The character of Jack in Lord of The Flies represents an evil anarchy for the human creation which unleashes to show his dark thirst for power. He uses his sense of atavism to consume the souls of those among him that fall under his power. Jack has always shown that deep feeling of darkness throughout this book but it hides itself beneath his actual appearance. “Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Ralph examines. (pg. 20). So, his physical image doesn’t compare to what he turns out to actually be later in the book. He was still a scary creature but wasn’t described as a human figure because of the emotion that Ralph felt as Jack proceeded onto the island. This shows how looks can be deceiving in general and this foreshadows events that will take place. Into the play of hunting where Jack has hesitation of killing a piglet, this brings out his humanity side where he has the feeling of terror. He’s an English boy that never has had to kill anything before, for the most part.
It confronts him in a scary way to the point where he decides to not kill the piglet. He then feels embarrassed and makes a promise that next time he will kill it. Jack may feel mostly embarrassed because he is known as head of his choir and it was his job to hunt for the others and he may have felt that he let them down by letting the piglet get away. Maybe the blood or the scene of killing an animal was too much for his eyes to take in and he turned away from that. However, this reaction leads him to change and he encourages a killing later that he created himself.
Jack is emotionless towards the death of Piggy and Simon and doesn’t look back after going down his dark road. His importance changed from killing the piglet to killing in general so he could feel his dominant act. Savagery is expressed Jack more than Jack expresses savagery because it takes over his inside feelings and turns it into something that is hungry for hunting and killing. “Rescue? Yes, of course! All the same, I’d like to catch a pig first---”. (pg. 53). When he wraps hunting around everything that is thrown at him, this says that he become obsessed with the idea.
All he seems to care about is just hunting and that’s what transforms him from a simple English boy into a savage of destruction. He likes the act of cruelty towards others and shows no kindness at all. This now displays him as an evil king on the island that shows no resistance anymore and does not hesitate to kill! In the beginning, the conch was the unity for the group. It brought everyone on the island together for meetings and it was assured that whoever held the conch was the only person to speak. With the transition of Jack, that later changes.
He feels that he doesn’t need the conch to speak, and this is where his evil leadership comes into play. He votes himself as leader and no one tells him different. Jack establishes his own rules and those that choose not to follow would be banished. He was smart but still dangerous. Many of the others may have decided to join him because they thought that maybe it was the best option other than being along with Ralph and Piggy. And some of them were scared. At this point, Jack is king of savagery and it makes his people below him act the same.
He shows his group the acts and ways of savagery and turn them into hype mean creatures that destruct. “If you're hunting sometimes... you can feel as if you're not hunting, but -- being hunted, as if something's behind you all the time in the jungle”. Jack wasn’t always an evil person in my opinion. I think he was transformed by something within himself and on the island that led him to take the actions that he took. He may have felt that the beast was hunting him down and he got a hold of his soul which leads to the changes that Jack goes through. The beast may be what’s making Jack kill and be punctured by hunting.
When you go back to the hesitation of killing the piglet in the beginning of the book, this may have been where the Beast came alive and took Jack under its wing. The Beast wanted Jack to overcome his fear but beyond facing his actual fear he seemed to have consumed it and it has now taken over him. “I’m warning you. I’m going to get angry. You’re not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island! So don’t try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else–” (pg. 144). This may have been the “Lord of the Flies” speaking but behind all that, this was the beast speaking through Jack.
Jack, the beast, was warning Simon of his own death but Simon was too blinded by the fact that a sow’s head was speaking to him. Jack plays with the minds of what he calls weak but in the inside he kills the souls of knowledge without knowing. Jack himself is also being blinded by the beast which makes him kill and murder those who are part of the innocent. Jack may not have been completely whole when it came to being rescued from the island but he created this evil order that changed the life that was alive there. It turned from a unified, cooperative island into a murder resort that ended in flames.
Feelings within and your conditions can sometimes takeover your body and turn you into things that jut give off unwanted emotions. The beast reflected through Jack and also showed in his actions. Loyalty between each other and power was key in this book. Power was something that Jack did whatever he had to do to obtain it. Jack’s part in the book could relate to the “Survival of the Fittest” phrase. He may have felt Simon, Piggy and Ralph were weak through his eyes and tried to prove his point of how they couldn’t survive the savage life. Little did he know, or maybe he did know but they were actually the smartest among them all.
Author: Marshall Vasquez