Final answer:
In William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies', Jack puts the sow's head in the clearing as a symbolic offering to the 'beast', representing the boys' descent into savagery.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question "Why does Jack put the sow's head in the clearing?" refers to an event in William Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies. This is a moment in the story where Jack, a character in the book, places the head of a slaughtered sow on a stick as an offering to the imaginary 'beast'. This act symbolizes the savagery and descent into primitivism that the boys on the island are experiencing. The sow's head, called the 'Lord of the Flies', becomes a powerful symbol throughout the novel of the innate human capacity for evil and the breakdown of civilized order in the absence of societal norms.