Introduction. The famous French thinker Jean-Jacque Rousseau together numerous occidental philosophers devoted their reflection to the question of the link between an

The famous French thinker Jean-Jacque Rousseau together numerous occidental philosophers devoted their reflection to the question of the link between an Individual and Society, of the way they influence each other and of the possible existence of Individual out of Society. While numerous human needs may be satisfied only in collective work and coexistence, man is heavily restricted by the presence of the others, by the necessity to respect them in order to being respected in return. He is often limited in his ambitions and desires, the repression of which makes him feel unsatisfied and suffering. In the other hand, a man born and educated in the society is used to interact with others, and the most of his acts lose their valour if they aren’t gazed by someone else. Without being viewed by the others, his life loses its sense. Otherwise, the link between Nature and Society is contradictory too. In fact, society makes part of Nature because the humanity also makes part of it but for men, society protects themselves from exterior dangers, so it is also opposed to Nature.

Eventually, our question is to know if the man, educated by society since his birth, is able to readapt himself to the new conditions of life when isolated from it and also, what is its impact on his personality. We can see that this philosophical reflection is echoing in the literature throughout the centuries. The genre of Robinsonade, which has appeared in 18th Century with the publication of Robinson Crusoe, is the embodiment of it. Robinson Crusoe, published in 1731 is an extremely famous novel of an English writer named Daniel Dephoe which describes, by the voice of the protagonist, life on the island isolated from the civilisation, a struggle with exterior dangers and with loneliness. The posterior novels are the different variations of this subject, with the plot and the point of view changing, according to the author's personal opinion about "what the isolated life looks like». King of the Flies and Coral Island are probably two the most famous novels of this genre, besides Robinson Crusoe which was in the source of it. All of them offer to reader a realistic vision of life on the desert island, which are totally different from each other. We will analyze an extract from each novel to see which aspect of the human condition is emphasized by each writer and why we can say that the genre of Robinsonade stay still popular nowadays, although there's less and less of the territories uncontrolled by men, so this genre becomes more and more fantastical.

Theme of isolation in Robinson Crusoe: an ambivalent experience for an individual.

The famous story of Robinson Crusoe can be divided into three parts: Robinson’s youth and the time up to his shipwreck; his twenty-eight years on an uninhabited island; his escape and adventures after being rescued from the island.

The first part of the novel describes Crusoe like a young refractory man, who prefers disordered and adventurous life to a calm existence of the middle-class, which his parents want him to belong to. Against the advice of his father, Robinson wishes to go to sea. He does so and unfortunately, his sailor career is not really successful but he can’t return at home because of the shame. One of his voyages ends in slavery. He eventually escapes and is helped to Brazil where he becomes a successful plantation owner. The personality of Robinson Crusoe is showed in the first part: a young rebel with no clear moral bearings but proud, eager of adventures, energetic and also a good business-man. But once again, the young man is reversed by the Fate in his ambitions: he embarks on a slave gathering expedition to West Africa but is shipwrecked off the coast of Venezuela in a terrible storm. By the way, this storm may be interpreted today as a punishment for the unworthy occupation which the slave trading is. Although, in the 18^th Century rare were those who had blamed it so we can’t say surely is Daniel Dephoe’s vision of the slavery was negative.

The bulk of the novel attends to Robinson’s life on the island —how he accomplishes his survival and even establishes his "kingdom"; how he moves from a frantic state of discontent to one of resignation and contentment; how he meets Friday and, finally, how he leaves the island.

The third part of the novel traces Robinson’s securing of wealth through the honesty and loyalty of friends, his return to England, travels through the continent and a last trip to his island to see how those he left there fared.

We will focus our attention especially on the second part of the book: the survival of Robinson Crusoe on the island. Why can we say that Crusoe stays a typical “Englishman” before and after the ordeal he overcame? Why can we say that his personality was transformed by this exceptional experience? And more generally, why can we say that the experience of Robinson remains so ambivalent?

