Lord of the Flies - Character Analysis: Jack

Lord of the Flies, Character Analysis: Jack

In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a group of young boys are used to represent society itself, in four ways. Ralph is the leader. He's outspoken, and his main goal is to be rescued, he has a spark of hope. Piggy is the sensible one of the group, he wants everybody to get along and act like "grown-ups". Simon represents the good in everyone. He is young and innocent, and is somewhat of a Christ like figure of the four. The last and most important of the four would have to be Jack. He represents the evil that lies in all the hearts of mankind. I think he goes through the biggest change of the four, and eventually orchestrates the death of two boys.

In the beginning of the book Jack starts out to be, proper, ruthless, and powerful. He is still in, formation, with his choir even though the plane the boys were on just crashed. When we are first introduced to Jack, his heartlessness really shines through when he commands the choir to just ignore Simon, even though he just fainted. When the boys are voting who's to be the chief, Jack had expected he would be voted in as chief instantly, and when he wasn't chosen his diffident side was exposed. He was quite insecure after knowing not everyone wanted him to be the important one, by being in charge. Throughout the novel, Jack has some situations where he does have a lack of self-confidence, and I think it plays a big role in how he turns out. As an example, when Jack first goes out to hunt a pig, he isn't quite confident enough in himself and remorse holds him back. He couldn't kill the pig because he knew it was uncivilized. But this feeling within Jack fades quickly throughout his journey. Later on, killing the pig is no problem, and for him is a status boost, and power gaining task.

As the story progresses, Jack takes on a trait that, definitely doesn't improve his personality. He becomes infatuated, and obsessed with the desire to hunt and kill. His priorities are mixed up, and after killing the sow, he feels invincible. He is mostly responsible for killing Simon, by getting the boys riled up and putting the boys in the state of mind to be savage. After Jack realizes what he's done, he doesn't think anything of it. If the boys bring up the "beast", he kept saying he'll protect the boys from it, even though they think the beast is dead. Jack was kind of set himself up to become savage. He came to the island with damaged personality traits, and he definitely wasn't searching to change his ways. When Jack takes on the title of Chief, it merely strengthens the illusion of power which the boys associate with Jack. Jack takes this role very seriously, and after Simon's death, he is most certainly power crazy. His body is painted in clay. It really indicates how primitive he has become.