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Piggys importance in lord of the flies
Personality traits and leadership styles
Piggys importance in lord of the flies
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What does it take to excel as a leader? This question is asked more than once can imagine and must be a self-asked question by a leader himself. To be an effective leader, it is important to have strong administrative skills. Leadership is an important responsibility and leaders must have qualities such as intelligence, compassion, and integrity. Since people confide in higher powers, those in leadership should have lead with control and confidence. Leading should come from a passion which that evolves into a purpose. In the novel, The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the character who exhibits the most effective leadership is Piggy. His display of integrity, passion, intelligence, and focus makes him the best choice to lead the boys on the island.
Effective leadership must be accompanied integrity. Piggy demonstrates integrity throughout the story. An example of this occurs in chapter 11 when Piggy states “I just take the conch to say this. I can’t see no more and I got to get my glasses back. Awful things has been done on this island. I voted for you for chief. He’s the only one who ever got anything done. So now you speak, Ralph, and tell us what. Or else –” Piggy broke off, sniveling. Ralph took back the conch as he sat down. “Just
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The fire. My specs.” Piggy’s ability to remain focused, enables the others to regain their attention and get back on track. Regardless of the fear that Piggy is experiencing, he is able to pull Ralph out of the heat of the moment and redirect his attention. Being a leader comes with many distractions, however, Piggy proves repeatedly that he not only is able regain and remain his focus, but lead others to do the
The first step into being a successful leader is taking initiative. A good leader has to show they are in charge and are willing to take control of a group. In “Lord of the Flies”, Ralph takes initiative right from the beginning of the story. As Ralph and Piggy meet the other group of boys on the island, Ralph takes control by raising the conch which is the item he uses to get the boys to meet. He then says, “Seems
...ing the boys know that if they do not stay prim and proper, rescue will be the last thing on their minds. Piggy is the brains of the group, he is the one with all the answers. When the boys first start the fire they want smoke, but Piggy is the only one who knows why, “Course we have. ’Cos the smoke’s a signal and we can’t be rescued if we don’t have smoke” (Golding 173). Ralph’s boys all just want to get off the island at this point, they are tierd of fighting Jack and his sneaky devious ways of getting what he wants. By stealing the glasses he has an edge on everyone and the power of fire, so Piggy is trying to come up with a way to keep the smoke signal going so they can still attract any passing ships attention. With all of Piggy’s genius ideas he shares with the boys to stay safe and civil on the island, he really is not paid back with the respect he deserves.
( Golding, 87) When everyone else was afraid, he just thought that " if there's something wrong, there's someone to put it right". ( Golding 87) This shows that Piggy was levelheaded and he knew that the only thing to fear on the island were themselves. This is like he knew that the cause of breakdown in the society would be from themselves. While piggy and Ralph were able to keep order almost successfully, others would leave because they were in to not having rules and just having fun without actual work and effort being put in to help them along. Ralph says, "Piggy, are you the only one left? No there's Samn'Eric." This is later in the book and it shows how people are able to ignore the rules. Only the moral and honest people stayed with Ralph and Piggy To try and be saved. The rest were bloodthirsty savages and left with Jack to hunt and Kill. Piggy also really respected Ralph. When Ralph was upset with the "accident" that happened with Simon, Piggy knew that even though Ralph was doing wrong things, he would work things out. Piggy helps to show how unnecessary it is to dwell on these matters saying "What good're you doing talking like that". (Golding, 156) Piggy knew no one would listen to himself, so he
Piggy is known for being the most intellectual and reasonable out of the boys. While the other boys are off fooling around and dreaming about their next adventure, Piggy is using reason to plan an organized method of survival on the island where everyone is satisfied. For example, while the other boys were exploring the island, Simon came up with an idea and said, “‘I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about a clock. We could make a sundial. We could put a stick in the sand, and then—’” (Golding 90). Although the boys can rule using any form of government on the island, Piggy attempts to create a civilized and orderly environment by advising Ralph to implement a democratic state. Despite his weak appearance, Piggy has a very strong moral compass and sense of self assurance, meaning, he’s very confident in the moral choices he makes. Since he bases his actions and way of thinking on reason and justice, he has a tendency to believe everyone should follow and share his methods because “rules are rules.” As seen when electing a leader, Piggy believed that because the conch and name system were his ideas, he should have been voted as leader, resulting in “Every hand outside the choir except Piggy’s was raised immediately. Then Piggy, too, raised his hand grudgingly into the air.” (Golding 29). Due to his strong confidence, Piggy is not afraid to act upon his beliefs and what is right, even if it may not be a popular
...ause he knew he was capable of doing a better job. He knew Ralph would take in concern of the opinions of others unlike Jack, but when Jack took power and one by one everyone was leaving Ralph's group to go to Jack, Piggy took the right decision and stayed with Ralph till the very end. “ We’ll live on our own, the four of us—four of us. We aren’t enough to keep the fire burning.”“We’ll try. See? I lit it.” Piggy had confidence and hope did everything Ralph told him to do because he knew Ralph was the best leader. Piggy and Finn both always tried to do what is right. Choosing from right from wrong is a tough decision and in both books their were so many decisions they had to take to be successful.
-Piggy is still hanging on to the slim amount of civilization left, as he forces Ralph to blow the conch even though there are only four boys left, proven when he says, “It’s all we got.” This shows that although ineffective, calling an assembly with order and talking in turn still comforts Piggy, and ultimately shows that he is still civilized.
