Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is a book written by William Golding, the book is about some boys who survive a plane crash and become stranded on an uninhabited island and must learn how to survive the island and the boys must be able to survive the prevailing ideologies on the island. In this essay, I will give the reasoning why the book represents how a normal society has changed human nature and how human nature can change when there is no society. This paper will show how Ralph represents democracy and Jack represents dictatorship.
Ralph and the conch shell are the symbol of democracy on the island and is the one person in the book who is constantly wanting to be rescued. The conch is …show more content…
Jacks way of being a leader is by force and focusing on luxuries instead of basic need like Ralph was. Jack used his ability to hunt to gain the loyalty of the boys on the island. Ralph's plan for food was to mainly eat fruit because it was easy to find and there were an abundance of them in the trees, when Jack started bringing in lots of meat, that was a sign to the other boys that Jack was a god like figure because he could bring in luxury items, which is meat. This was the begining of people converting to Jacks way of survival. The shift in power lead to the people in Jack's tribe becoming less and less in touch with Ralph’s group and there plans of getting rescued. This shift from the civilized Jack to Jack the savage is represented by the facepaint. Jack starts to have massive feasts to show off his power and ability. The main reason for the feast is show the remaining people in Ralph's tribe to show that they should convert over to Jack's group to have a better life on the island. This lead to only Ralph, Piggy and Sam and Eric left. The true shift from Jack’s tribe becoming savages was when Jack and his group raided Ralph’s group stealing the one valuable item, Piggy’s specs. The shift from the conch and democracy to the knife and a dictatorship is shown on page 235, when Piggy said “They didn’t come for the conch. They came for something else.(Golding 235)” it showed how Jack’s tribe no …show more content…
A primary example of this is in chapters 3 when Ralph says “Well, we haven’t got any yet. And we also want shelters”(Golding 40). This was Ralph's response to Jack’s unwillingness to have him and his hunters help build the shelters and continue to go out to hunt pigs and are repeatedly unsuccessful. This shows differences in the two characters because Ralphs only focus is to build shelters for the good of the groups while Jack’s main focus are non-essential items like meat for his personal gain. This interaction becomes one of the first apparent signs of a divide between the two characters and the societies that they represent. This seemingly minor difference ended up being one of the key reasons attribution to Jack creating his own tribe. It was all a struggle between conservative usage and reliability and for the best of the group and the idea of luxury and leaders being unchallenged and treated like gods. The other main difference that the author showed us is the way Jack and Ralph uses there symbols in distinct ways. In the beginning of the book, the conch shell and Ralph are by far the most powerful figures on the island. As the book progresses, Jack is slowly begins to use his ability to gather meat to gain his own following and begins to give Ralph and the democracy on the island a serious challenge. It is not until the end of the
Lord of the Flies is a book written by William Golding, the book is about some boys who survive a plane crash and become stranded on an uninhabited island and must learn how to survive the island and the boys must be able to survive the prevailing ideologies on the island. In this essay, I will give the reasoning why the book represents how a normal society has changed human nature and how human nature can change when there is no society. This paper will show how Ralph represents democracy and Jack represents dictatorship.
Ralph and the conch shell are the symbol of democracy on the island and is the one person in the book who is constantly wanting to be rescued. The conch is …show more content…
Jacks way of being a leader is by force and focusing on luxuries instead of basic need like Ralph was. Jack used his ability to hunt to gain the loyalty of the boys on the island. Ralph's plan for food was to mainly eat fruit because it was easy to find and there were an abundance of them in the trees, when Jack started bringing in lots of meat, that was a sign to the other boys that Jack was a god like figure because he could bring in luxury items, which is meat. This was the begining of people converting to Jacks way of survival. The shift in power lead to the people in Jack's tribe becoming less and less in touch with Ralph’s group and there plans of getting rescued. This shift from the civilized Jack to Jack the savage is represented by the facepaint. Jack starts to have massive feasts to show off his power and ability. The main reason for the feast is show the remaining people in Ralph's tribe to show that they should convert over to Jack's group to have a better life on the island. This lead to only Ralph, Piggy and Sam and Eric left. The true shift from Jack’s tribe becoming savages was when Jack and his group raided Ralph’s group stealing the one valuable item, Piggy’s specs. The shift from the conch and democracy to the knife and a dictatorship is shown on page 235, when Piggy said “They didn’t come for the conch. They came for something else.(Golding 235)” it showed how Jack’s tribe no …show more content…
A primary example of this is in chapters 3 when Ralph says “Well, we haven’t got any yet. And we also want shelters”(Golding 40). This was Ralph's response to Jack’s unwillingness to have him and his hunters help build the shelters and continue to go out to hunt pigs and are repeatedly unsuccessful. This shows differences in the two characters because Ralphs only focus is to build shelters for the good of the groups while Jack’s main focus are non-essential items like meat for his personal gain. This interaction becomes one of the first apparent signs of a divide between the two characters and the societies that they represent. This seemingly minor difference ended up being one of the key reasons attribution to Jack creating his own tribe. It was all a struggle between conservative usage and reliability and for the best of the group and the idea of luxury and leaders being unchallenged and treated like gods. The other main difference that the author showed us is the way Jack and Ralph uses there symbols in distinct ways. In the beginning of the book, the conch shell and Ralph are by far the most powerful figures on the island. As the book progresses, Jack is slowly begins to use his ability to gather meat to gain his own following and begins to give Ralph and the democracy on the island a serious challenge. It is not until the end of the