Essay Sample on Jack Character Analysis in Lord of the Flies

A man that's big and strong can have potential to be evil, even if he is just a history teacher. Golding once said,” I'd seen enough to realize that every single one of us could be Nazis”. Lord of the Flies by William Golding is about a plane crash that strands a group of boys on an island leaving no adult survivors behind. The boys have no outside resources or communication and guidance because of lack of adults. One of the main characters, Jack, who is the antagonist of the story, has shown major cruelty developments in his time stranded on the island. Jack started out as a polite british choir boy, and had first shown up on the island with a clean polished uniform, and a sense of well manners.

Jack changes his identity as he was on his track to become a “savage”. In chapter four, Painted Faces and Long Hair, Jack stares at himself and is unhappy with his appearance. He then uses charcoal to color his face in a preditioral way. After he was satisfied, he sprinted up and started to laugh. Golding explains,” He peered at his reflection and disliked it. He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but an awesome stranger...he spilt the water and leapt to his feet, laughing excitedly”( Golding 63). Jack fully changed his identity to a much more “fitted environment”. The face paint that's on Jack's face represents “game” face as people usually see face paint on peoples faces during football games. It can show how Jack upgraded to a new personality, someone that is out for violence and victory. The face paint can also show how Jack hides himself and how a “new” Jack comes and takes place. Furthermore, a research done by the University of Toronto, assigned 80 volunteers to be in an experiment in which half the people had to wear sunglasses and the other half had to wear clear specs. They were then given 6 dollars to trade up with other people. The end results shown were,” They opted to give the stranger 1.81$ compared to the 2.71 $ traded by the people that wore clear specs.” The University also claimed that the people who wore the sunglasses felt less obligated to contribute while the people with the clear specs, which showed more of their faces, had given more money. Even if the point for Jack was not to feel more anonymous like the people who wore the sunglasses, the paint still had the same effects of the people with sunglasses lack of generosity. After Jack put paint on his face, he felt more entitled and had less care for the others.

Joking around in a stressful situation can cause stress to those around you. Jack insists on using a child to play as the pig they were going to hunt. The boys were playing a game of hunting the pig. AFter the group runs out of pigs, Robert claims that you need a pig to kill one. This gave Jack an idea of using a littlun, a child that is between 6-8 years old, to play as the pig. “Use a littlun,'' said Jack, and everybody laughed. (Golding 115). The situation depends on what jokes a person makes. If this were a playground, maybe the children would take this more light-heartedly, but the fact that they are stranded on an island with barely any food, no adults, no comfort and no hope if they even get out alive, a joke like this would cause mental breakdown to one person. This also ties back to his beginning character, back to when he was more sane and had a sense of what was going around. In this case, Jack, in the beginning of the story, shows a good sense of nurture. His polished state shows that he was raised in a good household and the fact that he was in a choir must mean he must be included in main school activities. However, the new scenario, which of course is the island, caused a sudden change to his behaviors. School and home has a huge variety of rules people follow, however the island has a less controlled environment. Similarly, an article on “If Decency Doesn't, Law Should Make Us Samaritans” by Gloria Alfred and Lisa Bloom, shows how if a person wasn't decent to begin with. The law and order should make that person be more considerate of the actions the person makes. If Jack isn't a decent person in the beginning of the story anyways, then the lack of laws should have made him more insane. In an article “ What Makes us Moral” the author describes that certain laws can bend the person into doing “good”. Because of the lack of rules given on the time stranded on the island, it caused Jack to become more ruthless and become a person with no boundaries. 

In theory, Golding's claim on mankind has been proven correct from the novel. Jack has shown negative personality traits during his time on the island. Jack started out as a choir boy and as time passed on he became more “savage”. He also changed his persona as he was on track to become a “savage”. Golding's theory that all humans are capable of becoming, or in other words, cruel, can be applied to Jack's character. Even if he was raised as polite as one can be, he ended up being one of the most feared characters in Lord of the Flies.