William Golding wrote Lord Of The Flies in nineteen fifty-four. The novel shows how polite, responsible, well brought up schoolboys can change so dramatically when not around any adults. In the novel he shows how these young boys manage on the desert island and describes how they turn from schoolboys to savages.

In Lord Of The Flies hunting plays a huge part in the events that occur. Jack Merridew, a lead chorister, is the main hunter. From the moment he met up with the other boys it was clear that he wanted to hunt. Jack thinks that he should have been leader from the start. He says:

“I ought to be chief, because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.”

Jack shows at this very early point in the book that he clearly thinks he is superior to any of the other boys on the island and that he wants to be leader. You can tell what sort of leader Jack would be by the way he orders around his choir and they obey with “dreary” obedience. When Ralph is picked as chief instead of him Jacks face “disappeared under a blush of mortification”. You can tell that there will be a rivalry between these boys as it is clear Jack still wants to be the chief.

When picked as leader, Ralph gives control of the choir to Jack and when Jack is asked what he wants his choir to be, the suffusion is drained away from Jack’s face when hunters are mentioned. This shows how much he likes the prospect of being a hunter and killing for food. This definitely shows what kind of character Jack Merridew is. Jack’s aggression is also shown when the three boys, Ralph, Simon and Jack are exploring the mountain for the first time and they come across some candle bushes. Jack decides to draw his knife and slash ruthlessly at one of these bushes. However, when the three boys come across a piglet caught in creepers, Jack raises his knife, ready to make his first kill, but then he freezes with his knife in the air. The schoolboy inside him tells him that it is wrong to kill and he must realise that for the first time he is about to take life. Jack pauses long enough for the piglet to escape and run to safety. After the event Jack desperately tries to defend his pride by saying:

“I was choosing a place, I was just waiting for a moment to decide where to stab him.”

This shows the reader that Jack is ashamed of not being able to bring himself to kill the piglet and he feels weak because of it. He vows next time to make the kill.

Jack says to Ralph that his hunters will be in charge of keeping the fire at the top of the mountain alight. When Ralph and Piggy see a ship passing in the sea they immediately become ecstatic over the prospect of rescue. The two boys look up towards the mountain only too see that there is no longer smoke coming from the mountain. The fire had been let out and the ship had no chance of seeing the boys. Jack was so obsessed by the thought of getting his first kill and hunting that he and his hunters had forgotten all about the fire. This is a key point in the book because it shows that the hunters now value hunting more than being rescued and taken home. It is almost as if these boys do not want to be saved. When Ralph confronts Jack and the hunters about the fire Jack is so excited about making his first kill he is not at all bothered about the fire. Jack describes the event in detail to Ralph and listens to nothing he says about the fire. He says:

“We got in a circle-We crept up-The pig squealed.”

The last thing in Jack’s mind at this time is the fact that the fire has gone out. The hunters also make up a chant about the killing of the pig. It goes:

“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”

This aggressive chant shows how much the boys who take part in hunting have changed in such a small amount of time, from middle class children to killers. It is also another turning point for the boys as now that they have made their first kill and broken that barrier there is now no stopping them to what they can kill, pig or human, as we find out when Simon and Piggy are both brutally murdered by the hunters.

As the novel progresses hunting turns from a secondary task after rescue to an obsession for Jack and the hunters. Jack especially seems to enjoy the buzz and feeling of hitting a pig with his spear or cutting its throat. You can tell this from the way he acts after a kill:

“I cut the pig’s throat,” said Jack proudly.

This shows us that he feels good after killing an animal. He enjoys it so much that after the hunters’ first kill he announces that they will go hunting everyday, emphasizing again how much he likes it. The hunters at this point are also laughing about the smoke, showing how much they care about it. Ralph says:

“You hunters! You can laugh! But I tell you the smoke is more important than the pig.”

The hunters disregard Ralph’s comment and take no notice to it. When all the boys are eating the meat that the hunters have caught and cooked, Piggy is not offered any meat as he and Jack do not get along. When Simon offers Piggy some of his meat Jack takes great offence to it. I believe that this is because he takes so much pride in his hunting he is offended when people give away what he has worked to catch.

Later in the novel it is clear that a divide in the group is taking place. This divide is between the hunters and the non-hunters. They start to live separate lives on the island. The hunters trying to kill as much as possible, have feasts and have fun on the island without a care for rescue, and the non-hunters trying desperately to get rescued and saved from the strange and unknown life of the island. Eventually this split becomes so severe that it causes the group to split. In a fit of rage Jack asks who thinks Ralph should not be chief. When no one agrees with him he declares in total embarrassment he is going off on his own. He says:

“I’m not going to play any longer. Not with you.”

He takes off down the beach by himself but the next day is joined by some more, and then some more until Jack has a tribe of his own much bigger than that of Ralph’s. His tribe have fun, cover themselves in paint and hunt. Things that are much more appealing to a group of boys than building a fire and waiting for rescue. I believe that overall it was hunting and the conflicts that it caused that led to the two groups splitting. It is not long until this group of boys having fun turn into killers. They have lost all basic human qualities and turn into savages. In my opinion it is again the hunting that changes these boys so dramatically and causes huge conflict on the island.

Overall hunting and the hunters play a very large part in Lord Of The Flies, taking the life of one pig changes these boys so drastically that within a short amount of time they can turn to killing humans. Hunting combined with the freedom of the island turns these boys into savages.