Epilogue To William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

A recurring theme among leaders in many societies today is that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” (John Acton, a 1700’s English Catholic historian, politician, and writer). In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, this idea of leadership, power, and corruption is put in the spotlight. Jack, one of the boys on the island, forces his way into the leadership position without actually earning it. It is clear that Jack has become corrupt as he turns into a person who is intimidating, egotistical, and selfish. Ralph, on the other hand, is a quality leader under most conditions as he appeals to the boys’ sophisticated side and has a

wrote this after publishing Lord of the Flies. It is our world, in the form of a story. The two leaders in the story are Ralph and Jack. Ralph starts off a comfortable leader of the boys, but by the end of the book, Ralph and his companion Piggy are alone facing Jack and the rest of the boys. As the novel progresses and the society on the island starts to change, so does Ralph. He begins thinking he has all the answers, but comes to realize that without Piggy he would have never gotten this far. By the end of the book, Ralph and Jack are complete opposites. Jack is about savagery and fun while Ralph is holding on to society, rules, and civilization. Appearing to be a weak leader due to defection of his followers, Ralph is actually dedicated and insightful, only loosing his followers because he could not compete with one category that attracts nearly everyone in the world: fun.

Then, Ralph decides that the boys need to make shelters, so they will be safe and warm at night. But, Ralph and Simon end up being the only ones building the shelter, while Jack and his hunters are off in the jungle trying to kill a pig.

      After Ralph puts the conch down Jack snatches it up and starts blaming the littluns for all the fear, saying that they brought it upon themselves by believing in the beast.  Jack is angry about the

It may have taken millions of years for humans to evolve enough to create the sprawling civilizations known today, but it only takes a few months for a group of civil, educated boys to regress back into savagery. In his novel Lord of the Flies, author William Golding depicts a group of young British boys getting stranded on a deserted island sans adults. The boys must look out for themselves, forming a basic governing system and trying to survive. But the challenge soon proves too much to handle, and order deteriorates. William Golding conveys the universal theme of civilization vs. savagery in his novel Lord of the Flies using the literary elements of plot, setting, and characterization.

One day while one of Jack's hunters were supposed to keep watch over the fire, they went on a hunt with Jack to kill a pig. Meanwhile on the beach, Ralph, Simon, and Piggy are building forts when they realize that a ship is passing over the island. Then, they realize that the fire is out, so they sprint up the mountain but by the time they get there, the ship was gone. At the same time, Jack and the hunters had just come back from the hunt. They see Ralph and know exactly what their mistake was. So, Jack tries to lighten up the mood by saying to Ralph that he should have been there because it was so much fun. Ralph gets very angry at them and says that they could have been rescued if they had been watching the fire. In retaliation to Ralph's anger, Jack takes Piggy's glasses and breaks one of the specs. Then they try to rebuild the fire while Ralph is blocking them, and Ralph doesn't move. (Golding 65-75). "No one, not even Jack would ask him to move and in the end they had to build the fire three yards away and in a place not really as convenient. So Ralph asserted his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought for days. Against his weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built, they

Jack: “So this is a meeting to find out what’s what. I’ll tell you what’s what. You littluns started all this, with the fear talk. Beasts! Where from? not only the littluns, but my hunters sometimes—talk of a thing, a dark thing, a beast, some sort of animal. I’ve heard. You thought not, didn’t you? Now listen. You don’t get big animals on small islands. I’ve been all over this island. By myself. If there were a beast I’d have seen it. Be frightened because you’re like that—but there is no beast in the forest

Ralph thought Jack was being a baby and left him to cry. He told Samneric about his encounter with Jack before he went to sleep. Although Samneric didn’t say it, they thought Ralph was very rude to leave him.