Crusoe soon learns he is the sole survivor of the expedition and return to a wrecked ship to seek shelter and food for him. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools, and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a primitive habitat near a cave which he excavates and protects himself from the wild beasts which inhabit probably the island. Always being inquiring, he discovers little by little the whole island. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and ones he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery, and raises goats. He also manages to makes a wear from goat’s skins. All this actions are precisely described in his diary. At the first months of his live on the island, the main aspect of Robinson’s character is emphasized by his diary: while he never felt himself concerned by moral or philosophical interrogations, he is very pragmatic, and his reason is now all working to resolve numerous problems which he has never encountered before, during his life in the civilised world. Everyone can be jealous of Crusoe’s capacities to adapt himself to hard and absolutely new conditions, which he wasn’t ready to. He anticipates to all dangers which may affront him and finds a solution for each one. In fact, these onerous conditions let to Crusoe’s best qualities to come out: while he felt unhappy and lost in space, roaming in the huge world with no concrete goal, he has no more choice and fix all his energy on the survival.

Once Crusoe protected himself from the exterior dangers like beasts, savage, weather and created some stocks of food, his next step is to try to escape from the island. He decides to construct a little boat but has very primitive tools, so the operation is during for long months. Crusoe doesn't leave his hope. Here again appears one of his principal qualities – the perseverance. By the way, he tries to create an usual “civilized” atmosphere around him, even being alone. For example, he creates a calendar, by making marks in a wooden cross. He also adopts a small parrot. These little details make him still belonging to the society which he's excluded to.

The qualities which most readers admire in Robinson Crusoe are illustrated in the first chapters. Here, we see a man pitted against the forces of nature and forced to use his ingenuity in order to survive. The instinct for survival is one of the strongest of all instincts, and Robinson Crusoe is now reduced to the most primitive existence. While he is no epic hero or great adventurer, Robinson Crusoe's practicism, perseverance and self-control have won him the approval of generations of readers. Like a “true Englishman”, Crusoe is an investigator and a conqueror, he manages the environment around him and creates all what he needs to survive from almost nothing. In building a home for himself on the island, he finds that he is master of his life—he suffers a hard fate and still finds prosperity. Moreover, Crusoe’s mastery over nature makes him a master of his fate and of himself.

But this theme of mastery becomes more complex and less positive after Friday’s arrival, when the idea of mastery comes more illustrating of unfair relationships between humans. When Crusoe was alone he spelled himself “king of the island” which is rather natural, because he is the only human there. But later, Crusoe teaches Friday the word “Master” even before teaching him “yes” and “no,” and indeed he lets him “know that was to be my name.” Crusoe never considers Friday a friend or equal—for some reason, superiority comes instinctively to him. Throughout the entire novel, Robinson stays English colonizer, which is positive in relation to Nature and positive in relation to humans. By the way, while Crusoe can't improve his business instincts during his isolated life, he still conserves it and finally leaves the island with a nice collection of gold, and he manages a good fortune after his return steel in the field of slave-trading.

All this qualities link Crusoe with the society. He has an ambivalent colonizer's mentality with its vices and advantages, which stays unchanged and defines his way to live before, during and after the ordeal. At the finish, we find Crusoe with a clear thinking and in a satisfying health's condition what is far from being obvious after 28 years of the isolation. Here is the biggest proof of the human superiority on the Nature – even a long struggle with it didn't break him.

However, we can't deny the impact of this exceptional experience on Crusoe's personality which is ambivalent too. Indeed, the positive results of isolation are obvious: before the shipwreck, Crusoe was constantly involved in some vain nervous agitation, in a perpetual vagrancy which had no aim and used him. So he could finally take a pause on the desert island, in order to think about his life and God. In fact, he reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society. While it is important to be grateful for God’s miracles, as Crusoe is when his grain sprouts, it is not enough simply to express gratitude or even to pray to God, as Crusoe does several times with few results. When he was young, Crusoe disobeyed to his father and today this sin is a heavy burden on his conscious especially because it refers to a capital sin of Adam who also disobeyed to his Father. In this context, Crusoe’s isolation may be considered as an expulsion until he repents his moral crime. For Crusoe, repentance consists of recognizing his misery and his absolute dependence on the Lord, while he used to consider himself as a master of his fate and a rather successful businessman. This admission turns upside down Crusoe’s vision of life, and is almost a born-again experience for him. After repentance, he complains much less about his sad fate and views the island more positively. In repentance, he finally finds God. Ironically, this view of the necessity of repentance ends up justifying sin: Crusoe may never have learned to repent if he had never sinfully disobeyed his father in the first place. Anyway, this aspect of the novel proves that Robinson Crusoe is not simply an adventure story in which thrilling things happen, but also a moral tale illustrating the right and wrong ways to live one’s life. Crusoe’s story is being published to instruct others in God’s wisdom, including the importance of repenting one’s sins.

