Jack And Ralph End example essay topic

Character PageRalphRalph is a fair boy of about twelve. He is the first character introduced in the story and is a dominant leader throughout most of the book. He finds the conch, a symbol of order and authority. He blows the conch and holds an assembly in which he is voted chief.

Ralph stays focused on getting rescued and building shelters while most of the others play and hunt. By the end all the boys have either turned against him or died. Piggy Piggy is a large, timid boy, with asthma and specs (eye glasses). He is Ralph's loyal sidekick from the start. His brilliant mind and logical thinking are trapped inside his unattractive body.

He is disrespected and rejected because of his looks, and used for his glasses, which are the only means of starting the fire. Piggy struggles to stay strong and clear through the madness and chaos. Jack Jack is the leader of the choir boys who become the first band of hunters. He is intent on becoming savage and killing pigs for meat.

He neglects the fire, their only hope for rescue, and goes hunting instead. Jack rebels against Ralph and forms his own tribe at the other end of the Island. His tribe hunts all day and holds feasts and dances every night. His violent instincts show up in murder and destruction as civilization runs out of him. Simon Simon is mysterious and spiritual.

He is a small boy with incredible, silent, courage and strength. He starts out a part of Jack's choir, then becomes loyal to Ralph when he is elected chief. Simon helps Ralph with the shelters and is admired by the. He has a spiritual encounter with the Lord of the Flies, which is a pig's head on a stick. This encounter is one of the most symbolic incidences in the book. The head is the beast that all the fear and represents the inner instincts and evils in man.

Samneric In the beginning Sam and Eric are recognized as two separate people, two twin brothers. By the end they are referred to as Samneric, a single being. They were loyal to Ralph in the beginning and throughout most of the book. Towards the end they are captured by Jack's tribe and join in on a hunt for Ralph.

They are weak and easily swayed by forceful power. Plot The book opens with the description of a beautiful island with pink rocks, warm pools, and a long, palm lined, beach protected by a coral reef. Ralph, known only as the fair boy, is introduced as he picks his way out of the jungle towards the beach. Another boy, shorter and fat, catches up to him and they begin to talk. We learn that the boys were in a plane crash and that the plane along with any adults that were on it has washed out to sea. The fat boy asks the fair boy his name and Ralph tells him.

The fat boy waits to be asked his name and then comments on how he doesn't care what they call him as long as it isn't what they used to call him in school. Ralph then discovers the fat boy's old nickname, Piggy. Ralph finds this name amusing and never asks the fat boy his real name. Throughout the book the fat boy is only referred to as Piggy.

The two boys begin to explore and discover a conch shell. Ralph uses the shell to call the others. Piggy must tell him how to use it. The boys pour to the platform, or area of fallen trees, from all directions. We are introduced to all the other characters at this first assembly.

Jack, backed by his loyal choir boys, attempts to gain control but the boys elect Ralph as their chief. Ralph puts Jack in charge of the choir boys and names them the official hunters. Then Ralph, Jack, and Simon set out to explore the island and see if it really is an island. They bond on their adventure and discover that they are on an unpopulated island with no adults. Upon the boy's return, another assembly is called. They announce their findings to the others.

A small boy with a mulberry birthmark on his face asks about a beast ie. The boys get a little nervous but Ralph assures them that there is no beast. Ralph decides that the only way to be rescued is to keep a signal fire going on top of the mountain. The boys get excited about a fire and go running up the mountain like a bunch of kids. Ralph and Piggy, who had been attempting to maintain order, are frustrated but follow the boys up the mountain.

All the boys join together to build a huge pile of wood. Ralph and Jack bond again while lifting a heavy tree. Once the fire is built the boys realize that they have no matches. Jack snatches Piggy's specs to use them as burning glasses and lights the fire. The fire is huge and burns out quickly. It ends up catching a part of the jungle on fire.

After that fire the child with the mulberry birthmark is never seen again. Jack's choir is put in charge of keeping the fire going. Time passes and the boys get used to island life. Ralph and Simon work on shelters and Jack hunts. Ralph confronts Jack on not killing anything. Ralph sees that Jack's energy could be better spent building shelters or tending the fire.

Ralph's focus is on getting rescued but Jack wants to at least kill a pig before they go. Tension lies between the two boys. During this time, Simon has ventured deep within the jungle all alone. He goes to a clearing and worms his way into a thick mat of creepers and foliage. He sits there in a cabin of leaves, as if in a trance. The sun goes down and darkness comes.

