How Can Violence Be Used to Gain Power?

This week in our lit circles our group talked about how power has a role in violence, as well as how darkness can be positive. We said that to have power sometimes you have to show violence. For example, Jack slit the pigs throat or how he is also kept putting down Piggy to gain power. He tells Piggy that he is "Always scared. Yah-Fatty." (p. 45) This made Piggy feel bad. He is always telling Piggy to shut up even though Piggy has the conch.”You shut up!” (p.46) Jack yells at Piggy as Piggy tries to speak. He also disobeys all of Ralph's rules. In doing this, he sets a bad example for all of the other group members who choose to do the same. By doing this, Ralph loses his control of the group and Jack gains power. One connection I can make to this is a text to world connection. I see that most bullies try to put people down in order to feel power that they do not receive anywhere else. I see this in Jack as he always puts Piggy down to show his dominance.

We also talked about how darkness could be a positive. We said that when Piggy called out the group and told them that they should have built shelters instead of focusing on the fire because it was night time. This was very dark and it made everyone realize that Piggy was right and that they should have listened to him.

I think that our group is doing well in the discussions however I would like to try and get everyone to talk more so that we get a wider range of ideas. Some people in our group do not contribute or take the group off topic. Most of the time everyone contributes however some the contributions are not on topic or are very under developed. However, some group members are doing a good job on building upon other ideas as well as contributing their own solid ideas. Overall, I think our group is on the right path.

            In this revision, I edited my journal. I fixed some spelling and punctual mistakes. I added some quotes to support my ideas. I added a connection about bullying. I added a couple of more examples. Finally, I updated on the status of our group discussions.