Otherwise, the years of isolation make discover to Crusoe the importance of human society and the heaviness of loneliness. For the first time in his life, Robinson needs someone. In fact, his practical reason prevails on his feelings which very often lack depth. Implicitly, this vice of Crusoe appears through the way he’s writing: he narrates in both the first and third person, presenting his observations. Crusoe occasionally describes his feelings, but only when they are overwhelming. Usually he favours a more factual narrative style focused on actions and events. He displays little rhetorical grandeur and few poetic or colourful turns of phrase. He generally avoids dramatic storytelling; his diary is more an objective inventory. Often, Robinson appears as a rather distant person. This aspect of his personality determines his relationships with people before the accident. Crusoe seems incapable of deep feelings, as shown by his cold account of leaving his family—he worries about the religious consequences of disobeying his father, but never displays any emotion about leaving. Deprived from anyone’s presence on the island for long years, Robinson learns to love the others and that’s why, despite he always treats Friday indulgently, with the arrogance of “Englishman”, he appreciates the Savage, which is far from being obvious if we remind Crusoe’s occupation in the past. Even if this friendship doesn’t change Robinson’s view on the human relationships in general (after his return, he pursues his career of a slave-seller), it steel stays a good lesson for this stand-offish man.

In the other hand, the long emprisonnement on the island has left its negative rerpercussions on Crusoe’s mind. His arrival on the island does not make him revert to a brute existence controlled by animal instincts, and, he remains conscious of himself at all times. Although, his self-awarness sometimes seems take a bit neurotic forms. Crusoe keeps accounts of himself enthusiastically and in various ways. For example, it is significant that Crusoe’s makeshift calendar does not simply mark the passing of days, but instead more egocentrically marks the days he has spent on the island: it is about him, a sort of self-conscious or autobiographical calendar with him at its centre. Similarly, Crusoe obsessively keeps a journal to record his daily activities, even when they amount to nothing more than finding a few pieces of wood on the beach or waiting inside while it rains. This sort of obsessive self-examining thought is natural for anyone alone on a desert island, but may not to disappear even after return to a normal life and risks to become rather embarrassing, because the excessive attention which one accords to himself isolates him from the others.

By the way, we can observe that progressively, Crusoe recedes more and more from the society, while constantly complaining a miss of it. His fear of the others appears clearly in one of the extracts that we have studied in class. Crusoe’s shocking discovery of a single footprint on the sand in Chapter XVIII is one of the most famous moments in the novel, and it symbolizes our hero’s conflicted feelings about human companionship. Crusoe has earlier confessed how much he misses companionship, yet the evidence of a man on his island sends him into a panic. Immediately he interprets the footprint negatively, as the print of the devil or of an aggressor. He doesn’t for a moment hopes that it could belong to another European who could rescue or befriend him. This instinctively negative and fearful attitude toward others makes us consider the possibility that Crusoe may not want to return to human society after being isolated for a long time, because he knows that he will obligated to readapt himself to a new conditions once more, which is especially difficult for an adult. Crusoe enters in the period of his life when the habit becomes preferable to a radical switch.
In fact, Crusoe’s unconscious fears of his return are unfortunately approuved. Crusoe spends much time on the island devising ways to escape it. But when he finally does escape, his return to Europe is anticlimactic. Nothing he finds there, not even friends or family.. Indeed, at the end of the novel Crusoe returns to the island. Here once more, the ambivalent character of the novel stands out: at first, Defoe portrays the island originally as a place of emprisonnement and then later as a desired destination.