This transformation is told in beautiful detail as if from Simon's heightened perceptions. Jack is fed up with not catching a pig. He decides that it is because he isn't camouflaged well enough. He paints his face with colored clay and the paint becomes a mask which he hides his conscience behind. Jack becomes transformed into a vicious, primitive, hunter. He gathers the other hunters, and paints them as well.

They all set off on a huge hunt and leave the fire unattended. Ralph sights a ship and calls for smoke. He discovers that the fire has been left unattended and has gone out. Ralph becomes very frustrated with Jack and his hunters who were supposed to keep the fire going.

They have been hunting instead and have caught their first pig. Ralph is boiling when he finds Jack who is too excited to even care about not being rescued. Ralph and Jack get in a confrontation and Piggy gets in the middle of it. Jack smacks Piggy and breaks one of his glasses lenses. After everyone's tempers die down the boys all build a fire to cook the pig.

They dance and chant around Maurice who is pretending to be a pig. Ralph is envious of their fun and calls an assembly. Ralph lectures on how things aren't getting done as planned. The subject of the Beastie is brought up. Jack begins to talk heroically of hunting and killing. The boys take a vote on who believes in ghosts and realize that many of them do.

Jack continues to talk bravely of beating and killing any animals that may be on the island. The boys get all railed up and disperse leaving only Piggy, Ralph, and Simon. During the night a man with a parachute dropped down from the sky and landed on the mountain top. Samneric were the first to see this creature, because they were tending the fire. They thought it was the beast and went running down the mountain to tell Ralph.

An assembly is called and the boys decide that the beast must live on the other side of the island in a rock formation the boys refer to as the castle. Together they set off to explore the castle and find that the beast is not there. On the way back from the castle the boys hunt. They find a boar and Ralph wounds him. Ralph has gained a new respect from boys. He decides that hunting isn't so bad after all.

Ralph brags about hitting the pig. Robert begins acting like the pig and all the boys join in as hunters, dancing and chanting around Robert. The boys carry this playing too far and begin to get rowdy. They end up actually hurting Robert. Ralph has an overwhelming urge to hurt Robert. The chant dies down with Robert struggling and screaming in pain.

Roger, Jack, and Ralph end up going up the mountain in search of the beast while the other boys head back to the shelters. Roger and Ralph get scared about halfway up the mountain, so Jack ventures on alone. He sees the dead man with the parachute and hurries back to tell Ralph and Roger. The three boys venture up the mountain together to investigate, see 'the beast' move, and run back down to inform the others. An assembly is called and Jack tries to turn the others against Ralph. He announces that he is going off on his own and that anyone who wants to hunt with him may.

A small group of big uns slip off to join Jack while Ralph, Piggy, Samneric, and the others build a fire on the beach. The boys with Jack go hunting for a pig. They kill a sow and decide to leave part of the kill for the beast. They sharpen a stick at both ends, jamming one end into a crack in the rock and sticking the sow's head on top. Simon is concealed in a thick mat of creepers nearby, watching the whole thing. He speaks with the head, which is soon referred to The Lord of the Flies.

Simon then visions himself falling into the mouth and passes out. Jack and his hunters raid Ralph and the others for fire. Jack invites everyone to a feast. Ralph decides that they will go and ask the others to come back to help tend the fire.

Simon wakes up and staggers up the mountain. He sees the man with a parachute and frees the lines from the rock. He finds his way back down the mountain and towards the beach. All the other boys are at the feast, dancing and chanting. They mistake Simon for the beast and end up murdering him.

Jack and his hunters raid Piggy for his glasses. Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric go to castle rock the next day to retrieve them. The two groups of boys argue and then Roger pushes a large rock over the side of the cliff. It bounds down and knocks Piggy to the rocks below. The conch is destroyed and Piggy is dead. Samneric are captured and Ralph escapes narrowly.

Jack and his tribe go on a manhunt for Ralph, and end up setting the whole island on fire. A ship sees the smoke and comes to the island. Ralph runs into the officer just before he is about to be killed. Jack had a stick sharpened at both ends.

He planned to put Ralph's head on it like he did to the pig. The boys are rescued in the end. Quotes' 'I agree with Ralph. We " ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we " re not savages. We " re English, and the English are the best at everything.

So we " ve got to do the right things. ' ' (Golding, 42) Jack is speaking to Ralph. This quote is from the beginning of the book when the boys first arrive on the island. It is important because it shows how Jack was trained to think before he did indeed turn into a savage. Jack came from a very 'proper's society and this is an example of his ideas before his animal instincts show through. ' 'If Jack was chief he'd have all hunting and no fire.

