This may be a good obsession for Jack to start; as it protects their innocence from the beasts they become within the mask. However, it turns into a terrible catastrophe that ends with the boys hunting each other. This is shown in the text when Jack applies the mask for the first time: "He looked in amazement, no longer at himself but at a fantastic stranger... He began to dance and his laughter became a bloody snarl" (66). The boys are also given too much power with the mask, power that can be used in a positive way, but they chose to manipulate each other. Kids can change their personality in the mask by simply washing it off and altering the colors and patterns: “He peered at the reflection and didn't like it. He bent down, took a double handful of warm water, and scrubbed the grime off his face… Jack designed his new face” (66). The power each of the boys gain from their masks is too much for the twelve year olds, each mask makes the boy a new person who can be bloodthirsty, murderer, murderer or wild lake caveman who doesn't communicate with each other. This happens in everyday life and through this book the reader can experience what it means to live in third world countries. Many different ethnic groups and communities around the world use certain paint colors on their skin as a sign of difference from other ethnic groups; Jack's aggregation does this to differentiate