Lord of the Flies - Compare and Contrast
Uploaded by AlPhA on Feb 21, 2002
In the novel, Lord of the Flies, and the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” dealt with the savagery of humans. In the short story, it dealt with killing for entertainment purposes. The hunter, General Zaroff, liked a challenging prey in the hunt, but animals weren’t good enough, so he decided to use humans as his prey. In the novel they, Jack’s and Ralph’s tribe, started killing each other because there was tension between the two tribes. In the end, Ralph’s tribe had betrayed him, or had been killed. In both stories, there are many similarities and differences.
One similarity is that both stories show how after killing animals, they are able to start killing humans without pain. On their first kill, they were probably very nervous. Now that they are professional hunters, it became nearly second-hand nature. This is an implied theme because the characters didn’t just say that this was one of the themes, they implied it with their actions and words. They first started killing small prey, but General Zaroff got tired and bored of their stupidity. He later started hunting humans because it was probably the hardest prey on this planet.
Another similarity is that Jack had his tribe to help him kill and General Zaroff had Ivan and his hounds to help. This helped them ease the pain of murder because it transferred paint from them to their minions. This made murder much more feasible and easier. This also eased their consciousness.
A major difference between the two stories was that Rainsford knew that with his wits, he had a chance of surviving. Ralph, on the other hand, didn’t have the confidence and wits Rainsford had for surviving. Rainsford was a professional game hunter and well versed in the tactics used to hunt game. He had a lot of experience, but Ralph had little or none. Ralph was not a hunter and didn’t have the mind of one, he was lucky and lived to see the day that the sailor came. This is an external conflict because it shows problems between the characters. In the short story, Rainsford is having a conflict with General Zaroff. In the novel, Ralph is having a conflict with Jack.
Another difference between the two stories is that Jack killed others because they opposed his tribe. This was more of a defensive act because it kept his tribe together. That was done by...