We'd be here till we died. ' ' (Golding, 93) Piggy is responding to Ralph wanting to give up being chief. This quote is important because it shows Piggy's wisdom and true sense of reality. It also shows Jack's changed views since he's been on the Island. Jack no longer cares about being rescued, he only cares about hunting and killing. The society on the island is depleting and order is turning to chaos.

The boys are turning into savages. ' He sunned himself in their new respect and felt that hunting was good after all. ' (Golding, 113) Ralph has just wounded a pig and has been bragging to the other boys. This quote shows that over time even the boy who seemed most stuck on getting rescued, has decided that hunting is good. It shows the further depletion of the once structured society and of the once focused individuals. Ralph is now craving the other boy's acceptance and his animal instincts are coming out as well.

' Ralph to was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering. ' (Golding, 114) This quote is important because it shows how humans, when caught up in an exciting moment let their true colors come through. Ralph is excited because he has wounded a pig and has earned some of the boys' respect. The boys are all chanting in a circle, poking at Robert who is pretending to be the pig. In the beginning Ralph would have probably put an end to that.

Now he joins in and is acting as much like a savage as Jack. ' He was safe from shame and self-consciousness behind the mask of his paint and could look at each of them in turn. ' (Golding, 140) This quote is important because it shows that Jack still has a little bit of his conscience left that he chooses to hide behind a painted face. This applies to the human race as a whole because many people use material things such as clothes, money, makeup, eat. to hide their own insecurities and put off a false front.

' Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal. ' (Golding, 149) This important quote also mirrors our society today. I chose this quote because it is a good example of how the insecure point out the flaws of others in order to make themselves feel more appropriate to life. In this quote the boys are laughing at Piggy who has been burnt by a piece of meat just removed from the fire.

Golding also states that the boys were '... united and relieved by a storm of laughter. ' Piggy, because of his weight, specs, and strange words, has been the butt of many jokes throughout the book. The other boys constantly pick on him to relieve their own tension. ' And in the middle of them, with a filthy body, matted hair, and an un wiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy. ' (Golding, 202) I chose this quote because I believe it sums up the theme of the novel.

The end of innocence is the removal of the layers of respectability, compassion, logic, and truth. The darkness of man's heart is the nature of human kind. Moral of the Novel think the author wrote this book to express his views about the evils of society in a metaphorical, entertaining way. The story teaches us a lesson about society and the primitive violent instincts that lie within us. The boys represent men and women in society, the island is the world we live in. The boys destroy the island as we slowly destroy the world.

The boys even began to destroy each other. Their animal instincts led them to an overwhelming desire to kill. When pigs stopped fulfilling their need for blood and broken flesh they turned on one another, taking their anger out in a violent rage. By the end of the book all the boys had either been murdered or had turned against their once elected chief, Ralph. The boys were on a manhunt for Ralph when they were rescued.

In Golding's own words, 'The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable. ' I think this means that it doesn't matter how structured or proper a society seems, what rules or governments are set up, the true nature of individuals will eventually show through. Therefore we need to work on improving the nature of individuals instead of setting up political systems to restrict and shape a society. Evaluation I really enjoyed this novel. It kept me interested from the very start with its beautiful language and intriguing plot. In the very beginning Golding speaks of a mysterious scar smashed into the island and we soon learn that a bunch of young boys are stranded there without any adults.

Examples of the beautiful language include the 'interview' of Simon with the head, the death of Simon, and the killing of the sow. I also enjoyed the complex symbolism throughout the book. I liked to apply it to whatever was going on with me at the time. For example, when Ralph wanted to give up being chief, I was in the mindset that I wanted to give up on myself. Ralph didn't give up, however, and many of his struggles after that somehow mirrored mine as well. I did not like the evil and corruption and death in this novel.

It was very moving but it made me feel sad. In a way, I got somewhat attached to the characters and when they died it hurt. Piggy who represented intelligence and logic, and Simon who was pure and spiritual, both had horrific deaths caused by the other boys. I wanted to save them. Since I often realized how the symbolism applied to society, it was even harder to realize the reality of those deaths in our own society. I would definitely recommend this novel to someone else because I enjoyed it so much and learned so much from it.

I think this novel was beautifully written and I believe that it contains an important message about the influence of individuals in a society. I think that others would enjoy reading it and would also get a huge reality check about the nature of man and the shape of society today. This book also stimulates mental growth with its symbolic nature and wide ideas. Overall, I think that this is an excellent read.