Chapter Five of Lord of the Flies
finds Ralph frustrated that he cannot be the leader that he would like to
be. And, as the boys regress into discord and disorder, Ralph understands the urgency
for an assembly to re-establish order; however, at the same time he realizes that he is
unable to think as logically as Piggy, who, unfortunately does not have the other
qualities requisite for a chief.
When the assembly is
called about the boys' fear of the beast, Jack exerts his physical prowess as a hunter
as reason for their not being a beast: "I'd have seen it...there is no beast in the
forest." Then, Simon stands and becomes
inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's
essential illness.
But, when
he tries to explain, the boys' laugh; after this incident Jack seeks to usurp control by
declaring savagely,
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--!"
Clearly, Jack
disrupts the rationality of the group, creating fear in the others along with chaos. It
is at this point that Ralph desperately wishes there could be a message from the adults
telling the boys what to do. Ironically, Ralph perceives
the adult society as rational and capable of logical decisions, while, in fact, it is
the adult world which is at war and it is the adult world that has caused the airplane
on which the boys were passengers to crash and place them in the predicament in which
they now exist. Thus, the adult world is no more in control than the boys
themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment