At the end of Chapter 1, the three boys are walking home from their adventure around the island when they hear a pig squeaking in a frenzy. They follow the pig's cries and find a piglet caught in vines trying to escape. Jack approaches the piglet and draws his knife. He then raises his knife and pauses. Golding writes,
"The pause was only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke...
At the end of Chapter 1, the three boys are walking home from their adventure around the island when they hear a pig squeaking in a frenzy. They follow the pig's cries and find a piglet caught in vines trying to escape. Jack approaches the piglet and draws his knife. He then raises his knife and pauses. Golding writes,
"The pause was only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be." (Golding 31)
While Jack hesitates to stab the pig, it escapes the vines and runs off. Jack tells the boys that the reason he hesitated was because he was trying to pick a good place to stab the pig. When Ralph asks Jack why didn't he kill the pig, Golding writes,
"They knew very well why he hadn't: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood." (Golding 31)
Jack's inability to act is because he is still heavily influenced by society's norms and values. He has recently been removed from the civil society of England, and still acts according to its rules. Taking the life of another living being requires a certain primitive mind-state. Jack is just a child who has never experienced killing an animal. All Jack could think of is the "unbearable blood" and brutality involved in stabbing a pig to death. Later on in the novel, Jack gradually descends into savagery. Under the disguise of his face-paint, Jack transforms into a brutal savage with no morals. The longer Jack is away from civilized society, the deeper he descends into barbarism.
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