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My nephew needs help with an English essay, specifically with 'Lord of the Flies', and correlating this quote (on the bottom) to his thesis, that being that Jack's rhetoric in the novel is a key factor in leading the boys to madness.
I apologize if this post sounds BS, or doesn't really follow the 'board culture', but he's a good kid. I really do want him to do well, and I've heard from his family that he's putting the effort in. I'll be posting two more images of the essay outline and thesis soon, feel free to ask for any further clarifications
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>>25327625
It's spelled "judgment"
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>>25327625
OK.
>BODY PARAGRAPH 1
>Thrill of the Hunt: Jack initially takes up leading hunting to provide for the island, before then using the position's power to turn many into following him, often not to their better judgement.
"provide for the island" — "Provide for the boys", surely?
"turn many into following him" — "Persuade many to follow him"? "Tempt many into following him"?
"often not to their better judgement" — This is very garbled. Not sure what he actually means. He either means, "Often against their better judgement" (i.e. they know that following Jack in an orgy of pig-killing and letting the fire go out is wrong, but they get swept up in the excitement) or "Often against their best interests" (i.e. even though it might be fun in the short term it's going to hurt them eventually).
>QUOTATION
The quotation he gives doesn't really support the point he made. It's just showing how violent and savage they've become and how much Jack and Ralph cannot be reconciled.
The point in PARAGRAPH 1 is a large-scale thing. If you want to support it with quotation(s) you need at least two — one showing how Jack initially just wanted to provide food, and then another showing how he seduces people into following him against their judgement or against their best interests (depending what he actually meant there).
An example of him seducing people to follow him against their better judgement might be when even Ralph gets briefly caught up in the excitement of violence.
An example of him seducing people to follow him against their best interestst is obviously when he lets the fire out and they miss the chance of attracting the ship.
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>>25327748
>correlating this quote to his thesis
Hmm. You can't correlate a quotation to a thesis. I assume you mean, he has this quotation (Jack backing against the bristling spears) and he has an overall thesis (Jack's rhetoric is a key factor in leading the boys to madness) and he wants to know how the one can be used to support the other.
Well, the answer is, the quotation he gives is an example of where Jack's rhetoric has led (savagery and civil war amongst the boys), but not much more. Jack isn't using rhetoric in that particular quotation.
I slightly wonder exactly what your nephew's main thesis really is. Is the emphasis on RHETORIC? (i.e. Jack's powers of demagoguery)? Or is he just saying, "Jack's general influence is a key factor in the boys descent into madness"?
If it's the former, that's perfectly reasonable, but there are dozens of quotations which pertain to it more than this one. It's been many years since I read the book but I can certainly recall several key incidents where persuasiveness and rhetorical skills push the balance the wrong way. The people who are right are often groping for words to express themselves, because they're trying to defend difficult artificial things, whereas Jack is appealing to the base instincts and the lowest common denominator.
Example 1: Where Simon tries to argue his case and says "what's the dirtiest thing there is?" and Jack responds with the "crudely expressive syllable" or whatever it is, i.e. a fart sound, presumably.
Example 2: Jack saying "I apologize". Ralph can see it's just a wicked rhetorical trick but he doesn't have the words to expose it for what it is (especially given that most of the boys are either too stupid or too scared of Jack or both to be receptive to anything but overwhelming eloquence anyway).
If it's the latter, then of course that's much more general, and you have many more possible quotations to use, with the disadvantage that they won't apply so neatly.
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>>25327679
Either is possible. Modern dictionaries suggest that "judgment" = USA (& UK legal), and "judgement" = UK colloquial. But e.g. Cormac McCarthy uses the "e":
You aim to shoot me? said the black.
You dont get your black ass away from this fire I'll kill you graveyard dead.
He looked to where Glanton sat. Glanton watched him. He put the pipe in his mouth and rose and took up the apishamore and folded it over his arm.
Is that your final say?
Final as the judgement of God.
— Blood Meridian
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>>25327625
I think you just need a line that proves people trust jack because of his hunting leadership, something like "I trust the hunter jack," and then another quote showing how Jack used that trust to facilitate violence. "Jack says to kill him!"
simple as that.