How does Golding explore the boys' steady degeneration into savagery and violence?
Incredibly vivid contrasts and darkly twisted revelations are the main ways in which Golding explores the boys on the island turning into savages, descending from order to chaos as they lose their morals and become as natural and as savage as the island that pits them against each other in an anger-fuelled escapade of violence and aggression.
Throughout the book, there is an underlying theme of confrontation and conflict, a tone that is set by an early passage where Golding describes the choir and, particularly, its leader, Jack, and how he interacts with Ralph. Before the encounter, Golding writes of the conch and the power it gives Ralph, especially over Piggy, who obeys a command simply “uttered” by Ralph. However, when Jack is first presented, he has his own token of power, his “cap badge [which] was golden”. This clash of power is a very important one, especially when viewing it retrospectively. Although Ralph is the democratically elected leader of the boys, his authoritative object is the natural and more rough of the two, while Jack, who holds the more raw and beastly power, has the object that seems to signify the most orderly sense of authority possible. This almost oxymoronic juxtaposition twists and turns throughout the book, spiralling and cascading into chaos as Jack loses all remnants of reasonability, and Ralph cannot bear the weight of the responsibility installed upon him.
There is another important subtext to the passage describing Jack and his choir. Golding insinuates a military persona to the choir through his depiction of the boys as a “creature”, and later goes on to talk about their uniform “black cloaks” that covered them from “throat to ankle”. This draws connotations with armies and a lends a violent undertone to the bumbling choir, something that could foreshadow the establishment of Jack’s militia later on in the novel.
Narrative prolepsis is used to great effect in several other passages of the novel, another extract certainly worth exploring is the description of the fire that spirals out of control. In this part of the novel, Golding makes great use of animalistic similes to describe the fire, which translates directly when examining the descension into violence and savagery of the boys on the island. The fire is initially depicted as a “bright squirrel”, a clear parallel to the sense of youthful excitement and naivety first displayed by the the boys. However, this innocent description becomes suddenly venomous as Golding tells of a fire that “crept like a jaguar creeps”. Superficially, the connotations to a deadly and powerful animal in the jaguar are created, yet the more subtle effects of Golding’s verb choice are the most striking. “Crept” implies a sense of not only stealth, but also guilt, a very intriguing message when we consider the boys’ descension into savagery. Could Golding be hinting at remorse when he writes of creeping jaguars, or is it an all out description of a stealthy killer? This question opens tantalisingly dark avenues; will the boys descend into merciless killings, or are they corrupted against their will by an external force on the island?
There is another aspect to be examined from the passage of the uncontrollable fire. Golding writes that “[Ralph] unwillingly turned away from the splendid, awful sight”. The adverb “unwillingly” shows Ralph’s reluctance to tear himself away from this awesome destruction that he has in-avertedly caused, and displays an early manifestation of an unhealthy fascination with death and carnage. This delirious obsession is well captured in the oxymoronic description of the burnt land, of the “splendid, awful sight”. This juxtaposition shows the beginnings of corruption within Ralph, as his views on the beautiful and the grotesque become terribly intertwined, foreshadowing the loss of morality throughout all of the boys.
