English department english literature final assignment an analysis on ralph and his characteristics
Analysis of Ralph’s characteristics
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| Analysis of Ralph’s characteristics:
Ralph’s evil side: Even though Golding builds up Ralph as a representation of democracy, he implies in several details that as a person, Ralph also has the capacity of being cruel and the tendency to commit violence. Ralph considers himself superior to Piggy and treats him badly at the beginning. While Piggy keeps asking Ralph questions such as “Where’s the man with the megaphone?” (p.7), “You haven’t seen any others, have you?” (p.9), Ralph just shakes his head, replies in brief sentences or even does not acknowledge him at all. He disregards Piggy’s health problem and his aunt by saying “Sucks to your ass-mar!” and “Sucks to your auntie!” (p.15). Despite Piggy telling him not to reveal his nickname to the other boys, Ralph mocks him by calling him Piggy in front of them. Then they have “a storm of laughter” (p.27) and nobody cares about Piggy’s real name anymore. As the conflict between the boys slowly arises in Chapter 4, Ralph almost goes crazy when Jack and his hunters let out the signal fire just in time a ship passes by. After having a short fight with Jack, Ralph turns to Piggy and arbitrarily snatches Piggy's glasses to light the fire and calmly sits and enjoys the delicious grilled pork with the hunters. Ralph knows that Piggy, like everyone else, is drooling over grilled pork because he hasn’t tasted it for a long time. Instead of allowing Piggy to join the feast, he keeps quiet and lets Piggy beg them for some pork. Even Jack is surprised to see what Ralph has done to Piggy and Simon has to hand his portion to Piggy in pitying the boy. His behavior towards Piggy forges his tangible link with Jack, who always bullies Piggy. As a chief, Ralph should have first punished Jack’s tribe for their irresponsibility, asked Piggy to hand him the glasses properly, and divided the meat equally among them, but he did not do so. Golding aptly described Ralph’s attitude as “envious and resentful” (p.105) when he sees the boys chanting and dancing during the feast to suggest that savagery also exists within Ralph. Jealousy, embarrassment, and resentment dominate Ralph’s mind because he and some boys struggled all day and could not set up a shelter properly while Jack held the hunt and brought back a whole bunch of meat for them. Ralph wants to have his leadership recognized by the others more than ever. Yet all the boys now are looking at Jack respectively and all Ralph can do is “stood among the ashes of the signal fire, his hands full of meat, saying nothing” (p.104). He distastes the sight of the hunters chanting, at the same time he wants to be part of this powerful group. His bloodthirsty instincts emerge stronger when Ralph participates in an unwilling pig hunt while the boys are searching for “the monster”. The first time he has encountered a wild animal, Ralph finds himself calm enough to “measure the distance and take aim” (p.161). He moves like an expert in hunting. The first wooden javelin he has launched hit the animal right in the snout and Ralph is so proud of that. To grab other boys’ attention, Ralph excitedly repeats "I hit him!" six times. He suddenly finds hunting interesting and “the desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering” (p.164). Even Jack, who is considered the symbol of barbarism in the novel, could not instantly react to swinging his knife when he first encountered the wild boar, although he had previously boasted that he would kill a pig whenever he saw one. Apparently, as long as Ralph wishes, he may be capable of being more professional in hunting than Jack. tải về 0.71 Mb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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