To begin, William Golding portrays Jack as being very evil in the novel in several ways. Jack is very rude and disrespectful to most of the boys on the island. Jack is described by Willam Golding as tall, thin, and bony, his hair is red, his face is crumpled and freckled, and is silly. He has light blue eyes, that are inclined to turn to rage. He is the preeminent advocate of chaos on the island. Jack becomes a weak and evil person and becomes savage, and unmerciful. William Golding conveys evil in Jack when he tells Piggy, “Shut up fatty” (Golding 21). Jack knows that Piggy hates it when you make fun of him, and it's overall rude to make fun of someone’s weight. No matter how many times Piggy says he doesn't like him when you call him that Jack doesn't care. Even though Piggy weighs the most out of all the boys it doesn't mean he should get made fun of. When Jack calls Piggy fatty, that shows that Jack has no respect for Piggy’s feelings. Next, another example of when Jack is evil is when he becomes bloodthirsty and slaughters the pig in a very cruel and harsh way. In these moments he has been on the island for so long that he is not thinking straight anymore. At the beginning of the novel he was just a calm regular boy, but being on the island for so long he starts to act inhumanely. When he kills the pig he laughs and shakes the blood off his hands from the pig. He becomes very cruel in the killing of the pig. He leads his powerful hunters into a hunting-dance frenzy. As they are dancing around the pig all the hunters start chanting “Kill the pig, cut her throat, spill her blood” (Golding 69). During the dance frenzy, Simon comes creeping out of the forests and Jack and his hunters ambush him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth. No doubt, Jack portrays the evilest quality a human can have, which is a total appetite for blood and the influence of the hunt. One last example of how Jack is portrayed as an evil character is when he takes advantage of Piggy’s glasses. Being stranded on an island you don't have access to a lighter or any equipment that can be used to start a fire. The only item that they had access to is Piggy’s glasses, but obviously Piggy needs them to see. When Jack and Ralph split up into two teams, Piggy stayed with Ralph. This means Jack and his hunters had no access to fire equipment. When Jack catches the pig he needed a fire so he could cook the meat, but without Piggy’s glasses, there was no way he could start a fire. During the night, Jack and his hunters went to where Piggy and Ralph were sleeping so they could try and steal Piggy’s glasses. But at night, Ralph and Piggy didn't really sleep because they were scared. That night, Ralph and Piggy heard noises and assumed it was Jack and his hunters so Piggy quickly put on his glasses. When Jack realizes Piggy’s glasses his aggressively took Piggy’s glasses off of his face and ran off with them saying, “His specks, use them as burning glasses” (Golding 159). This also represents Jacks’ dominance over Piggy, and how he takes advantage of him.
In addition, William Golding uses the character, Roger, to convey his message on how all humans are evil. Roger did many things that showed his dark side of evil in the novel. Roger is a sociopathic boy who after being trapped on the island for a long period of time enhances as Jack’s cruel sideman. As the novel progresses, Roger starts to progressively become eviler. When Jack and his hunters trap the pig, Roger turns into a totally different person and tortures the pig in a very disturbing way. Once the pig is laying on the ground trapped, Roger purposely puts a sphere up the pig’s butt and twists it as the pig is screaming in pain. The narrator begins to say, “Roger found a lodgement for his point and began to push till he was leaning with his whole weight. The sphere moved forward inch by inch and the terrified squealing became a high-pitched scream” (Golding 149). Roger shows no mercy for the pig. He and all the other boys were laughing at the hurt pig thinking that what Roger just did was funny. The boys were “losing” their minds and we’re finding very disturbing things to be funny. Next, Roger did something that the readers never thought would have happened. The young, and shy boy turned into a killer in a matter of days on the island. Roger recognizes that if he kills Piggy no one on the island will or can restrict his evil. With no doubt in his mind, he shows no regret for his evil actions. As the days go by he gets more and more vulnerable to doing evil actions. Piggy’s death was very saddening, and scary thinking about what else Roger could do to the other boys. The narrator describes Piggy’s death by saying, “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounced twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across that square, red rock in the sea” (Golding 200-201). The last evil action that Roger did that portrayed him as an evil character is when he was throwing rocks at Henry. There was no reason behind why Roger would be doing that to Henry. In his mind, there are no adults supervising them which means he can do whatever he wants without getting in trouble. Early in the book when this happened he hasn’t been in the no adult setting to have absolutely split apart from his home rules and practices. This is why he can not bring himself to really aim his throws at Henry. The narrator referred to this as a “taboo of the old life”(Golding 65). He has the strength to fake throw it at him by just missing his body. Roger without thinking “Stopped, picked up a stone, aimed, and threw it at Henry—threw it to miss. The stone, that token of preposterous time, bounced five yards to Henry’s right and fell in the water. Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. (Golding 64-65).
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Furthermore, the last character William Golding uses to portray his message that everyone is evil is Samneric. Samneric is a twin boy who will always stick together. One way the author portrays them as being evil is when they give away Ralph’s hiding spot. Ralph’s plan was to hide in a thicket next to castle rock. Ralph is hoping that if he hides next to castle rock that no one will be able to find him. Ralph tells Samneric where he is going to hide, thinking that they won’t give his hiding spot away to the other boys. The next morning Ralph goes to his hiding spot and buries himself and soon hears the other boys looking for him. Not too long after, unfortunately, Samneric gave away his hiding spot to all the other boys, and they all started to hurt Ralph by sending a large boulder near him. Thankfully the boulder misses Ralph, and he started to smell smoke. The boys begin to set the thicket on fire and try and get Ralph out by the smell of large amounts of smoke. Ralph is then forced to leave his spot because the smell of smoke was getting bad, and starts to run while all the other boys are chasing after him. When the boys nearly lit the whole forest on fire so Ralph could run away, Ralph “Paused, sun-flecked, holing up a bough, prepared to duck under it. A spasm of terror set him shaking and he cried aloud” (Golding 204). Ralph was terrified in this situation since he was all alone, his actions and expressions were speaking louder than his words. Moreover, when Jack leaves the tribe to go and make his own tribe. With the hunters. Only some littluns, Ralph, Simon, Samneric, and Piggy were left. Jack wanted Samneric to join his tribe so Jack threatened them to go on his side. The twins get very scared of Jack by his rage, so the twins switched sides and went to Jack’s tribe. They betrayed Ralph and left him alone with barely anyone on his side. The twins change as soon as they go on Jack’s side. They become loyal to Jack as they were to Ralph and turned to savagery and violence. Ralph tried to stop them from going on Jack’s side, but the boys were too scared of Jack because they didn't want to get hurt. While there was silence in a lot of moments Jack turned to Ralph and spook between his teeth saying “See? They do what I want. (Golding 199). When the twins went one Jacks’ side Jack wanted to prove a point to Ralph showing that no one like him and that he is being left alone. The last evil action that Samneric does to be portrayed as an evil person is when they took part in the killing of Simon and denied it. Never did any of the readers think that the young shy and innocent twins would take part in a murder. When Simon was mistakenly seen as the beast by Samneric they all went to attack the person who they thought was the beast but it was really Simon. Without hesitation, all the boys including samsaric joined in with everyone and killed Simon. This occurrence is a result of Jack and his tribes’ savagery. Samneric denied that they were a part of the killing, but we know they were there because they asked about the dance. If they hadn’t been there, they wouldn’t have known about the dance that happened right before they killed Simon. The narrator sadly says, 'Surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea' (Golding 170). It's heartbreaking to see that another charter died from the other boys’ evil actions.
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