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Lord of the flies chapter 1 character development
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Arguments on how to govern society has always been apart of human history. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, he demonstrates how one society from a boy named Jack gains supremacy from another boy’s society named Ralph. Ralph’s society is more civil, lawful, and democratic while Jack’s society is more savage like and more of a dictatorship. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, he uses foreshadowing, symbolism, and allegory to convey the reasons why Jack gains supremacy over Ralph. Jack likes to govern in a savage way. He likes to hunt, being savage like, and killing things. In the text it states, “ ‘The rules!’ shouted Ralph. ‘You're breaking the rules!’ ‘Who cares?’... ‘Bollocks to the rules! We're strong--we hunt! If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down!’” (Golding 91). This demonstrates that Jack doesn’t want to follow the rules and just wants to do whatever he wants and wants to hunt and kill things. The boys slowly look at Jack for leadership. …show more content…
Ralph likes to enforce the rules and get things done and likes to establish rules. In the text it states, “‘And another thing. We can’t have everybody talking at once. We’ll have to have ’Hands up’ like at school.’ He held the conch before his face and glanced around the mouth. ‘Then I’ll give him the conch.’ ‘Conch?’ ‘That’s what this shell’s called. I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking.’... ‘And he won’t be interrupted: Except by me’” (Golding 33). This demonstrates that Ralph likes make and enforce the rules and likes to have order. Ralph likes to be as civil as possible and doesn’t like the boys acting like
First of all, Ralph is a very smart and mature person. He figures out compromises and does what’s best for himself and the group. He figures out the best solutions for the situations at hand. Ralph does try and bring order to chaos on the island. His primary goal is rescue, so the boys can get back to civilization. In chapter two, "Fire on the Mountain," Ralph sets down rules for the boys about keeping rules, getting rescued, and using the conch."[I]f we have a signal going, they'll come and take us off. And another thing. We ought to have more rules. Where the conch is, that's a meeting. The same up here as down here” This is very mature and reasonable thinking, and by having the conch, it prevents the chaos of everyone talking at once. He's trying to do his best for the people. Ralph's excellent common sense and ability to realize what is best for the group further shows his impeccable leadership skills. Ralph keeps the boys in line and prevents them from bec...
During the first assembly, the boys are set on creating rules and order so they can have fun. It appears that Jack supports the creation of rules and the election of a chief; he states that the boys have “‘got to have rules and obey them. After all, [they are] not savages’” (p. 42). However, it becomes clear that his apparent affinity for rules is more about the punishments when he says,
Nurture versus nature the age-old argument. This means is it how you are brought up that makes you act like you do or are you just born bad or good? In the realistic fiction book Lord of the Flies by William Golding a group of school boys’ plane crashes on a deserted island. The boys start out by electing a leader, Ralph, and making groups to complete tasks. Jack and the hunters were in charge of hunting. Piggy was the person who thought logically about everything like having a leader. At first all these boys are normal civilized English schoolboys, but by the end they were all savages. In the book Jack, Piggy and Ralph were affected by the environment and turned in savages.
While the boys are under Jack's control, they quickly went back into how they started when they first got there. However, Ralph was able to keep the boys under control by holding meetings. At the meetings, a sense of order is instilled because the boys are not allowed to speak unless they have the conch shell. "I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." (p. 31) By making this rule, he gains respect from the boys and becomes for confident as a leader. Ralph uses his power to tries to make the boys better people. He shows his by building them shelters. "They talk and scream. The littuns. Even some of the others." (p. 53) Ralph is saying that the boys need the shelters because they are afraid and the shelters will help the boys feel more secure. This shows he has better knowledge of people making him a better leader than Jack who does not understand this. Jack does not realize that the boys need to feel secure and need someone in control.
Ralph being leader naturally put him in a position where he was in charge and had to make decisions. Ralph didn’t want things to be chaotic on the island he wanted to set rules because “after all [they] weren't savages.” Ralph respected everyone's opinion so when meetings were held the boys had a chance to speak only when they had the conch so that the person speaking would be heard. Comparing this back to the real world, when I was in grade two my class had weekly discussions and the only person that was allowed to speak was the person who had the “speaking stick.” Even
Throughout the entirety of the story Jack had difficulty with accepting his role as just a hunter, he wanted to be chief. “Jack and Ralph smiled at each other with shy liking. The rest began to talk eagerly”(?) in this scene the group of boys were voting for who should lead them, Ralph was chosen without complaint from Jack because he was perfectly content with being given a bit of power. This scene in particular highlights that in the beginning of the novel Jack didn't care for leading the group as long as he got some power. In spite of Jack’s reluctance to step forward in the first meeting he soon became unmotivated to follow Ralph’s orders and rules. Jack refuses to bid by Ralph’s laws because he does not agree with many of his survival tactics, which is shown here: “"I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you" (127). This shows that Jack is beginning to chose his savage instincts by going off on his own because he does not agree with the rules. Finally, when the boys are rescued from the island the soldier asks who's the leader and Ralph declares that he is, which Jack began to deny: “A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still.”(?) this shows that even through everything that occurred in the duration of this novel Jack has accepted what he has
I chose Jack as the most powerful character because most of the kids follow him and listen to his order. After every hunt, Jack and his group tend to pick on the smallest kid, Jack forced the kid to pretend like he’s a pig and then Jack started to poke him with a spear, this is an example of him showing how powerful he is using physical violence. Jack is also known for using intimidation when Bill asked him, “what will we use to light the fire”, he responded, “we shall take fire from the other” (page 161). In this sentence, he is showing his intimidation by invading Ralph’s property and steal his supplies such as woods, Piggy’s glasses to make his own camp fire. Even though, Jack has a lots of power, he is lack of responsibility, on page
Jack, being used to having things go his way, became envious of Ralph. First, he deemed Ralph unfit as Chief because he had no prior experience as a leader nor was he the oldest, unlike Jack who was Head Boy of the choir. This is shown when Jack says, “ ‘I ought to be chief,’ said Jack with simple arrogance, ‘because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.’” (Golding 23). This proves that he felt that he was deserving of the position, instead of Ralph. This implies that he felt as though Ralph was already inferior to him and by Ralph being chosen over him, that he was suddenly less competent than a boy with fair looks. Next, Jack has wanted to, on several occasions, to ignore Ralph’s orders and prove to everyone else that he knows better. This is shown when Jack calls out Ralph publicly saying, “He’s a coward himself.” (Golding 139). This proves that he finds Ralph to be incapable of leading a tribe and chooses to hunt (instead of maintaining the fire) to showcase his authority. In conclusion, he chose to follow himself and walk away from the group, offering the other boys the option of amusement, rather than admitting his own
Olsen’s argument that the boys are just imitating adults than acting like adults in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is not valid because the boys aren’t trying to purposely be adults, but some of their actions of survival are of what an adult would do. This perspective is flawed because the boys are in a survival mode so trying to create order and authority isn’t a sign of imitation, but rather a sign of responsibility and although yes adults are responsible that doesn't automatically mean that the boys are imitating adults. An example of this is when the boys first crash land on the island and Piggy says, “I expect we’ll want to know all their names, ”said the fat boy, “and make a list. We ought to have a meeting”(p11). As soon as they crash land he makes plans for order.
