lord of the flies :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  How a person changes when he or she is confronted by danger or tremendous stress can reveal alot abou thier character. Do they spring into action or do they bow thier head in defeat? In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding contains a character named Jack that under goes a drastic change because of the danger and stress that is around him.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Lord of the Flies a plane evacuating a group of English boys from Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Marooned the boys choose leaders. Jack is chosen to lead the hunters while another boy named Ralph ios named the groups supreme leader. This is where Jack’s change begins. The fact that he is not elected the leader of the whole group angers him due to the fact that he is older than Ralph. When Ralph, Simon, and Jack go out to explore the island they stumble upon a wild pig. Jack, being the leader of the hunters, tries to kill it but is unsucessful. This furthers Jack change as his anger rises closer to the surface. Later open hostility shows up between Ralph and Jack because Ralph blaims Jack of avoiding work. The same night Jack loses his temper with Piggy and strikes him across the face. At this point his change reaches its half way point. After this the degree of Jack’s change is displayed througth the amount of teasing that he directs towards Piggy. Jack shows signs of reverting back to his original state when him and Ralph begin to reastablish thier bond while searching for a monster that two of the boys claimed to have seen. This does not last long however. Jack begins to question Ralph’s leadership and bravery and calls him a coward. When the other boys stick with Ralph, Jack becomes enraged. This begins Jack’s final change. The peak of this final change comes when Jack begins to address a dead sow’s head as The Lord of the Flies. From this point on Jack as lost all of his humanity and become no more than an animal. In his new animal state Jack is responsible for the deaths of Piggy, Simon, and