Lord of the Flies Notes

A novel in which there is a character who arouses my dislike is “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. Jack is a young boy who is stranded on an uninhabited tropical island with other boys. He is a dislikeable character because he represents savagery and violence on the island. He has an obsession with hunting animals which then leads to killing and hurting for pleasure, and then he turns on the boys. His obsession with leadership and power provokes him to start his own tribe that he controls by regularly punishing them for doing wrong, and sometimes for no reason. Golding uses the character of Ralph to symbolise savagery and to highlight the ongoing battle between civilisation and savagery. “Lord of the Flies” tells the story of a group of young schoolboys trying to deal with life on a marooned tropical island after the plane evacuating them from wartime Britain was shot down. The boys have found themselves with no authoritative adults to take care of them or tell them what to do, and have found the only way to survive is to come together as a group and work as a team and fend for themselves. However, the longer they are on the island the more the group starts to divide until there are two separate groups, the savage side led by Jack, and the civilised side led by Ralph.
We first notice our dislike for Jack when he is leading a group of his choirboys who are marching in military style, while he shouts orders to them. “Choir! Stand stil!”. This is the first time we notice his need for control and power over other people. He is described as being tall, thin and bony. This suggests