Critical Essay English 30-1 The Road- editied draft A person truly does not know how strong one is until they are faced with such disaster and misfortune, and being strong becomes the only option. In Cormac McCarthys The Road, a man and his son experience a world apocalypse and the hardships that follows. Survival is the only option, as they are greatly impacted by danger and the thieving unknown. The texts main theme suggests how one can overcome such adversity, through elation and persistency. McCarthy shows that by the man staying true to himself and his morals, he is able to overcome immoral opponents that were personified as being selfish, through acts of cannibalism.
Once seeing this “horrifying” object, they all start to attack him and end up killing and throwing his dead body into the sea. Since they killed Piggy and Simon, this completely shows how their inner evil has taken over them by removing spirituality and intelligence. After killing Simon and Piggy, the tribes’ next victim is Ralph. This was going to be their final hunt. Ultimately Jack symbolizes the evil within everyone.
Golding uses allegory to show that the darkness of humanity destroys society. In the Lord of the Flies, Jack who represents the darkness of humanity and attempts to destroy Ralph who represents society. “They hate you, Ralph. They’re going to do you. They’re going to hunt you tomorrow” (170).
There was a distorting smell, a smell of dead men. Lying around for days, their clothes drenched in blood, and blood formed beside them which made a small pool. One soldier’s eyes where staring directly at me as if to say, “Run away and save yourself!” Then I saw a big, fat, ugly, beefy black rat, feeding on its prey, eating and peeling away the meaty flesh. The Sergeant ordered me to pick up the body. The soldiers pulled a wagon and they flung the lifeless body on to it, as if the body had no use anymore.
This perfectly describes the situation on the island. It also accurately describes the death of Piggy. His death was chaotic, violent and no one was really sure of what had happened until it was too late. Out of all the boys Jack became the most savage and blood crazy of them all. He became absolutely obsessed with hunting and killing pigs.
The pig head which is covered in flies is known as the Lord of the Flies. “The Lord of the Flies hung on his stick like a black ball.” These actions by the group of boys show that their minds were affected. They were losing their normal identity. In time the loss of identity and humanity gets worse. The tribe of boys breaks up into groups which fight against each other.
Later they end up splitting into two separate groups. Jack and most of the boys go off to another part of the island, while Ralph, Piggy, Simon, Sam, Eric, and the littleuns stay. Jack and the others host a feast and invite the others to join. For the feast the murder a mother pig by stabbing her, and shoving a spear up her. This is extremely terrible and animalistic of them to do.
The narrator seems to note the boys transformation by referring to them as savages and how the hide their shame “[they were] safe from shame or consciousness behind the mask of [their] paint”(pg.154). The final result of their savagery was the deaths of Simon and Piggy these events happen in the heat of the moment due to an overflow of emotion. In the killing of Simon they were performing their infamous chant and enactment of the hunt of the hunt when Simon runs out tries to warn them about the false beast but the group was in the heat of the moment and ended up killing him even Ralph and piggy the level headed boys were caught up in this superfluous of emotion. In the killing of piggy the groups were at castle rock and in the midst of the confrontation piggy was hit with a
Spill his blood!'.... At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws." (152-153). Evil starts to take over Jack, and he ends up killing one of the boys, Simon.
Adversity Essay Discovering ones true personality in life is determined through various hindrances, but it also acts as a catalyst that sparks up untouched traits unknown by man itself. Through trial and error adversity can change a perfectly sane man into one who has seen the gates of death or in other words delusional. Adversity presents both a mental and physical struggle altering a person’s everyday complexion therefor transforming them either positively or negatively depending on their natural state of mind. Thus when all completed their true image is shown. Adversity is guidance that helps shape ones personality challenging both mentally and physically.