Ralph for the first time, had an opportunity to join the hunters and share their desire for violence. “Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.” (p. 126) Without rules to limit them, they were free to make their game as real as they wanted.
Ralph did not understand the hatred Jack had for him, nor did he fully comprehend why their small and simple society deteriorated. This confusion removed his self-confidence and made him more dependent on Piggy’s judgement, until Piggy began prompting him on what needed to be said and done. Towards the end of the novel, Ralph was forced into independence when he lost all his followers to Jack’s savagery, and when Piggy and the conch were smashed by Roger’s boulder. He was forced to determine how to avoid Jack’s savage hunters alone. Ralph’s more responsible behaviour set him apart from the other savage boys and made it difficult for him to accept and realize the changes they were undergoing. Becoming lost in his exposure to their inherent evil, Ralph’s confusion brought about the deterioration of his initial self-assurance and ordered temperament, allowing him to experience brief outbursts of his beastly self.
Piggy was an educated boy rejected by the kids of his age group on account of his being overweight. It was his academic background and his isolation from the savage boys that had allowed him to remain mostly unchanged from his primitive experiences on the island. His unattractive attributes segregated him from the other boys on the island.