In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Roger's character represents sadism, where he acquires pleasure from the pain or suffering of others. In the novel, Golding uses a series of events to show the development of sadistic behavior of an individual right before the reader's eyes. As time lengthens on the island, Roger's behavior takes a downfall, turning him from an anti-social, civil human being to a vicious, monstrous sociopath who harms, and eventually, murders the innocent. Since there are no adults on the island, there is no one to control Roger's sadistic behavior, leaving the rest of the boys on the island at risk of abuse.
Roger's name first appears in an early scene where the remaining male survivors of the plane crash come
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Roger stalks Henry as a prey and gathers stones to throw at the boy, but when he throws them, he purposely misses. Deep down, despite his mercilessness, the "taboo of the old life" is still present, as well as "protection of parents and school and policemen and the law," (pg. 65). At this point of the novel, the inhumanity in Roger further develops, yet proceeds with insufficient guilt.
Several more events, such as the events in Chapter 7, "Shadows and Tall Trees" and Chapter 8, "Gift for the Darkness," contribute to the peak of Roger's loss of sanity. A scene in Chapter 7 includes where all the boys playfully grab Robert, who mocks a helpless pig prey. Roger, who is behind Jack, is "fighting to get close," (pg. 125), to the struggling boy. Afterward, In Chapter 8, after an outburst between Ralph, Jack's new tribe go out and hunt for pigs. Lucky for them, they find a mother pig with piglets. In this scene, Golding emphasizes Roger's bloodlust for the death of the pigs. Roger is the first to kill a piglet, and soon when it comes to the mother pig, Roger is the boy who does the most destruction. He prods with his spear whenever pig flesh appears, and eventually leans his weight on his spear, piercing the poor sow. Lastly, by Jack's command and with no hesitation, Roger grabs the decapitated head of the sow and pushes the spear through its head for display and as a gift for the Beast. The participation in the
It is difficult for Roger to break away from the crowd, so in order to fit in with his society he decides that he must kill Piggy. However since his decisions are based purely on his surroundings rather than his personal values, Roger is not guilty for Piggy’s death. But Roger’s genes or how he is raised do not determine his cruel decisions, his environment does. If Roger was still tied to the views of a civil community, he would never commit murder. The consequences are too great in an organized society for killing someone. Yet in Jack’s tribe there are no consequences, as execution is encouraged. Therefore there is pressure and tension within the group that is forcing Roger to act similarly to everyone else. If he does not act as a savage, he is seen as different which makes him unwanted and unaccepted. Roger is not purposely trying to kill Piggy, but is instead being pushed over the edge into doing something where he has no other
“We have our pig, we’ll wait on collecting the meat until we have killed all the pigs on the ship. We’ll save Ralph for last. On with the game!” Shouted Jack raising his knife now covered in the doctor’s blood. The savages cheered and dragged the body into a corner to be used later. Roger walked up to Jack and whispered in his ear, among the crowd of cheering boys dancing around the body as it was dragged to the corner what was said between them was incoherent to any of the other savages.
Roger throws the rocks at Henry aiming to miss, unable to bring himself yet to actually throw the stones at Henry to deliberately hurt him, a
One of the most intricate themes in the novel is the survival instincts of human nature. The savagery that will soon overtake the children is first seen in Roger as he throws rocks towards Henry. “Roger stooped, picked up a stone, aimed and threw it at Henry-threw it to miss... Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw... Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.” (Golding 62) As Roger throws these stones, the foundation of his character is built. He turns out to be one of the most ruthless boys who will hurt or kill
Then he throws stones at Henry, only missing because his arm "was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins. " it is only a matter of time before Roger comes under Jack's power. He also has fun torturing the pigs instead of killing them fast, he embraces the kill. Kills Piggy and destroys the conch. "Plot Summary: Lord of the Flies."
Roger’s change begins to be noticeable when he smashes the sandcastles by, “kicking them over, burying the flowers, scattering the stones” (60), and all together ruining the moldable creations that were formed by the littluns for no apparent reason. And then proceeds to throw rocks at Henry; But as he, “threw to miss” (Golding 62), readers see that Roger’s arm was still, “conditioned by civilization” (62). Meaning, he was still afraid of what punishment he might have received from his past life for his evil acts, even though
The self-restricted actions of Roger before savagery fully settles on the island are the result of the imposed order of everyday human life. Roger is playfully throwing stones at Henry, but does not allow any of them to hit his target. To show the importance and connection of Roger’s actions, Golding writes, “Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to threw them. Yet there was a space around Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life” (Golding 62). Roger, throwing rocks at someone to begin with, has a desire to hurt people. The “taboo of old life”, however, is able to completely restrict this desire from doing any harm, being “invisible yet strong” as well as making Roger unable to “dare” to throw a stone close to Henry. This language makes it seem as if Roger, having gone through the civilization of “old life”, is forced to
Roger in the quote is throwing rocks at Henry who is younger than him, he is doing this because he is now somewhere where there is no one to punish wrong doings; however, he seems to avoid Henry, later in the quote Golding specifically wrote “Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law”. (Golding 87) Roger is reminiscing what it felt like to live back where he used to which had parents, school, policemen and laws. Even though none of those are there
William Golding contends in his novel “Lord of the flies” that the dangers of evil which lurk inside all of us savagery are through the character Roger. When one considers the word savagery, specifically within the frame of william golding’s novel, savagery comes as a result of freedom and no consequences. In the novel when Roger gets stuck on the island he isn’t certainly evil in fact he is a very shy kid . Although as the story progresses we see him descending into it evilness and savagery. We see that when Roger is walking on the beach with mauris after kicking the kids sandcastle, “Roger stooped, picked up a stone, aimed threw it at henry….threw it to miss.”(Chapter 4) This was a sign of savagery growing inside of him. He wanted to hit
In Lord of the Flies William Golding is able to portray Roger as a dangerous character early on in the book. When Roger and Maurice bother the littluns, the reader can sense Roger's violent mentality.
