How Does Golding Use Power In 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.

Jack’s thirst for power for the sake of dominance develops a sense of dictatorship. When killing the sow, the shift in Jack is clear. Jack no longer looks to control nor shield himself from savagery; instead, he embraces it: “His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink” (Golding 70). The sense of power Jack receives from his kill is enough to completely take over his actions. Power is a drug to Jack, and he has become addicted. This addiction continues to affect his life, and more importantly, the lives of those he has surrounded himself with. Dropped “He [Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling” (Godling 64). Golding uses juxtaposition and zoomorphism to inhibit this effect. Jack shifts from dancing to snarling in a matter of seconds, showing his vulnerability to the evil which has taken root in his heart. Jack is no longer human; he is a savage. It is known that money changes people. However, this is not true. With money comes power; power changes people. Jack has lost all control and power over his own life. So, he looks for control and power in the lives of others.

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel about a group of boys stranded on an island with no adults and no rules. Golding believes that humans all have a capability to do wrong, and through The Lord of the flies portrays how certain situations make a human’s capacity for evil more prominent. Golding shows how the boys’ civilization deteriorates from being good British kids to murderous savage people. The novel can easily be connected to the Stanford Prison Experiment, and how what happened to the boys on the island can happen outside the realm of fiction. Golding shows the reader what the Lord of the Flies is in the book and how the namesake of the book is found in all of us.

William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, explores what makes a person powerful, and the contrast between Ralph and Jack shows how power is gained for each of them. Ralph’s power comes from the mere fact that he has a conch shell in his hands, while Jack’s power is gained by him manipulating others and forcing himself into this position. This is due to three main reasons, which are:

Throughout the novel, the face paint that Jack and his crew used simultaneously masks their faces as well as their civility. The first mention of the facepaint is made when Jack is strategizing a way to sneak up on a pig and he decides to camouflage himself. Jack says that his “half-concealed face” is “for hunting. Like in the war” (63). The incomplete coverage of the paint indicates that Jack is not fully immersed into his savagery. However, his interest in aggressive acts, hunting and war, insinuates that he does have a tendency towards aggressiveness as well. Perhaps the most blatant reference to the fact that face paint induces savagery within the boys, specifically the hunters, is when Golding states that “the mask compelled them” (64)

Lord of the Flies is the name given to the inner beast, to which only

In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Piggy’s glasses represents power. During the night, Jack and his accomplices come to steal Piggy’s glasses to make his own fire. “They came for something else… Piggy’s broken glasses” (Golding 236). Jack with his savages attack Ralph, SamnEric and Piggy. After the fight, the boys realized that they didn’t take the conch, rather “they came for something else”. Jack and his savages ended up stealing “Piggy’s broken glasses”. This shows that the the glasses are valued more than the conch. Jack’s decision on what to steal shows that having Piggy’s glasses is having power because throughout the book that is Jack’s most desire. On the way to castle rock, Piggy is lead to the destination and demands Ralph

Fear is having yourself locked in chains, unable to do the things you want; a boy experiences this and over time is forced to realize this so that he may grow. He struggles at first, not used to doing things on his own. He fights against his inner demons, trying find a way out of the fear that holds him back. Fear is where the human body and mind immediately change behavior from calm to running away from harm's way. Fear corrodes the human mind, slowly and slowly etching away at one’s self. There are such things to escape such fear, one being hope. Hope opens up brand new possibilities, that fear shuts out for the human mind, being a positive approach to the human mind making it feel secure, joyful, as well as having the courage to do actions that fear was holding the person back from.

“We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire” (Golding 38). In The Lord of the Flies, a group of boys are stranded on a mysterious island during the aftermath of a plane crash.

Golding’s use of language in chapters three and four demonstrates how the boys evolve from innocent children to complete savages. At the start of the book, the boys purposely avoid killing a pig due to their fear of being murderers; this is because they still have their sense of innocence and civilization. While Jack is hunting for pigs, “for a minute [he] became less a hunter that a furtive thing, ape-like among the tangle of trees” (49). Golding writes that Jack becomes no longer a human but is “ape-like” to show how he is evolving into a savage. After Jack puts his charcoal mask on, “he beg[ins] to dance and his laughter bec[omes] a bloodthirsty snarling.” Golding’s use of violent language gives another example of the boys abandoning

“We may stay here till we die ”(14). When Piggy, one of the main characters in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, addresses the recently deserted boys who are stranded on a tropical island insinuating that they may never be rescued. Lord of the Flies is a book about how life on an island with fear and without adults can turn young, poised, innocent British boys into unrecognizable savages. A roadblock that the boys run into is the appearance of the imaginary phantom that lurks in the boys’ mind which they call the Beast . In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, fear is in multiple forms but, only exists in their mind.

The Power of Manipulation When individuals find themselves in unforeseen circumstances, outside forces prevail. For example, when there are kids gathering around to bully a person and an individual just stands there, they are letting the outside forces take control. Situations and environments are able to control and manipulate an individual. Situations can become so intense that they affect individuals negatively. In the book, Lord of the Flies Golding states, “Jack made a rush and stabbed at Ralph’s chest with his spear” (Golding 177).

In Lord of the Flies, Golding uses language and imagery to create a vivid description and emphasizes the significance of this event because through this event, the children establish a leader, the idea of freedom and destruction. When Piggy begins to pose the idea of creating a fire, he was told to “shut up” (43), however later when Ralph brings up the same idea, the children were in support of this idea because to the children, Ralph is a symbol of civilization, morality, trust and leadership. As the fire emerges, a patch that touches the tree trunk scrambles “up like a bright squirrel” (44). Golding includes the description of a bright squirrel because squirrels are very liberate animals that leap around the canopy on “the wings of the wind”

Lord of the Flies is a novel about the activities of some schoolboys who ranged between six and twelve and who had been dropped by an aeroplane on an uninhabited island. The subject matter of the novel shows similarities with the adventurous stories written in the 19th century. Those stories are romantic tales which stress on the discovery of the unknown land by the boys who are away from the Christian notion of original sin. But Lord of the Flies is a reconstruction of Ballantyne's Coral Island in which three British–school boys find out an uninhabited island which becomes a paradise for them.