Finally, we can suppose that the ambivalent complexity of this novel is the main reason of its eternal success. Robinson Crusoe is a very contradictory personage: he is a wandere who needs however a concrete goal; a sinner who is trying to find a meaning of his life in faith. He’s also a colonizer who submits Nature to his wishes but in the same time, he is influenced by the environment.His self-control, perseverance, practical reason and business instincts will help him to survive the ordeal and to pursuie a “worthy” life after his return in Europe. Yet it remains difficult to him to readapt himself to a life in the society and despite everything, he aspires to come back to the island which became his unique and real home.

Life on the desert island in Coral Island: Nature knows no evil.

Once published at 1729, Robinson Crusoe benefits an eternal success, so the posterior writers try to imitate it, creating their own representation of the isolated life. So did R.M. Ballantyne, the author of another famous robinsonade novel entitled The Coral Island (1858). While Dephoe showed in his novel struggle of man against Nature and in a way opposed them to each other, Ballantyne, on the contrary, imagines a possible harmony between a group of isolated individuals and Nature, which is brutally interrupted by the arrival of Savages. We will focuse our attention on the extract that we’ve studied in class and, more generally, on the plot of the novel in order to understand why the life on the island may be considered as idyllic one and why the intervention of others is embarrassing and negative.

The story relates the adventures of three boys marooned on a South Pacific island, the only survivors of a shipwreck. Three boys, fifteen-year-old Ralph Rover (the narrator), eighteen-year-old Jack Martin and fourteen-year-old Peterkin Gay, are the sole survivors of a shipwreck on the coral reef of a large but uninhabited Polynesian island. Their life’s conditions are particalury favourable: in fact, nothing misses on the island and there’s no any danger coming from Nature, nor from their relationship: isolated from the society, they still live in a mutual respect. Their first contact with other people comes after several months when they observe two large canoes land on the beach. The two groups are engaged in battle and the three boys intervene to successfully defeat the attacking party, earning the gratitude of the chief Tararo. The Polynesians leave and the three boys are alone once more. But once more, their peaceful existence is disturbed: more pirates arrive and Ralph is captured and taken aboard the pirate schooner. Ralph strikes up an unexpected friendship with one of the pirates, "Bloody Bill". On the island he sees all facets of island life, including the practice of infanticide and cannibalism. Rising tension leads to an attack by the inhabitants on the pirates, leaving only Ralph alive. He manages to sail back to the Coral Island to be re-united with his friends.
The three boys sail to the island of Mango where a missionary has converted part of the population to Christianity. The boys find themselves in the middle of a conflict between the converted and non-converted islanders. Finally, Christians win and the "false gods" of Mango are consigned to the flames. The boys then set sail for home, older and wiser.

At first, the island is an incarnation of Paradise on Earth for three boys. It remains possible thanks to two reasons: there’s all what they need to lead a simple and pleasant, “epicurean” existence and there’s no disharmony between them. The extract that we’ve studied which is situated in the beginning of the novel describe the first months of boy’s life in a very positive way: the climate is beautiful, the environment is safe, there is no lack of food or water. By the way; the ocean is neither dangerous and boys spend a lot of time enjoying swimming and discovering the submarine world. Sure, they need to improve their skills in hunting or cooking, but the adaption is easy and joyful for them, partially because they are not pushed to do it in order to survive but simply to render their life yet more confortable. For example, there’s no necessity to build any shet, because “a perpetual summer” reigns on the island. In fact, it seems that the island was made specially to fulfill all the boy’s needs.

Their island is a Garden of Eden for Ralph and his friends; it provides them with every necessity and teaches the boys to live in harmony with nature and with each other. The novel suggests that living in this environment, so close to nature, is a more wholesome and pure existence then living in civilisation. The boys have to fend for themselves and learn how to coexist with their environment, which would turn them into more resourceful men who can also appreciate the beauty in the world. Nature knows no evil; evil is created by man and the boys experience this on their stay on the island.

