Lord of the Flies THE MASK

Jack’s behavior goes through a moral and social transformation when he paints his face. Jack paints his face red, black, and white before he goes hunting. He now looks scary to the other kids. “Beside the pool his sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them.” Jack’s physical transformation is clearly seen but he also has an internal transformation. He had bad feelings about himself but felt liberated about these sad feelings with the paint on his face. “…behind which Jack hid, liberated from the shame and self consciousness.” This describes how Jack felt differently with the paint on his face.

Many transformations changed Jack’s behavior. He becomes obsesses with hunting, and killing pigs. He takes great pride in the fact that he killed a pig. “‘I cut the pigs throat,’ said Jack, proudly … ‘there were lashings of blood,’ Said Jack, laughing and shuddering ‘You should have seen it!” Jack also becomes less civilized when he becomes violent and hits Piggy for no justifiable reason. “He took a step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy’s stomach … Jack smacked Piggy’s head. Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks.” He also acts uncivilized when he shows disrespect to the person who is holding the conch. He constantly talks out of turn. Jack becomes less civilized because of his aggressive and violent behavior. Jack’s painted face also symbolizes a breakdown in social and moral behavior. He becomes primitive in his social and moral behavior which affects everyone’s behavior in a negative way. This is shown when everyone ranted, “Kill the pig, cut her throat, and spill her blood.” Everyone was acting in a uncivilized way because of Jack’s conduct.

When a person goes through depression sometimes they pretend to be happy to cover up their real problem. An example of this is seen in many stand up comedy performances. Many comics use their painful experiences for their comic material. When they are on stage everyone is laughing, but when they take off their comic masks they are left with their painful memories. This is also the same when Jack hides his painful feelings behind his mask. I think this is why some comics die from drug overdoses to escape the pain. Examples of overdoses are Jim Belushi and Chris Farley. I even read a book about Jim Carrey and how he suffered from depression. This proves that many comics wear masks to hide their real feelings.