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Lord Of The Flies Character Analysis

Decent Essays

In the fiction novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the main character, Ralph, and a group of boys are stranded on a small island after their plane crashed. In the opening of the story, Ralph and another boy, Piggy, call the other boys on the island to a meeting. One among them is a power-loving boy, Jack Merridew, who is controlling and aggressive. Soon, tension began to grow between Jack and Ralph because Jack focuses on hunting pigs for meat while Ralph dedicates his time to making fires and building shelters for survival. In the climax of the story, the boys divided into two tribes - Jack’s tribe and Ralph’s tribe. Throughout the story, the social order that the boys had established slowly disintegrated as the boys’ innocence was lost and evil and savagery comes into play. Through the struggle for power, the lack of responsibility that the boys had, and the desire to hunt, Golding shows readers the importance of social order in a group of people or society. First and foremost, through the struggle of power that is shown between the boys, Golding demonstrates to readers the importance of social order in a group of people or society. For example, in the exposition of the story when the boys were voting for a chief, Jack tried to persuade the boys to vote for him instead of for Ralph by arrogantly saying, “I ought to be chief… because I’m chapter chorister and head boy” (22). Through this event, Golding signals the start of conflict between Jack and Ralph. The

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