What Is The Theme Of Power In Lord Of The Flies

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When power is handed to someone without them earning it, it often goes to their head and they become controlling and overpowering. In the novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ralph is chosen as the chief. The first thing he does is give Jack full power over the hunters, giving him power without earning it. Jack takes the power he is given and attempts to take over Ralph’s job as chief and turn the other boys against him. Through the characterization of Jack, William Golding develops the theme people will abuse power when it is not earned.
Due to getting power without earning it from Ralph, Jack becomes greedy. During the course of the book, Jack wants all the boys to leave Ralph’s tribe and get them on his side. During an assembly
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Most of the boys become slightly uncivilized, but Jack takes it too far. Jack kills the mother of piglets and some piglets while hunting, making him uncivilized. After Jack leaves Ralph’s camp he takes the boys who left with him hunting and while they are hunting they see a mother pig with her piglets, and they decide to kill the mother. While hunting the mother, they end up killing some of her piglets, “One piglet, with a demented shriek, rushed into the sea trailing Roger’s spear behind it. The sow gave a gasping squeal and staggered up, with two spears sticking in her fat flank.” (134) This is significant because it shows how Jack changes from not killing the first pig and being nervous of killing in the beginning to killing baby piglets and their mother. Also, the fact that he kills the baby pig with two spears instead of one shows that he is a savage. When Jack first landed on the island, he is hesitant of killing anything, now he is killing creatures here and there. When Piggy, Ralph’s friend and helper, dies Jack is not sorry, he is actually glad, showing him as uncivilized and as a savage. Later after Piggy is killed and the conch is diminished by a falling boulder Jack said, “‘See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that! There isn’t a tribe for you anymore! The conch is gone-’ He ran forward, stooping. ‘I’m chief!’” (181) Jack turns Piggy’s murder into a …show more content…
Jack makes Samneric leave their job of watching the fire to help them hunt. A boat passes by the island when Ralph sees that there is no smoke and says to Jack and the boys, “‘You let the fire go out.’ This repetition made Jack uneasy. He looked at the twins and then back at Ralph. ‘We had to have them in the hunt,’ he said, ‘or there wouldn’t have been enough for a ring.’” (70) Jack forces the twins to take a break from watching the fire and keeping it alive, to help them hunt because they would not have been able to kill the pig without them. If the smoke would have kept going then they might have gotten rescued before anyone dies. Once you get control of one person you can contain control of others as well. As the book continues, Jack gets Roger to turn on Ralph and everyone who sides with him. While Piggy talks to Jack and his tribe, “High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever.” (180) Roger is told by Jack to watch out for the camp, and when Ralph, Piggy and his camp shows up he throws rocks at them and purposely misses. As Piggy talks, Roger drops a huge boulder, and it hits Piggy, kills him and shatters the conch out of existence. Roger purposely put all his weight on the lever to drop the boulder, just like how he purposely misses the boys

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