Leadership Styles In Lord Of The Flies

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The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel which explores the dark side of humanity. Golding explores this concept through the tragic tale of British boys shot down from a plane and stranded on an uninhabited island, unsupervised, and isolated from a war-torn world where they are left to fend for and govern themselves. On the island, we see a conflict between two main characters, Jack and Ralph, who present different leadership styles. This influences the rest of the boys throughout the novel revealing the evil nature that all humans possess. The story begins by introducing two boys Ralph and Piggy. Ralph finds a conch shell, and when he blows it the other boys gather together. The group of British boys are divided into the "littluns," …show more content…

They wake up Ralph to tell them what they saw and as a way of retaliation Jack calls for a hunt of the beast, while Piggy insists that they should stay together, for the beast may not come near them. Ralph decides to join the hunters on their expedition to find the beast, despite his wish to restart the fire on the mountain. Jack and Ralph ascend the mountain and find the "beast”, but they don't stick around long enough to see that it is in fact only a dead man. Back in the group, Jack proclaims that Ralph shouldn't be chief anymore. Jack then claims that he will be the chief of the hunters and that they will go to the castle rock where they plan to build a fort and have a feast. Jack suggests to his hunters that they all put on paint as a way of camouflage. Eventually, Jack's group slaughter a pig and, as an offering to the beast, separate the pigs head from the body and put it on a stick. Jack brings several hunters back to the shelters, where he invites the other boys to join his tribe and offers them meat and the chance to hunt and have fun. All the boys, except for Ralph and Piggy, join

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    When he goes to tell the other boys what he found out, they mistake him for the beast and kill him out of fear. Jack's tribe realizes they cannot make cooking fires without Piggy's glasses so they ambush Ralph and the others in the night and steal Piggy's glasses. When Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric go to speak with Jack's tribe to get Piggy's glasses back Ralph and Jack end up fighting, Sam and Eric get taken prisoner, and Roger kills Piggy. Sam and Eric (now part of Jack's tribe) warn Ralph that the tribe plans to hunt Ralph and put his head on a spear like they did to the sow. Roger tortures Sam and Eric until they tell him where Ralph is hiding, so Jack's tribe sets off hunting for Ralph and light the forest on fire to smoke Ralph out of hiding, but the fire burns out of control and the whole island catches on fire.

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    but himself and how he can benefit.   Jack simply wants to hunt and have a good time.  He makes fun of Piggy, humiliating him, making him feel small and unworthy.  "You would, would you? Fatty and Jack smacked Piggy's head" (Golding 78). Jack is a lost boy who begins to discover the evil within him.  When he proposes to the group that he should be the new chief, they do not respond in his favor, and Jack runs away, hurt and rejected.  He swallows his hurt ego and throws all of his energy into the only thing he seems to know how to do - hunting.  He puts on face paint and hides his conscience.  This changes him into a savage, evil, The colorful mask allows Jack to forget everything he was taught back in England.  "The mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness" (Golding 69).  As the plot progresses he becomes less and less attached to any societal norms. Near the end of the novel, he feels no shame about the deaths of Simon and Piggy, or his attempt to kill Ralph. & nbsp;                   Another difference found is that Ralph symbolizes innocence, whereas Jack symbolizes experience and the inner shadow that Golding believes Ralph, Piggy and Simon represent the good side of the boys.  Simon is pure, and the only one who realizes what the beast really is.  Piggy is the voice of reason and stands for the world the boys once knew- adults, discipline, rules and civilization. As chief, Ralph knows right from wrong.   When everyone followed Jack except for Piggy, Samneric and himself, he did not just give up and follow what he knew was wrong, he tried to reason with the rest of the boys and tried to talk some sense into them.  At the end of the novel though, he too realizes that man is not a kind creature by nature.  "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man' followed, regardless of reason or morals. "

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