The island life continues to be dreadful. Now, we all have something to fear. The Beast. Just this morning, Samneric were kindling the fire and they told me: “We’ve seen the beast with our own eyes and we were not asleep” (Golding 100). They were on fire duty that morning and they claimed that the beast was chasing them, but they somehow had the speed to outrun it. The littluns are scared to death now because of the sighting of the beast. However, Jack took it upon himself to organize all of the biguns to head up the mountain and hunt for the beast tonight. Now he is testing everybody’s courage, and he is not even concerned about being rescued. I had to call him out at the assembly this morning because he did not have the conch shell, but

Jack said “ We’ll raid them and take the fire.”. They are wanting to cook the meat. Toward the beginning of the meeting Jack called a meeting with the conch. Jack discredits Ralph by getting all boys more concerned about the beast and hunting it than be more concerned about the signal fire and getting rescued. Ralph says “So we can’t have a signal fire….We’re beaten.” .

Many times throughout the book, Piggy is the voice of reason and helps to guide Ralph along that same road if he loses his way. After scolding Samneric for being pessimistic about their fate, Ralph momentarily forgets the reasons why the signal fire is so important. "He tried to remember. Smoke, he said, we want smoke. Course we have. Cos the smoke's a signal and we can't be rescued if we don't have smoke. I knew that! Shouted Ralph" (Golding 172). Ralph begins to lose his initial cheerfulness and enthusiasm and replaces it with disinterest and pessimism. Piggy and Ralph separate themselves from Jack and his tribe and continue to maintain their "government". However, when Jack and his tribe kill a pig and invite Ralph and Piggy to join their feast, the two accept and cannot resist the temptation of the meat. Later on in the celebration, Jack and his tribe perform a ritualistic dance, in which Piggy and Ralph later join. "Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society" (Golding 152). They realize that the dance fueled the boys to murder Simon, and later deny their participance in it. "We left early, said Piggy quickly, because we were tired" (Golding 158). Ralph and Piggy recognize the evil in the dance, and know that if the others found out about their participance in it, then the boys would claim that Piggy and Ralph would be

They saw the dead pilot and his parachute, thought it was the beast, panicked, and ran back to their camp. They were telling the other boys about the beast chasing them and it's claws and teeth, which obviously wasn’t true. When Samneric told the boys that they saw the beast and described it to them it not only reassured the boys that the beast exists but it puts an image of it into their heads. The beast took Samneric and then took the rest of the boys. Ralph messes up when he tells the boys to leave the safety of the camp to go explore the last uncharted part of the island. This was a bad move as a leader because the boys are obviously afraid of the beast more than ever now and he’s forcing them to leave the safety of the camp to go

Chapter five focuses on the emergency meeting Ralph has called. He had hoped that he would address all the points orderly and regain control of the group. However, discussion breaks down once the other boys begin to talk of the ‘beast‘; this is something that has grown out of proportion after one of the little'uns saw the dead pilot on the beach and mistook his body for something alive

At the night meeting Ralph gets mad at Jack and says “You haven’t got the conch, sit down!” (102). Even though Ralph is very angry at Jack he dealt with the situation in a calm and civilized matter. When Jack and Ralph are arguing, Ralph yells in frustration,

After Samneric see the “beast”, consequently they rush back in panic to the camp, and awake Ralph to share the news with him. Which eventually leads to Ralph calling for an assembly. During the meeting, Samneric also claim that they were assaulted by the beast’s claws, when in reality it was just twigs that hit them as they rushed back to the camp. Naturally Jack suggests that they go hunt the beast while Piggy says that they should stay away because the beast might not attack them then. As usual, no one listens to Piggy so he gets stuck watching the littluns. Moreover, Jack continues to shout his opinions without the conch, making Ralph angry so he tries to correct him. Although, Jack fires back and makes a bold statement saying that it does not good to whomever is speaking. Eventually Jack and Ralph leave to search for the beast in an area that has yet to be touched. (Castle rock) The boys are afraid to through the walkway, with his obligation as a leader, Ralph goes by himself where he finds a cave, the other boys later join and start to push rocks into the sea and urge to build a fort on the new hill when, Jack suggests that the boulders can be used as a weapon so the location is ideal. Ralph angrily shouts and remind them that they are here to look for the beast. The scene ends with the boys following Jack (not Ralph) back to the mountain to rebuild their fire as they had no luck finding the beast.