lord of the flies essay

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Savagery Throughout Lord of the Flies the characters progressively become savages. When the boys first start to make the transition from normalcy to savagery, they do not want to admit that it is happening. They are acting as though everything is fine, even though they are going on wild pig hunts, painting their faces, and splitting up into different tribes. As they do all these things they are slipping more into savagery. As the boys go on their first pig hunt they start to make the turn towards savagery. They do not kill anything on the first hunt, but it leaves Jack outraged and determined. After letting the first pig go, Jack declares: “I was going to [kill the pig]… I was choosing a place. Next time-” (31). With this declaration Jack cannot think of anything other than killing a pig. When Jack does kill a pig, he becomes ravaged and wants to kill another. As the pig hunts continue they become more and more gruesome and cruel. During one of the pig hunts, they kill a sow slowly and just listen to it squeal, as though they got enjoyment out of it. The last pig hunt Jack and his group of hunters stop being referred to as humans, they are just called savages. The real turning point into savagery is when the boys paint their faces. They feel that under all the paint they can hide from what they are truly becoming. Ralph thought that “he had glimpsed one of them, [Jack and his tribe], striped brown, black, and red, and had judged that it was Bill. But really… this was not Bill” (183). Ralph is referring to the fact that they have changed so much; they are not the same people they were when they crashed on the island. The paint that Bill has on adds to this change, symbolizing that Bill is unrecognizable with or without the paint on, not in appearance but in personality. He looks the same as he did when he came on the island, with the exception of being clean and having his hair cut, but his personality has turned from normal to savage. This change makes Ralph think that he is unrecognizable as a human being and it is not really him: “This is a savage whose image refuses to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt” (183). The image of the savage is blinding the image of the boy Bill used to be.
The boys get to a point at the end of the book where they cannot work together any longer. Jack splits off from the tribe by simply stating: “I’m not going to play any longer. Not with you” (127). This statement is the breaking point and the
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