighting to survive. Jack is a normal boy until one day he and a few other boys from his school crash onto what they’d learn to call their home for the next few weeks. They all learned to grow up, grow up fast. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Jack represents loss of innocence through his hunting, wanting to be a leader, and his overall violence throughout the time on the island. Jack was known as the hunter from the start, when he was determined to kill the pig. Although in the start it was to be able to feed everyone, it soon became to prove he had what it takes to kill that pig. He had help, yet wanted to do it all on his own.
“I thought I might kill” (Goulding 51) and yet he didn’t. He missed and that made him determined. It made him go mad, “If I could only get a pig!”,(Goulding 55).
Don’t you believe that 13 year olds shouldn’t be going out and hunting because their life depends on it? It has always been a fight between Ralph and Jack on who should be the leader. Ralph takes the role but not without a fight from Jack. “I ought to be chief,” said Jack with simple arrogance, “because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.” (Goulding 22). As you can see, he felt entitled to be the leader. It gets to the point where he splits off and forms his own group where he’s the leader.
This causes much tension between the group and that leads to havoc. Jack turns violent and evil. Evil is not something you should be describing a 13 year old as. Throughout the story, you can tell Jack isn’t known for being the kindest in the bunch, but his violence takes it just a little farther. At one point in the book, Jack and the hunters pretend Robert is the pig and almost kill him because they didn’t know when to stop.
Jack was the perpetrator there. In the final chapter of the book, Jack plans to set a huge fire to flush out Ralph! At what point do you feel its right to set fire to ANYTHING? Jack also seemed to enjoy the fear of others. He got SamnEric to do his dirty work and caused them to slowly lose their own innocence. “Jack planned his new face.
He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw …. “Samneric. Get me a coconut. An empty one.””He knelt, holding the shell of water …. He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger.
He spilt the water and leapt to his feet, laughing excitedly. Beside the pool his sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them” (Goulding 33). Jack right here is thriving off of the fact he doesn’t see himself as what he used to be. This gives him a chance to change, and grow into this violent being he is becoming without doubting it, because he doesn’t know who he is anymore. As seen here, Jack was one of the quickest to lose his innocence, starting as soon as he got on the island.
One by one of his actions brought him deeper and deeper into this person he thought he’d never become. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Jack represents loss of innocence through his hunting, wanting to be a leader, and his overall violence throughout the time on the island.
