Rule And Order In Lord Of The Flies

In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, several young British boys are stranded on an island without any adult supervision. Ralph, one of the older boys on the island makes an attempt to set up what would hopefully be a regulated command system using a conch shell. This attempt marks the beginning of rule and order on the island. Unfortunately, the system does not withstand Jack’s jealous and eagerness to become “chief” while utterly disregarding Ralph’s rules entirely, but not without ironically starting with, “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages.” (Goulding 42). As the story goes on, readers are met with the underlying conflict of one’s actions when authority, law and lack of punishment or consequence are set aside, and left with the theme of why rule and order are so important. …show more content…
The young boys realize that without any supervision, they are free to do whatever they want. Right and wrong no longer matter in terms of boundaries as there are no authoritative figures to set those necessary boundaries. They start off thinking about all the fun they’ll have until they are rescued, but also what is vital to keeping them alive until that happens. Even in later chapters, Ralph is upset as he comes to “find how little he thought like a grownup” (Goulding 139) once again when order starts to fall apart. Ralph’s yearning to be smarter like Piggy and reason as an adult does is crucial to what makes him the most civilized and logical boy left on the island by the end of the