The island is a Garden of Eden for Ralph and his friends; it provides them with every necessity and even more, it teaches the boys to live in harmony with Nature and with each other. Nature knows no evil; and the novel suggests that living in this environment, so close to nature, is a more wholesome and pure existence then living in civilisation. The boy’s relationship is neither a source of annoyance: indeed, these castaway children are able to assume adult responsibilities without adult supervision. In the extract, it seems that Peterkin is in a way “the boss” of the collective because he’s the most improved in hunting, making clothes from animal’s skins, etc. But he’s the youngest one and in the novel, younger boys defer to Jack,"a natural leader", forming a natural hierarchy. Although, Ralph and Peterkin each have a say in how they should organise themselves. Jack shows himself as a reasonable and respectful chief, so there’s never any violence between three guys, even if they are sometimes kidding each other: thus in the extract we see that Jack compare Peterkin to “nothing better or bigger than a shrimp”. Obviously, Ballantyne's message is that if leaders are respected by those they lead, and govern with their consent, the harmony between people will be eternal.

This is far from being the case of people who intervent on the island soon after the protagonists. Since the arrival of the first two savage tribes who engage the boys in their conflict, peace will reigns nevermore on the island. Indeed, the main personages succeed to deal with mad cannibals but no sooner have they done that than bloodthirsty pirates descend onto the island. The pirates also have a hierarchy, but one without democracy, and even if they stay united, their violence rush on everyone who is not taking part of their tribe. So they abducte Ralph and bring him on another island, the population of which they regulary terrorise. Ballantyne describes the horrifying practices of the pirates like rape or cannibalism, seen by a European boy, who is terrified but completely powerless. Although, he stays loyal to European moral principles is never charmed by the power the pirates have. The hierarchy of the natives is imposed by savagery and that’s why they wipe out soon: the island inhabitant’s revolt turns in a total bloodshed, in which the pirates are massacred. Only the protagonist and his unique pirate friend, Bloody Bill, survive. But the friendship with the worthy European is not enough to save Bloody Bill’s live and soul; however, he repent his savage sins before dying and leave Ralph alone. In fact, he is once more a winner in his struggle with others; as he doesn’t belittle up to a primitive violence, he is the sole who doesn’t merit punishment, that’s why the author let him survive. His friend, who’s the less negative pirate from all of them, pays off his sins but the author let us understand that he may be forgave by God thanks to his repentance. Thus, the novel gives a Chretien moral lesson to the readers: for those who live in virtue, life is pleasant, while the violence of the depraved turns back and destroyes them. In The Coral Island, it’s the virtuous one who wins and not the strongest, because paradoxaly, Nature is virtuous, and the Savages in their cruelty are further from Nature than the civilised boys.This point of view seems rather original today, because we usually oppose our democratic society to a “natural law of the strongest”. As to Ballantyne, he considers that evil is a pervertion, a deformation of human’s nature which is proper to non-Chretiens. In fact, after the resolution of conflict with the pirates, Ralph turns back on the island and the boys all together leave it to join Chretien missionaries wh’re trying to convert Savages into Christianism. Their struggle is also rather violent, but peace is re-etablished when natives become faithful. We can say that the author units civilised society and Nature in order to oppose them to savage tribes.

When in Robinson Crusoe, the forces of Nature, including cannibals, were the source of almost all Crusoe’s problems, Ballantyne considers that virtuous (that is to say Chretien) people may live in the perfect harmony with it. He affirms that evil is a defect of the humankind whis may and should be hunted down by religion. For the boys, life on the island is idyllic, because they are civilised. For Ballabtyne, evil is a consequence of the ignorance. That vision seems rather naïve today but we have to remember that the novel was written in 1858, before the two World Wars which upset down our vision of human nature.

The military conflicts of the XXth century change for ever our view on ourselves. These transformations are stongly echoing in the human sciences like sociology, psychology, philosophy and also in all forms of Art, including the literature, so the genre of Robinsonade. The best representation of this changement is, obviously, the celebrate dystophian Lord of the Flies, written 9 years after the achievement of the World War II, in 1954, by an English writer William Golding, a Nobel Prize-winning.The novel relates the adventures of a group of British boys stuck on an uninhabited island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results. It was inspired from The Coral Island, but while in Ballantyne's story the children encounter evil, but in the Golding’s novel,evil is within them.

