A View to a Death

 Dear Mother,

Character Journal Chapter 9

In this chapter the central emphasis is Simon. The chapter starts off by Simon getting back to reality after his “encounter” with the Lord of The Flies; he is a bit dazed of but manages to recover. He wakes up next to the dead sow that the hunters had killed and traveled back down the mountain. On Simons way down he sees what people called the beast. Since there was plenty of daylight it was clear to Simon that what everyone thought was the beast was actually a Dead parachutist. He hurries down the mountain to tell the others but when he gets down Ralph and the rest of his tribe were listening to jacks tribe eating and having fun, and Piggy suggests they go see what’s going on. I think this symbolizes how Ralph’s tribe isn’t in a very good situation, when piggy tells Ralph they should go see what’s going on he is essentially speaking for the rest of the tribe by saying that they are hungry and jack is probably cooking meat.

 By Ralph giving in to this suggestion he is showing his lack of leadership and control over the kids. They arrive to jacks camp and aren’t surprised to find that they have killed yet another pig and devouring it. But they are surprised to find that Sam and Eric were there all along joining them. This is showing how the situations of food in Ralph’s tribe aren’t very good and some kids have decided to take aid with jack’s tribe. When Jack sees Ralph’s tribe he doesn’t hesitate to offer them meat. This is a very sneaky move in jack’s part because he is making himself seem like the good guy and making Ralph seem like he can’t provide for his tribe. After some time the rain starts moving in and Ralph makes the point that they have shelters but Jack Answers comment by saying they have a chant. Suddenly all of jack’s tribe grabbed their spears and started chanting in circles.

 Kill the beast spill its blood cut its throat. By doing a dance jack’s tribe is reminding me of the Native Americans, they have become as savage as the Native Americans while still having a believed in a higher power. And in jacks tribe the higher power is the beast. As the chant goes on the rain gets stronger and stronger and a black figure comes sliding out of the bushes, Jacks tribe calls it the beast while Simon is trying to tell them it’s just a dead man, but they wouldn’t listen. I think this symbolizes how Jack and the rest of the hunters are not excepting the fact that their might not be a real beast, and that they don’t want to accept civilization ever again.

My predictions are that a time will come where the kids will be rescued but jack along with his hunters won’t accept civilization ever again because savagery would just be the easy way out.

Love

Ralph

On another note