Golding’s cynical views on human nature become further established once the boys exhibit power onto things much smaller than them, but can’t seem to carry out their actions because of their past life. As the novel progresses, Jack soon begins to have an obsession with hunting but can’t seem to stomach it at first. When he fails to kill the pig the first time and makes up excuses for it, although they all know the real reason, “the enormity of the knife…cutting into living flesh…the unbearable blood” (1.31). The idea of getting “dirty” and the “goriness” of the job Jack finds unsettling.
A main factor being that in his old life he didn’t have to kill for food or hunt. In the society he grew up in their was a job for that so Jack wasn’t used to the idea of butchering for his own food.