Lord of the flies: when freedom leads to disaster.

During the time of an unnamed war, a British evacuation plane crashes onto an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are male children below the age of thirteen. Two boys, the fair-haired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy reluctantly nicknamed "Piggy" find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to bring all the survivors to one area. The survivors elect Ralph as their "chief". The boys decide that a conch shell they found embodies the society they shall create on the island, and declare that whoever holds the conch shall also receive the respect of the larger group and everybody’s attention shall be fixed on him if he’s speaking with the conch in his hands.

One day, twins Sam and Eric, assigned to the maintenance of the signal fire, see the corpse of a fighter pilot in the dark. Mistaking the corpse for the beast, they run away and warn the others. The mysterious “beast” fears deeply the little boys, who feel themselves especially insecure at night, in the middle of the savage forest. Jack calls an assembly and tries to turn the others against Ralph, but receives little support. Together with Roger, he quits the group and moves in the other part of the island to form his own tribe. The tribe, which receives recruits from the main group of boys, grows in strength and begins to adopt customs common to primitive cultures, including face paint and bizarre rituals including sacrifices to the beast. Ralph’s friend Simon finds a severed pig head, surrounded by flies, left by Jack as an offering to the beast. Simon hears this “Lord of the Flies” identifying itself as the real "Beast" and disclosing the truth about itself – that the boys themselves "created" the beast, and that the real beast was inside them all. Simon also locates the dead parachutist who had been mistaken for the beast, and is the sole member of the group to recognize that the "monster" is a cadaver. Simon, hoping to tell others of the discovery, finds Jack's tribe during a ritual dance in the darkness and, mistaken for the beast, is killed by the frenzied boys. Ralph and Piggy feel guilty about what they did not stop but it’s too late - the most part of their past tribe is now obeys to the new leader. Jack and his band of "savages" decide that they should possess Piggy's glasses, the only means of starting a fire on the island. At night, the savages confiscate the glasses and return to their habitation, called Castle Rock. Ralph, deserted by most of his supporters, goes courageously to confront Jack and take back the glasses. Taking the conch and accompanied by Piggy, and two twins who stay loyal to him, Ralph finds the tribe and asks the boys for the glasses. While Ralph’s disputing with Jack, Roger drops a stone down on Piggy, killing him and breaking the conch. Ralph manages to escape, but the twins Sam and Eric are tortured until they agree to join Jack's tribe.

The following morning, Jack orders his tribe to hunt Ralph. The boys set fire to the forest, trying to “smoke off” Ralph from the woods where it’s difficult to find him. Fortunately, the fire draws the attention of a passing naval vessel, so Ralph is saved and all the tribe comes out on the seaside Seeing breathless Ralph, the “savage” boys and the burning forest behind them, and the British officer from the vessel, who took at first the violence for a game, is now horrified because he expected better from British boys.

As the English office, the readers may ask themselves what is the reason of the unstoppable rise of the violence which gains everybody’s mind, step by step. How these civilized, innocent children could sink all together in a kind of a collective insanity, why did they enjoy committing a crime by crime, until trying to destroy the whole island, including themselves? Why did they become so “savage” on the isolated island? Should we expect a similar behavior from any isolated collective?

Contrary to Robinson Crusoe and The Coral Island, Lord of the Flies is much less focused on the relationship between people and Nature. The island is just a background, a decoration which symbolizes a change, so the necessity of the re-adaptation, of the invention of some new rules. The author let us simply understand that the life on the island is possible, the climate is acceptable and the gaggles of pigs are the inexhaustible source of food for those who know hunting. The author shows to us that there are no real dangers for the boys, except the one they imagined, indirectly influenced by the mysterious darkness of the forest at night. Anyway, like in The Coral Island, the boys learn rapidly how to use the resources of Nature – but their relationship is far from being as idyllic as between Jack, Ralph and Peterkin. Golding focuses almost exclusively on the psychological aspect of his personages, and, even if they never express openly their feelings, they seems being much more realistic that the protagonists of The Coral Island. In fact, describing the slow degradation of the boys’ behavior, the author delivers to us a logical explanation of it, which is truly convincing, especially at the beginning of the story.

