Jack

Character Analysis
By: Emily, Maddy, Jayden, Jayven, Guy
Jack Merridew
- Jack Merridew is a very selfish
person and likes being in charge.
- He has a sort of taste of
leadership and tries to persuade
the group of boys to turn on
Ralph so that he can be chief.
- Because of this I personally do
not like how he acts in the book
as it’s very immature.
 Jack’s Background (Guy)
Before ending up on the island, Jack was a chapter chorister and head boy at the school he went to before the crash. He
is a leader of a small group that is known as the choir. His choir is loyal to him, despite the fact that his leadership isn’t that
good. Jack seems to always have been rude to his choir, and he neglected those who didn’t obey him. For some reason, his
choir grudgingly obeys Jack’s orders. Before meeting up with Ralph’s group, Jack was known as “Merridew” by his choir.
Jack’s choir seems to be some sort of religious group, by the looks of their clothes. (They all have black cloaks with crosses
on them.)

(20) “‘Choir, stand still!’ ‘But merridew. Please, Merridew, can’t we?’ Then one of the boys flopped on his face in the
sand and the line broke up. Merridew, his eyes staring, made the best of a bad job. ‘All right then. Sit down. Let him alone.’”

(19) “Their bodies, from throat to ankle, were hidden by black cloaks, which bore a long silver cross on the left breast.”
Physical Attributes
● Appearance
○ Tall
○ Thin
○ Bony
○ Red Hair
○ Crumpled, freckled, “ugly”
face.
○ Blue eyes

● Obsessed with hunting

● Angry, mean, frustrated
● Wants to be in charge all the
time
● Stubborn, one track mind
● Jealous of Jack
 Values, Goals, and, Ambitions
❖ Values
➢ Jack’s values are made up of hunting, being selfish, and laziness.
➢ He doesn’t like doing any hard work. After he is done with his Job which is “hunting” he
just lies around even though he sees ralph and simon struggling to finish building their
shelter.
➢ He finds hunting to be the most important task instead of building shelter and finding
necessities to survive on the island
❖ Goals
➢ His goals are sort of vague but his main goal is to kill an animal.
➢ His urge to kill something becomes stronger as his hunting trips come up with nothing.
➢ When he finally killed something it just add more fuel to the fire because he knew he
was able to kill something and wanted to kill more animals.
❖ Ambitions
➢ Jack’s main focus is on killing any living animal he comes across.
➢ Any time he gets the opportunity to kill something even if it is a baby he will stop at
nothing to kill an animals he comes across.
➢ He also wants to become the leader of their group and breaks of to create his own group
with most of the older boys.
Jack’s Relationship With Others
Jack hasn’t always been this menacing boy who
scoffs and doesn’t take meetings and rules
seriously. He’s actually been somewhat friendly
before, especially to his now enemy, Ralph. In this
text, it says, “Jack and Ralph smiled at each other
In comparison to page 23, after Jack began
why shy liking. The rest began to talk eagerly.”
obsessed over killing this pig, thinking of new
(Golding 23) tactics and just he’s going to, “slit her throat” he
and Ralph have an argument. On this page, it says,
“Suddenly Jack shouted in rage,
‘Are you accusing-?’… They were both red in the
face and found looking at each other
difficult.”(Jack/Golding 51-52)
“So this meeting to find out what's what. I’ll tell you
what’s what. You littluns started all this, with the
fear talk. Beasts!... Anyway, you don’t hunt or build
or help- you’re a lot of cry-babies and sissies”
(Jack 82)
The Growth of Jack Merridew
- Jack Merridew being conditioned
by society, started out being very
hesitant to kill any pigs, but very
much later he becomes the
group’s hunter and kills pigs with
no mercy. He even chants about it
and it seems to be all he cares
about now.
- In the beginning of the book he
was more or less and friend of
Ralph, but as of now he is shown
to hate having him be in charge and
decided break off on his own.
Prediction On How Jack Can Grow
❖ From where we left off, I can predict that Jack will either
be the one doing the killing, or be the one dead. What I
mean by this is, there’s a high chance he’ll kill one of the
boys, or he’s going to be killed.
❖ The only way for Jack to continue to grow as a character
(positively) is to just let others speak and take in what
everyone, especially Piggy, has to say, wholeheartedly. But,
he has been declining anyways, he stooped so low to the
point where he and his lot are killing piglets and running
after them.
❖ Scenarios that could happen are one of the hunter-boys
fail to kill a boar, Jack gets so mad he kills them. Or, Ralph
and his lot clash with Jack and his, and they all fight, then
once you know it, everyone’s pent up anger over Jack
makes them kill him, and he’s gone.