He “led the way straight through the castles, kicking them over, burying the flowers, scattering the chosen stones,” only to remain, “watching the littluns.” Maurice, however, “still felt the unease of wrongdoing.” Jack’s only fault was yearning for power, which corrupts those who wield it. Roger is corrupted and malevolent without ever thirsting for this power, and is therefore more evil than Jack. Roger keeps to himself, much like Simon, and remains consistently evil throughout the novel. Near the beginning, he “picked up a stone, aimed, and threw it at Henry-threw it to miss,” held back by “the taboo of the old life.” Later, he did not miss and “with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever,” releasing a huge boulder and killing Piggy. Under the weight of the boulder, “the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.” The main symbol for the democracy, equality and justice was indirectly destroyed by Roger. To him, “Ralph was a shock of hair and Piggy a bag of fat,” thus dehumanizing and objectifying them. When Sam and Eric were cornered by Jack’s group of savages, Roger demonstrates his enjoyment for hurting others by “[advancing] upon them as one wielding a nameless authority.” It was not for the sake of supremacy or control, but for unbridled sadistic pleasure. When Ralph finds Sam and Eric, they say that Roger is “a terror”. He also points out that Jack is a terror, but the twins respond with “only
To begin with, Roger progressively transforms from a mysterious boy to a barbarian over the course of civilization to regression. Roger avoids social contact, initially, until refinement unravels among several boys, and he gets unruly--walking into the littluns’ sandcastle purposely--after relieving his signal fire duties. Afterwards, Roger continues bothering the kids, more particularly--Henry--as he “stoop[s], pick[s] up a stone, and thr[ows] it at Henry--threw it miss” (Golding 62). Roger gives in to the lack of civilization on the island by having the idea of harming a mere, young boy. However, civilization embeds a part of him, and it prevents him from hitting Henry literally. For example, he “pick[s] up a stone” (Golding 62) with the intent of using it to hurt a person since over time, the island gradually loses its authority and order. Consequently, these boys influence one another dramatically by their thirst to hunt or simple goal of survival. In this case, Jack, a power hungry tyrant, barbarically impacts Roger and his viewpoints. However, at home, society reminds Roger such actions are not acceptable, so he “threw it to
Although not mentioned much at the start of the novel, by the end, Roger becomes Jack’s right-hand man. The following quote best captures Roger’s merciless savagery, Golding writes, “‘High overhead, Roger with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever… The rock struck Piggy a gleaning blow from chin to knee… the body of Piggy was gone.”’(Golding 181). Roger, in this scene, murders Piggy in cold blood. Roger clearly knows it is wrong to kill; but, with “abandonment” pushed the rock. Roger, who was first seen throwing stones at Henry, throws the rocks in the area around Henry. This demonstrates that he still has traces of civilization left and that the thought of rules exist. Roger; although, slowly afterwards loses most of his civilization. Once again seen with Jack after they kill the mother pig, Roger, tortures the pig with no remorse. During this sick scene, Roger stabs the pig in whatever place he can find. After all of this, the first thing Roger asks is how are we going to cook it. Finally, when Roger kills Piggy he reaches his final transformation into savagery; therefore, without parental supervision, Roger’s extremely corrupt human nature emerges. Along with Roger’s exhibition of corruptness, Ralph also displays the true human
In chapter 11, Piggy is murdered. Rogers desire to kill and to poses violence against others, gets the better of him which then ends badly for Piggy. Roger does so by leaning his weight on the log which then sets off a rock that begins to roll down and pushes Piggy down a cliff, which causes his death. It is seen that Roger killed Piggy on purpose and purely because he and Piggy didn’t get along. Roger was seen as the leader and was someone that the little’uns looked up too and after committing murder on Piggy out of pure spite, the group of boys then all became
From the start of the novel, Roger is already at a low point in his mental stability, fixated on the death of his former partner due to his vertigo. He feels responsible--hopeless, even in his career and journey. Roger himself states that he is “a prey to the mysterious inner pendulum which swung from despair to hope, from misery to joy, from time to audacity” (Boileau-Narcejac 73). This proves that Roger is an easily suaded individual, for his lack of self esteem makes it that he relies on others for his worth. Leeching onto Roger’s rampant emotional instability, Gevigne provides a sense of normalcy and familiarity to Roger by returning into his life, entrusting him with a daring secret. To begin his appeal to pathos, Gevigne proclaims that he always “thought of [him] as one of [his] oldest friends” (Boileau-Narcejac 19). By establishing this connection,