On the arrival at the island, the boys try to conserve the traditional social system which they were grown in to stay together and survive. The most reasonable of them, Ralph, became a chief who takes his decisions after listening different opinions of the members of group. In change, they obey his orders. This system allows living together in peace and justice, which are the most important values in the civilized societies. Protected from the most dangers of Nature, the citizens have to protect themselves from each other, so the laws are created to make everyone's live assured and safe. In this type of society, a man worthy to be a chief must be intelligent, reasonable, honest and respectful to his people. These qualities are proper to Ralph and his attendant Piggy. But on the island, the necessity of survival becomes dominant, so the most important thing is no more to live in respect, but simply to conserve and assure a life in the unusual conditions. While in the society from which boys are issued, money is the most valued thing; here fire and food took its place. Actually, the chief must be more relentless and physically strong than democratic. The power of Ralph and Piggy is due to the ancient rules which the boys were learnt to respect without understanding its necessity. So when Jack brutally contests the system that was chosen, nobody can find some convicting arguments to convince him back. Indeed, boys fear of Jack's brutality and moodiness but they are also respectful thanks to his capacity to provide a food, while Ralph is not so good in hunting. They instinctively come back to a primary social organization, where the law of the strongest is the unique law respected.

Their minds start to change irresistibly. While a total freedom reveals the worst instincts in leaders, the band becomes more and more obeying and imitates the chief. Their tribe seems being united and strong but the attitude of each individual and chiefly the Jack and Roger one's becomes more and more morbid. The passage in the chapter 8 which we’ve studied in class describes boys’ ritual hunt which is a turning point in the novel, focused on Jack who becomes the main character in the second part of the novel. His bizarre behavior announces clearly that the tribe will follow him and fall in anarchy, destroying itself and Nature.

The first time Jack encounters a pig, he is unable to kill it. But Jack soon becomes obsessed with hunting and devotes himself to the task, painting his face like a barbarian and giving himself over to bloodlust. Finally, Jack chooses now to attack a defenceless sow who is vulnerable while she nurses her piglets — an act of supreme cruelty. Indeed, hunting is necessary to survive but the way the animal is killed speaks volumes about Jack's personality. Further than that, he enjoys inflicting pain to sow, killing her slowly. He has lost his civilized condition. He acts as if he is not the least bit in anguish over killing another live creature, and one that was nursing her babies When Jack sticks the pig's head on a stick, he obviously takes a pleasure from it . He has truly become a savage. He cuts the pig's throat and the blood gushes down his hands.

The killing could be looked at in several different contexts, but there is one that stands out and that is sexual. We can see evidence of this rape with quotes from the killing like, "and the hunters followed, wedded to her in lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood.", "the sow fell and the hunters hurled themselves on her.", and "Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife. The sow's death and disfigurement marks the triumph of evil and the climax of the novel. “Raping” her with his knife, Jack rapes metaphorically Nature – we see him, for example, stabbing the ground. Jack represents the savagery that is within man. In the same time, the more savage Jack becomes, the more he is able to control the rest of the group. . By the end of the novel, Jack has learned to use the boys’ fear of the beast to control their behaviour. Once the readers realize it, the fate of the tribe becomes clear for them: if Jack and Roger, these pure incarnations of the evil, will stay in the head of the group, everybody on the island is condemned. Their posterior crimes are frightening but not surprising and their fall appears as the sole possible end.

