Jack Merridew arrives on the island of Lord of the Flies as about as close to a socialized child as you can get: head of a school choir, in uniform, used to the discipline and the hierarchies of the English boarding school. A few weeks later, without a single adult for miles, Jack has painted his face like a warrior, founded a tribe of his own, hunts pigs with spears and ends up presiding over the deaths of two companions. William Golding does not present him as a born monster: he presents him as a socialization that comes apart at the seams the moment the agents that held it up disappear. For the theory of deficient socialization, Jack is the perfect experiment: proof of how little there is beneath the rules when no one keeps them in place.
// The theoryThe rule has to be upheld every day
The tradition of social control —from Hirschi to Patterson— holds that people do not offend while they are bound: to their family, their school, their internalized rules, the gaze of others. Antisocial conduct needs no exotic cause; it springs up on its own the moment those bonds loosen. Golding's island is a laboratory for that idea: it abruptly removes every socializing agent —parents, teachers, police, the weight of a community that watches— and measures what remains. What remains, in Jack, is the fascination with the hunt, the pleasure of power and aggression as a way of commanding. His socialization was not false, but neither was it fully internalized: it was an external obedience, held up by the structure of the boarding school, and when that structure disappears, it peels away like dead skin. The lesson is uncomfortable: a good part of our “civilization” does not live inside us, but in the social scaffolding around us, and it has to be rebuilt every day.
To internalize is not to obey
Jack lights up a central distinction of the theory: obeying a rule is not the same as having internalized it. The truly socialized child carries the brake inside: he does not steal or attack even when no one is watching, because conscience —that agent that upbringing installs— stops him. Jack, on the other hand, was obedient while a teacher was watching, but he never made the why of the rules his own. That is why, once the surveillance is removed, no internal brake remains: only desire and force. Deficient socialization is not just the absence of rules, but the failure to turn them into something of one's own, into an invisible policeman who accompanies the child when the visible one is gone. The war mask Jack paints on is the perfect symbol of that failure: by hiding his face, he frees himself from the last brake —the shame of being recognized—, and without that internalized outside gaze, nothing is left to stop him.
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// The subjectThe leader the tribe needed
What is disturbing about Jack is not that he goes mad, but that he works: he offers the frightened children exactly what they crave —meat, protection, the thrill of the hunt, the certainty of a strong leader— and that is why they follow him. Golding suggests something darker than an individual case: that without socialization, the group does not fall into chaos but into tyranny, because coercive leadership is the most primitive form of order. Jack is not responsible for the shipwreck, but he is responsible for the choices he makes on the island: he chooses the hunt over rescue, fear over care, the death of Piggy over coexistence. His story explains how a child reaches that point —without adults, without upheld rules, with power within reach—, but it does not absolve him. Understanding that civilization is fragile does not make innocent whoever actively decides to set it on fire.
Jack Merridew
// The crackNeither "we are all savages" nor "he was born bad"
The crack with Jack is twofold. On one side, the fatalistic reading —“deep down we are all Jack, civilization is pure facade”— that uses the novel as an alibi for cynicism: if we are all savages, no one is responsible for anything. But Golding also put Ralph and Piggy on the island, who choose to uphold the rule without anyone forcing them; socialization, when it is truly internalized, resists. On the other side, the opposite reading —“Jack was born bad”— that ignores everything the novel says about the environment: it is not a case of innate evil, but of brakes that depended on an absent structure. The honest reading stays in the middle: civilization is more fragile than we think and that is why it has to be actively upheld; and Jack is at once the product of a socialization that came apart and the author of his own cruelties. Explaining the fragility of the rule does not exempt whoever decides to break it.
When an adult finally appears —a Navy officer— and the savage children suddenly become children who cry again, Golding closes the circle of the theory: the reappearance of a socializing agent, of an adult gaze, was enough for the tribe to dissolve. The rule had not died; it was only waiting, latent, for someone to uphold it again.
Upholding the rule is active work
Jack matters because he dismantles a comfortable illusion: that, once educated, a child is “done” being socialized forever and the rules hold themselves up. The theory —and the novel— teach the opposite: socialization is continuous work, held up by families, schools and communities that keep the rule alive day after day. When that support disappears —through abandonment, institutional void, social collapse—, antisocial conduct is not slow to surface, not because people are bad, but because the external brakes that contained them were withdrawn before the internal ones were firm. The practical lesson is enormous: preventing crime is not only a matter of punishing the one who already offends, but of keeping standing the scaffolding that upholds the rule for everyone —above all around children, in the years when those brakes are still being etched—. Golding's island is what happens when that work is abandoned.
Three key takeaways
- Jack Merridew is the experiment of deficient socialization: a well-raised boy stranded without adults, in whom the thin coat of civilization comes apart in days until the tribe, the hunt and murder emerge. A rule with no one to uphold it evaporates.
- Obeying is not internalizing: Jack kept the rules while there was surveillance, but he never made them his own. Without the external gaze (which the war mask suppresses), no internal brake remains. Socialization fails when the rule does not become an invisible policeman.
- Neither "we are all savages" (Ralph and Piggy choose to uphold the rule) nor "he was born bad". Jack is the product of a socialization that came apart AND the author of his cruelties. The rule is active, continuous work: it is upheld or it is lost.
Sources · further reading
- Golding, W. (1954). El señor de las moscas. Faber & Faber.
- Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of Delinquency. University of California Press.
- Patterson, G. R. (1982). Coercive Family Process. Castalia.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Jack Merridew?
Jack Merridew («—») es un villano de El señor de las moscas, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. He starts out a choirboy, disciplined, in uniform.
¿Por qué Jack Merridew (—) se convierte en villano?
Jack Merridew and deficient socialization: remove the adults who uphold the rule and watch how long it takes a well-raised boy to become a hunter, a tyrant and a killer. Civilization as a thin coat.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Jack Merridew?
El caso de Jack Merridew se analiza desde la Socialización Deficiente. The theory of deficient socialization (Patterson, social control) holds that rules do not come factory-installed: they are held up by continuous socialization. Jack Merridew, from Lord of the Flies, is the experiment: a well-raised boy stranded on an island without adults, in whom the thin coat of civilization peels away in days and out comes the tribe, the hunt and murder. A rule with no one to uphold it evaporates.
