Lord of the Flies Chapter 8

Lord of the Flies
Chapter 8 - Gift to The Darkness


Jack and his group go hunting, which while it is normally savage, they seem especially blood thirsty today. They want to go out and kill the pig but I don't really think that it was for the meat. I think they just wanted to spill blood and kill something. They go hunting into the jungle and find a huge sow, female pig, and this pleases them. A bigger target means a bigger challenge and more meat. They go after it and do their usual hunting where they form a circle and then poke at the poor thing with their sharpened sticks they call spears. They end up injuring it and then they chase into a ironic place for the thing to die.

It is a beautiful serene place with flowers all around and butterflies everywhere. All of the boys, which are most of the biguns that are on the island, jump on the pig and stab at it. It was probably dead by the third or fourth time they stabbed at it but they kept on stabbing it until its blood and guts were all over the beautiful area. Robert, trying to find something to stab at ran frantically around until he found some purchase on a part of the swines body. He stabbed and when it was in the pig he leaned against the spear and kept digging it into the pig, which was in my opinion totally unnecessary. When everyone had their share of bloody fun they all stood back and realized that Robert had stuck the spear right up the pigs butt. They all found some sick amusement out of that, and seeing as they are probably about my age I found that very disturbing. They were laughing at they fact that someone put a spear up a pigs butt, that is just gross and sick.

And seeing as they are still just boys they still have a very active imagination and they all believe in the Beastie and and that it exists and it might some down and kill them and eat them. So Jack decides it would be smart to leave a sort of sacrifice for the Beastie, so that it can eat the sacrifice instead of the boys. Jack chops off the head of the dead pig and jabs it on the end of a stick then sticks it in a crack in the earth.


I think the reason that this disturbs me so much is because of how much they boys are enjoying the bloodshed and how much they relish the chance to do something like this. This is almost glorified but they do not realize how much they are turning into savages. They are around our age and they are bloodthirsty. They didn't find anything wrong with sticking a pigs head on a stick and saying that a Beastie could have it.