Piggy’s leadership in the novel is portrayed as knowledgeable but lacks confidence from time to time. Piggy is shown to be a potential leader because of his wisdom. He portrays knowledge from time to time, for example, “We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They’ll come when they hear us-” (12). This exhibits his knowledge of the art of survival. Even though in the novel, Piggy is shown as the weak link, his wisdom out powers his flaws. Although Piggy has lots of wisdom which makes him a potential leader, he lacks confidence. “Piggy opened his mouth to speak, caught Jack’s eye and shut it again.” (42) This proves that Piggy lacks confidence because he is afraid to express his thoughts. He would rather not contribute to a conversation than be laughed at his ideas. However Piggy does see the importance of having priorities. Specifically, when he says, “How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper.” (45) The quote proves that Piggy prioritizes the needs of his pee...
People judge leaders not by the decisions they make, but rather the results they create. In the book, Lord of the Flies, Ralph's pathetic and inexperienced leadership induced the deaths of the mulberry-colored birthmark boy, Simon, and Piggy. Ralph’s first order, reconnaissance, while strategically sound, leaves little to desire due to its poor execution. After informing everyone that “[Fatty’s] real name is Piggy” and disrespecting Piggy in the process, Ralph gives Piggy an important job, keeping track of the littluns (Golding 21); Ralph proceeds to let his emotions influence him and decides to take his two new friends, Simon and Jack, to do “real exploring” (Golding 27). First of all, Piggy now has no authority over the littluns since Chief Ralph publicly humiliated him, moreover, Ralph’s actions degrade Piggy’s already distraught mental state; consequently making Piggy
“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.” (Plato) No democracy can be successful; they will always transmute to autocracy. It may seem as though a society where everyone is treated equally and has the same amount of power to influence others would be ideal, however this type of government is not effective. A legitimately effective leader can never allow decisions to fall into the hands of others, and must retain power over others at all costs. In William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”, Jack Merridew is an evident example of a leader that is truly effective, as he possesses a variety of aspects that can be
Vacant and windswept, the island sees various displays of leadership as the marooned boys attempt to create a civilization. Predictably, the boys began setting up their own form of government as soon as possible; humanity has an essential need for civilization. Two characters in particular exhibit instances of leadership while constructing a state and after. For example, Jack is controlling and does not consider the opinions of others; the boy is a paradigm autocratic leader. When starting his own tribe, Jack pronounces, “I’m going to be chief” (Golding 133), and doesn’t care what the others have to say. In contrast, Ralph promotes voting from the start, and continues to be a democratic leader until society falls apart. Even though Ralph seems
Throughout the characters that we have met, there was a lot of characters that have been through a good vs evil phase. Most of them have started with a positive note but ended with a negative outcome. In the book, “Lord of the Flies”, we were introduced to a intense character named Jack. Ralph was chosen to be leader of all of the boys. His leadership skills has grew to a constructive path bur Jack wanted to overrule him and have full power.
Piggy's literal function in this novel is to be the intellectual and logical thinker to counteract the emotional thinking of the other boys. From the beginning, Piggy viewed everything logically. He quickly came to the realization that the boys may be on the island for a long time, when he told Ralph "Nobody don't know we're here. Your dad don't know, nobody don't know" (9), contrary to Ralph's assumption that his father, who happened to be a naval officer, would simply come and rescue them. While Ralph became the natural leader based on his charisma, "what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy" (18/19). However, it is unfortunate that this intelligence eventually led Piggy to his demise. Piggy's direct way of analyzing a situation and voicing his opinion tended to make him quite un...
In the novel, Piggy represents intelligence and rationality because of how he thoroughly thinks through all situations that he faces and due to his exceptional ability to create simple solutions to any problem. At very beginning of the novel, shortly after emerging from the wreckage of the crashed plane, Piggy and Ralph first meet each other. As the pair walk along the beach, Ralph finds a conch, which gives Piggy the idea of using the conch to “‘call the others. Have a meeting. They’ll come when they hear us’” (Golding 16). Even after the initial shock of crash-landing on a presumably deserted island, Piggy is able to gather his wits and realize that their best chance of survival to gather all the boys and get some kind of organization established. Although Ralph found the conch initially, he was only attracted to it because it looked like “a worthy plaything” (16). Piggy however, unlike Ralph, immediately thought up a novel idea of how to use the conch to better their situation, by using it to gather everyone else, and to assess the overall predicament they found themselves in. Piggy was focused on long-term survival and sustainability rather than the short-term entertainment that the conch presented. People who have high levels of intelligence often possess extremely rational thinking methods. The Beast had begun to terrorize the mountain, particularly in the vicinity ...
To be a leader you need to be able to inspire others, get people motivated, and set an example to other people. A leader needs to do all of these because if one of these aspects fails people don’t look at the leader...
In Lord of the Flies Chapter 7, Golding symbolizes that in the game mob mentality occurred due to power vs leadership. Power vs leadership was being exemplified for example, when “Jack shouted. Make a ring! The circle moved in and round. Robert squealed in mock terror, then in real pain.” This is greatly important because Jack is heard directing the attack when yelling “make a ring” and thus as a leader subjugated the kids upon Robert. Furthermore, This shows that because of Jack's spurious act of leadership started forcing the younger children to take pursuit. Jack’s personality is adherently influencing the children around him for example, when “Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife. Behind him was Roger, fighting to get