this quote, Jack has officially become the savage he wants to be so he can do what he believes he needs to do to kill the pig and show his ability to lead, which to him is becoming a savage that is willing to kill. When Jack finally puts on the mask, it symbolizes his fall into savagery and how quick it takes him to forget his civilized ways. Throughout the course of the book, Ralph, the main character never uses a mask. Ralph stays civilized throughout the book because he never puts on a mask. Ralph can notice the boys becoming savages when “He had glimpsed one of them, striped brown, black, and red, and had judged that it was Bill. But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill. This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt”(Golding 183). Ralph is able to look past the masks and see the original, civilized schoolboys beneath them. Even though Ralph notices savage behaviors, he still stays civilized. Being one of the only boys to not put on a mask, forces Ralph to notice the other boys turning into savages when they put the masks. Roger, being one of the lesser characters in the beginning of the book, becomes more important towards the end of the book when the hunters start to use masks and become more savage. Roger becomes a savage near the end of the book when he puts on a mask and kills piggy with the boulder. The final straw of Roger’s loss of civilized thoughts happens when, “Roger sharpened a stick at both ends. Ralph tried to attach a meaning to this but could not”(Golding 190). Even though Ralph does not understand what the meaning is of “the sharpened spear at both ends”, it symbolizes Roger’s savage urge to kill Ralph and put his head on the spear. Roger has fallen the deepest into savagery at this point in the book, because he has put on the mask, and this makes him feel the urge to kill another human being, which is needed to be a savage. At this point, the mask has turned Roger, who was once a civilized boy, into a savage that is willing to kill another boy just to kill. By the end of he book, a line forms between the hunters that use masks and the ones who do not use them.
Jack makes the hunters put on masks, and forces them to hunt and kill, which turns them into savages. Conversely, Ralph never puts one on, and never becomes a savage. Ralph always rationally thinks about how the boys can get off the island, make shelter, and get food, but the boys who put on the masks just want to satisfy their insatiable urge to kill. The use of masks in the book symbolizes Freud’s theory that the ID needs to satisfy its demand for instant satisfaction, which for the hunters means killing the pig, and being able to do what they want. Golding includes this in his novel to show that succumbing to the ID leads to evil and savagery, which happens to be bad in
society.