The British Boy Savages

British school boys have always been thought of as nice, well-behaved kids. However, it is the complete opposite in "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding. These boys crash-landed onto an unknown island with only themselves to survive off of. The school boys' drastic change in behavior led to the deaths of their two most important thinkers and the downfall of civilization.

Unlike the end of the story, the boys were all well-mannered in the beginning. They were actually acting like real British schoolboys. They started out being civilized, and they focused on being rescued. They worked together well, although the littluns weren't so efficient. They built huts, gathered berries, and made fires cooperatively. There was no fighting and everything was alright. "We - Jack, Simon, and me - we climbed the mountain" shows how at one time they were working together (34). Roger, on the other hand, started going bad earlier. He threw pebbles at the children to scare them away, although he did not want to actually hit them. They even went on hunts. Jack managed to kill a pig, but in the process, he let the fire go out while a ship passed by. This event led to the division of two leaders.

Everything went downhill after the quarrel between Ralph and Jack. They fought over whether to have law and order or to become savage hunters. Their differences created a huge rivalry that only grew larger. Before long, they split into two separate tribes - one supporting society, and the other supporting savagery and lawlessness. Inhumanity could be found anywhere in the savage tribe. They put on war paint and started killings just for the fun of it. They even had sickening chants, such as "kill the beast", "spill the blood", and "cut the throat". Soon afterward, these evolved into actual killings of humans. Although the first killing of Simon was merely an accident, the second killing of Piggy, however, was not.