Two things I did well:
- Quotes supported my thesis
- Structure was proper
Two things to improve on:
- Formatting quotes properly
- Stronger arguments for my thesis
Succession in fear
Rules or hunting. Equality or survival. A friend or a leader. Adjusting to an unfamiliar society, challenges to see the true side of a person, but a leader will never back down until his goal is made. Jack portraits all these qualities that make him the strongest leader on the island. William Golding in Lord of the flies writes us a chaotic story about a group of young British boys whose plane gets attacked and crashes onto an inhabited island where fight for power overrules common sense. A leader like Jack that uses intimidation, splash of violence and certainly fear is the most effective to succeed and gain respected and power over any other candidate. Fairness will never overpower survival, and in Golding’s story the most dominant leader will rise.
Throughout the novel, we see how Jack uses violence to put fear into the eyes of the other children on the island. He uses this tactic show others will obey and respect him in order for them to leave Ralphs side and join Jack’s pack. This seems to work later on into the novel where Ralph is left stranded, with no one on his side. Jack’s violence his shows when he demands the other boys to tie up and beat an innocent boy named Wilfred. “He’s going to beat Wilfred”, “What for?”(P.196) said Ralph. Jack does this to show the others that he has power and his voice is heard. He puts into consideration to the other boys on the island that if they do not obey they will be the next Wilfred. Jack’s ability to influence is beyond any other on the island, we see in chapter 9 when Simon returns from finding out that the beast is not real that Jack has converted a majority of the boy into savages just like him, chanting, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!”(P.168). Following killing a pig the boys chant and act crazy so when Simon returns their inner savageness and adrenaline overrules their common sense and beat Simon to his death. Jack’s violent influence obviously converted to the other boys and if it was not for Jack, chances are Simon would still be alive.
Jack uses the beast to make the kids fearful, he programs their minds that there is a beast but with him in charge they will hunt it down and he will protect the island. He gives himself the “Superman” role so the children look up to him and see things as an adventure and as fun. “You’ve noticed, haven’t you?”, “Noticed what?”, “Well. They’re frightened”. Ralph confronts Jack about scaring the littluns to death with the beastie. Jack counters a few chapters later saying “… fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream. There aren’t any beasts to be afraid of on this island… Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of babies!” Despite his efforts Jack should not be saying such thing as “… fear can’t hurt you…” because fear is one of the most powerful ways of hurting you mentally and we are not certain that there is no beast. He should be leading with honesty not lies.
Lastly, Jack portraits his dominance with fear by killing two pigs throughout the story to show that he his fearless and will kill to survive. Indirectly, Jack is trying to tell the others on this island that he is in charge and he will provide. For example, when Jack kills the second pig, he cuts the head off of the wild animal to show his strength and to publicize it. Golding writes “His mind was crowded with memories; memories and knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their ill upon it, taken away it’s life like a long satisfying drink.” Golding shows the mental state of Jack and the satisfaction of killing the pig; seeing how accomplished he feels of taking the pigs life. Jack’s aggression and authority is shown when Jack and his pack speared the head of the pig on a stick. “Jack held up the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick while pierced through into the mouth.” Golding is trying to show how Jack likes to leads with masculinity and violence ways as we compare to a high school jock
Throughout the story, the novel proves to us that leaders that use intimidation, violence and certainly fear is the most effective to succeed and gain respected and power over any other candidate. Jack used fear to gain the respect of the other boys on the island. Used violence to intimidate, the beast to scare them, and power to fear him. Essentially, to be feared by someone means to be looked down by that person and that the one you fear will always be a step ahead of you. Jack overruled Ralph on the island in the end and because the best leader by using fear to gain respect.
Most hero’s do evil to accomplish such social ranking. William Shakespeare shows that in his play Macbeth, where the main protagonist is also the main antagonist. Macbeth goes on this gory and crazy killing spree filled with fear jealousy, and power, which is also why people do evil knowing so. That said, Lady Macbeth also is a big factor in the beginning of the evil: ” My father as he slept, I had done’t, ” (Act 2, Scene 2). She questions Macbeth’s manliness and calls him a wimp making him change his mind and ending up killing the king. Macbeth does plenty of evil in the play knowing it is evil; it does not stop him because the fear of him getting caught causes him to do more evil. The killing of Banquo proves the point of power will cause you to do more evil because with power came fear which lead to Macbeth hiring people to kill his best friend also leading to the murder of the killers. Macbeth does all these evil acts to build his ladder to success, he hurts other in order to succeed himself. Selfish people tend to do more evil than giving people. Lady Macbeth is evil itself wanting more power the more she had; using Macbeth to do so. ” If you weren’t a man, then what kind of animal were you when you first told me you wanted to do this? When you dared to do it, that’s when you were a man. And if you go one step further by doing what you dared to do before, you’ll be that much more the man. The time and place weren’t right before, but you would have gone ahead with the murder anyhow. Now the time and place are just right, but they’re almost too good for you. I have suckled a baby, and I know how sweet it is to love the baby at my breast. But even as the baby was smiling up at me, I would have plucked my nipple out of its mouth and smashed its brains out against a wall if I had sworn to do that the same way you have sworn to do this,” (Act 1, Scene 7). This proves evil was transferred to Macbeth from her and that once you are evil you will do it without stopping even if you know that your partners with the devil.