Jack ruled with, what we call today, an “Iron Fist”. Golding shows this by telling how Jack ruled, how he’d beat those who didn’t obey him and how he was violent, greedy, and self-absorbed. He rolled a boulder down the mountain the killed Piggy and organized a party to mutilate Ralph. By this point in the story, he was so infatuated with power that he didn’t care about being rescued and that he was willing to spend the rest of his life on that island just to be the leader and ruler of all everyone. This is Golding’s way of showing how Jack had become so obsessed with power that he would kill anyone who said he was unfit for it and have a public “example” to show what would happen to those who opposed and threatened his
Once all the boys decided that they needed fire to get rescued, Jack was on board with it until he lost his innocence: “‘Rescue? Yes, of course! All the same, I’d like to catch a pig first-” He snatched up his spear and dashed it into the ground. The opaque, mad look came into his eyes again.” (Golding 53). Once jack losses his innocence that is when pretty much all of the chaos starts to happen. Jack begins to not care about the main goal, which is being rescued. He instead just wants to hunt and kill pigs. With Jack being very influential to most of the boys, he controls much of what they decide to do. Most of the boys follow Jack’s lead because they probably do not want to get on his bad side; however. they need to what Jack wants so they do not get potentially killed by him. Ever since Jack lost his innocence, his evil impulses control a lot of what he is doing: “‘They hate you, Ralph. They’re going to do you.” “They’re going to hunt you tomorrow.’” (Golding 188). Jack’s innocence is completely lost when he decides that he wants to kill Jack for no good reason. The evil from within him is encouraging him to do immoral things like to hurt other by physical abuse and killing of animals and human beings. Once Jack decided
When the boys find out that there is a “monster”, Jack thinks that Ralph should not be a leader because he is a coward. Jack tries to tell the boys that Ralph does nothing for the tribe and Jack has done everything for them: “[Ralph’s] not a hunter … he just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing” before saying “all this talk” to which Ralph responds, “Talk, talk! Who wanted it? Who called the meeting?” (126). Jack then blushes and sits back down “[glowering] up under his eyebrows” (127). When someone has power and tries to be controlling they normally have everyone’s full attention. We can see when Jack tries to take over the situation he ends up embarrassing himself. Jack expected to be the authority of everyone, but instead, most of the boys agree with Ralph, including some of the hunters. We can see when Jack gets “schooled” by Ralph when Ralph takes control and uses his leadership skills, Ralph glowers and is infuriated by the
When it comes to Jack’s fear of not being chief, it brings out the worst in him and it has an effect on others. For instance, when the boys are deciding on who should be the chief, Ralph wins by a landslide. “Even the choir applauded; and the freckles on Jack’s face disappeared under a blush of mortification” (Golding 19). That is the first physical evidence of Jack being humiliated by Ralph and judging by Jack’s personality, he is not used to failure so it has a big impact on him. This motivates him to destroy Ralph and the rivalry between the two begins. Another point is that Jack uses fear and threats to control the boys. For example, when Robert tells Roger “’He’s going to beat Wilfred.’ ‘What for?’ Robert shook his head doubtfully” (Golding 176) it shows that Jack is violent and is using his...
In the novel Lord of the Flies, the author William Golding shows the ideas of how outside forces impact human choices. Golding uses the conflicts in the book to present the ideas
However, at the end of the book, he simply stood for a common human being. In the beginning of the story, before a formal introduction, Ralph was described simply as “a fair boy.” This already sets him out in a favorable light. Then it further describes how he is apparently good-looking and has the natural air of leadership. Of course, the conch played a big role when the kids voted him for leader, but his appearance played a large role as well. For the good first part of the book, Ralph has always symbolized leadership. As the story progresses and the kids became more and more distant from the idea of civilization, Ralph became more like a representation of common sense. Golding wrote, “‘I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can’t even build huts-then you go off hunting and let the fire-’ He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a peak of feeling. ‘There was a ship-’” At this part, Ralph criticized Jack for not doing the necessary civilized things in favor of quenching his thirst for a hunt. As more and more of the kids become more and more uncivilized, Ralph became one of the last voices of common sense. When Simon and Piggy died, Ralph was the last one who retained that common sense and yearned for civilization. He had no leadership powers left anymore, and he stood for nothing more than a