Lord of the Flies Group

Question:

sincered
sincered

In Lord of the Flies, in what sense does putting on the mask "free" Jack? What might this foreshadow?

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Posted by sincered on Friday January 2, 2009 at 12:27 PM and tagged with characters, jack, lord of the flies, plot, themes.

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  1. mwestwood
    mwestwood Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    eNotes Editor

    By painting his face, Jack in "The Lord of the Flies" is able to mask his civilization from himself and, thus, become uninhibited in his savage urges.  This camouflaging of his English face allows Jack to become his more primordial self; the "beast" in him is set free, hinting, or foreshadowing, his rebellion from the order of Ralph as he leads the mutiny of the hunters.  In Chapter 5 Jack tells Ralph,

    Bollocks to the rules!  We're strong--we hunt!  If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down!  We'll close in and beat and beat and beat--!"

      The irony of this statement is that Jack and his hunters do exactly what he has said as they hunt Ralph in the final chapter. After this change in  Jack, he is referred to as "the savage" and his continued descent into savagery leads to the killing of Simon and Piggy.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/flies/character

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    Posted by mwestwood on Friday January 2, 2009 at 1:20 PM