Piggy Lord Of The Flies Leadership Analysis

Jack’s leadership allows the boys to uphold savagery and reject responsibility unimpeded, giving him popularity. Jack is very noticeably the most politically powerful and earliest advocate for this lifestyle. The first event where he demonstrates his natural tendency to eschew responsibility in favor of savagery is when he sadistically guides his hunters to kill their first pig and in doing so completely avoids the task of rekindling the signal fire which he previously accepted. When he and his hunters do kill a pig, it is around the same time Ralph spots a ship close to the island but finds no way to attract it due to a dead signal fire. Piggy is quick to admonish Jack for this, and some of Jack’s hunters let slip “wails of agreement” (71) driving Jack to violently hit Piggy to the ground. When Piggy manages to get up and move so that a large rock is between him and Jack, Jack switches to verbal abuse and cruelly mimics Piggy. This abuse is actually …show more content…
Meat is a decorated commodity on the island. This is shown specifically when Ralph longs to eat some meat off the first pig killed by the hunters while only a few minutes earlier criticizing Jack on his excessive hunting. When Ralph does eat it, his description aptly represents the importance of meat on the island; “Ralph dribbled. He meant to refuse meat, but his past diet of fruit and nuts, with an odd crab or fish, gave him too little resistance. He accepted a piece of half-raw meat and gnawed it like a wolf.” (74) Ralph’s craving of meat is so strong that it trumps his ideals. Ralph eats the meat even when knowing that it’s price might have been rescue from the island, one of Ralph’s governments most essential objectives. This situation represents the power of the meat on the island; Jack simply obtains it and causes Ralph to undermine