Question: Discuss the significance of the mock-hunts in Lord of the Flies.
Introduction
Mock hunt means a way of hunting so that they act as a mockery and create voices like Hugh, Buzz, etc. During this hunt, they have fun and play in an imperfect way, and show no behavior. The mock hunters symbolize primitivism and barbarism in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1911-1993). There are three mock hunts in the novel.
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The first mock-hunts
Golding shows the first mock hunt in Chapter 4 and it’s really funny. It happened after dinner arranged by Jack to kill a pig and the boys roasted it to make it very tasty. Although Ralph is in a boring mood, Jack continues to describe the adventures of his prey. While Maurice is pretending to be a pig, the boys form a circle around him, start dancing, start singing, kill the pig! Cut his throat! Bash him! It’s authentic fun and the participants enjoy it, although Ralph remains dissatisfied during this game.
“Look! We’ve killed a pig- we stole on them- we got in a circle-
Voices broke from the hunters.
We got in a circle-
We crept up-
The pig squealed-“
The second mock hunt
The second mock hunt by the boy was held in chapter 7 during the hunt for the animal, which Sam and Eric reported. Finding no animals, they began to enjoy mock hunting. This time Robert pretended to be a pig and a skeleton, while the boys were making a ring around him, cutting a shower on him by singing and dancing. The injuries were too severe for him and with so much difficulty he freed himself from their grip, holding back some of the injuries. Thus, second mock hunting is identified as a primitive ritual. Here Jack becomes so intense that he offers to treat one of the littluns as a real pig and beats him to death. It shows the cruelty hidden in Jack’s nature.
“Ow! stop it! You’re hurting!
The butt end of a spear fell on his back and he blundered among them.
Hold him!”
They got his arms and legs. Ralph, carried away by a sudden thick excitement, grabbed Eric’s spear and jabbed at Robert with it.”
The third mock hunt
At the third mock hunt, Roger plays the pig but amid the rising frenzy and chanting, he re-joins the hunters, leaving the center of the circle empty. In the climax of chanting, dancing, thunder, and lightning Simon, the Christ figure, emerges from the nearby forest with the news of the dead man on the hill. Simon has just come down from the hilltop after his discovery that there was no beast on the hilltop but only the dead body of a parachutist. His intention is to rid the boys of their fear of the beast. But ironically his word is ignored as the boys take him to be the pig, the victim of their dance, and in their frenzy, he is killed.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that Mock Killing in the Lord of Flies shows the tendency towards human brutality and it serves as a prelude to the introduction of more violence by oppressive boys. The purpose of Golding behind mock hunting is to show the decay of the human heart under favorable conditions.
