Loss Of Compassion In Lord Of The Flies

The Truth of Mankind:Loss of Compassion
Thesis: In the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, English school boys show their natural capacity for brutality as they progressively change on the isolated island, displaying how the island can bring violence to the boys’ mentality, and how their desire to hunt can affect their humanity.
The boys in the story develop an escalating mindset of violence as the conflict between them emerges. In one of the scenes from chapter 11, Samneric are being held captive by Jack’s tribe, and Jack begins to mock Ralph;causing Ralph to lose his temper. Once Ralph hears enough from Jack, he heads towards him and “They met with a jolt and bounced apart. Jack swung with his fist at Ralph and caught him on the ear.
As the boys are settling down onto the island, Jack and his choir group are ecstatic from their successful pig hunt, and are ready to tell Ralph all about it. Jack exclaims, “ ‘I cut the pig’s throat,’ said Jack, proudly, and yet twitched as he said it. ‘Can I borrow yours, Ralph, to make a nick in the hilt? The boys chattered and danced. The twins continued to grin” (69). Jack feels exhilaration from killing the pig, and asks Ralph to borrow his knife “to make a nick in a hilt”,and he is described as speaking “proudly, and yet twitched”. This provides a positive connotation that express his enthusiasm for the kill, and is an early characterization for Jack’s passion for killing. Jack’s manner while talking about using Ralph’s knife to make tally marks on his, shows that he is planning on more kills. As the number of pig kills increases, the boys on the island descend deeper into ferocity. Ralph gets mad at Jack and the choir for carelessly letting the signal fire go out; causing the ship to not see them. Jack argues back saying,“ ‘We needed meat’ Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled common-sense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair” (71). Even as he states how important food is, the imagery in this passage vividly illustrates him as clutching the “bloodied knife in his hand”, a marker of savagery at the beginning of the reign bloodlust. Jack also “smudged blood over his forehead”, depicting how wild and uncivilized he has become. The situation as a whole shows his loss of humanity since first arriving on the island, as he previously