Contrary to the two authors the studied before, Golding push us to identify ourselves to his protagonists, which is frightening but inevitable, because each of them is in a way “someone like you”. Golding is relating the fact that there is savagery in mankind, in every individual. One’s age, the education he has received, nor his religion or social status, don’t change it, because he was born with the evil in his heart, and if the conditions are just right, it will show its ugly head. The author is making it clear that even the most civilized and disciplined boy can turn into a savage, and even if he won’t become a wild beast like Jack, he will be this who obeys the dictator. Lord of the Flies seems to mirror certain events or circumstances similar to those of the Nazi regime, in an effort by the author to understand human nature and how it is possible to sink to such depravity. In this context, Lord of the Flies may be compared to the one of the most famous books of Albert Camus, a French philosopher and writer. The Plague is another metaphorical representation of WWII, where a population of the whole town is cut from the civilization because of the epidemy of the plague. Comparing both novels, we see how different the vision of human may be . Albert Camus choose to make a point on the « good side » and the mains characters of The Plague embody the good qualities and noble ambitions of the men: they struggle for the civilization and collective happiness and even is their combat seems rather useless because of the impossibility to influence the epidemic directly, they remain loyal to their goals and ideals, so pass the ordeal with dignity. In the other hand, Golding gives a very pessimistic representation of the humankind: for him, everyone can be a savage (that is to say a Nazi), and all the burden of civilization’s moral values is supposed to choke in us our ancient instincts so the society of peace and justice can exists.

These kids were choir boys from the most selected British families. They were well-raised and quite civilized children. If a child, who is unbiased and pure, can turn into a beastly creature once civilization is removed, imagine what would happen to typical adults.

This is not a game to Jack. He has begun to live for the kill. He is driven by a lust to kill. He has become passionate about the kill. The kill has taken him over. Jack was born to hunt and kill. He just never knew it until he became stranded on the island. He has found his true nature on the island. The beast is within Jack.

Jack represents evil and violence, the dark side of human nature. A former choirmaster and "head boy" at his school, he arrived on the island having experienced some success in exerting control over others by dominating the choir with his militaristic attitude. He is eager to make rules and punish those who break them, although he consistently breaks them himself when he needs to further his own interests. His main interest is hunting, an endeavor that begins with the desire for meat and builds to the overwhelming urge to master and kill other living creatures. The conflict on the island begins with Jack attempting to dominate the group rather than working with Ralh to benefit it. He quickly loses interest in that world of politeness and boundaries, which is why he feels no compunction to keep the fire going or attend to any of the other responsibilities for the betterment or survival of the group. Given the thrill of "irresponsible authority" he's experienced on the island, Jack's return to civilization is conflicted. When the naval officer asks who is in charge, Jack starts to step forward to challenge Ralph's claim of leadership but is stopped perhaps by the recognition that now the old rules will be enforced.

Indeed, apart from Ralph, Simon, and Piggy, the group largely follows Jack in casting off moral restraint and embracing violence and savagery. Jack’s love of authority and violence are intimately connected, as both enable him to feel powerful and exaltedin the novel Jack plays the role of Hitler. Like Hitler, Jack was a great orator, and used his charm to persuade the other boys to his point of view. Hitler came to power at a time when Germany was at an all-time low. He won the public’s support with his promises of restoring Germans’ pride by helping them out of the recession and returning their country to its former glory (Adolf Hitler Biography). Jack did much the same thing, waiting until the boys were bored and restless under Ralph’s command, and then coming forward and enticing them with talk of fun and games and hunting if they made him their chief (Golding 146). Both men had a charismatic talent that they used for evil to accomplish something beneficial to them. This only lasted for a short time though and in the end their leadership and their followers fell.

Piggy was an outcast among the boys, much like the Jews were outcasts in German society. He was verbally abused on numerous occasions, mainly by Jack. By not calling him by his real name Jack and the other boys were dehumanizing Piggy, making him seem like less of a person and more of an object to be ridiculed. His ridiculous nickname reduces himself to pigs more than to humans. His fate becomes evident to us when we discover that boys hunt pigs to survival but also to fulfill their savage instincts.

his can be seen in parallels between characters in the novel such as Jack, and members of the Nazi party such as Hitler. There is also a common theme in both of dehumanization, leading to violence and ultimately death. The novel was set during World War II, at the same time that the devastation of the Holocaust unfolded and, like the Holocaust, the events in the novel took place in an isolated area which prevented any interference from the outside world..

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