Lord Of The Flies Critical Analysis

In Lord of the Flies by John Steinback a group of young boys are stranded on an island. To survive the boys decided to vote who should be their leader, Ralph or Jack. Piggy is a smart, fat boy who is not respected by the boys. Ralph is the face of leadership but not the best for the job compared to Piggy. Piggy is the brains behind Ralph who gives the essential idea to further progress the island.

In order for Jack’s desires of being leader to become true, he must first weaken Ralph’s authority. In Ralph’s leadership, the rules where short and simple. Them being: Ralph was the only one who could interrupt the boy who was holding the conch, bring water from the stream and store it, and to keep the signal fire from burning out. The flaw with this rules is that whenever someone broke these rules, there was no true consequences. Jack uses these cracks to cripple and break Ralph’s rule. After crippling Ralph’s system, Jack only has to get others to rebel with him. An exploit that Jack uses to lower Ralph’s following. Having the choirs boys and his experience of leading them made it easy for Jack to gain respect and authority. “ ‘I ought to be chief,’ said Jack…. ‘because I’m chapter chorister and head boy,…’ ”(Golding, 28). After Jack rebelled, he took a move from the Book of Genesis and brought down some of Ralph’s old followers to join him and later leaving Ralph with no one but himself. Another way Jack takes Ralph’s followers is through hunting. Hunting was a big role on the island, because it provides food and entertainment. Jack was most skilled at doing so through practice and will power. Since more of the boys enjoyed the hunt, Ralph only had the conch to

“In a 2005 survey about gay bullying statistics, teens reported that the number two reason they are bullied is because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender expression”, according to bullyingstatistics.org. It has also been shown that those who are bullied themselves often go on to bully others because it is all they know, or that bullying covers up their own shames. The character Jack Merridew in Lord of the Flies is not evil like many would argue, but rather is ashamed of the fact that he is gay and closeted. This is supported by the hunter’s casting off of religion and government, Jack’s inability to hunt unless in front of other boys, and the beast as a symbol.

“When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed”(Rand). This was stated by Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand; the extract relates to the novel William Golding wrote called Lord of the Flies. Golding wrote about a group of schoolboys trapped on an island from a plane crash. The boys had to figure out how to survive without grownups. Trying to survive was difficult because they had to have common sense and order. They lose those traits throughout the book which resulted in selfishness and corrupt behaviors.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a classic novel and portrays just how the society surrounding us can corrupt our once pure nature No one is born a killer, no one is born with an intense compulsion to kill, the island that the boys are stranded on has a very unusual, corrupting society; A society that erodes the boys innocence through the power struggle between Jack and Ralph, readers see the transfer from innocent to savagely through the hunting and Piggy’s death.

What went wrong in the Lord of the Flies? Some may say Jack and some may say Roger, but what are the real reasons for the downfall of the boys? They are, the loss of hope, the loss of order, and the passing of time.

“We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we 're capable of” (Phil McGraw) one once said. In Lord of the Flies the characters wear a social mask that opposes their true feelings. Written by William Golding, the story revolves around a group of boys who become stranded on an island and must depend on themselves to survive. They elect a chief, a boy named Ralph. However, as the story progresses, the group become influenced by Jack, an arrogant choir chapter boy. Intriguingly, although they desire to be with Jack and join his tribe, the boys remain with Ralph for most of the story. The rhetorical triangle, which analyzes a speaker or writer based on three ideas- ethos, pathos, and logos-, helps many to better understand the children’s actions and mentality; ethos focuses on the credibility and ethics of the speaker while pathos concerns how the speaker appeals to the emotions of the audience and logos is about the speaker’s use of evidence to appeal to the audience’s sense of reason. The boys stay with Ralph because of Ralph’s use of ethos but prefer to be with Jack because of Jack’s use of pathos and ethos which shows Golding’s message- humans were masks.

Lord of the Flies is a novel written by William Golding. It is about british schoolboys who are stranded on an island after their plane is shot down. They are on the island with no adult supervision. Their group is civilized but turns to savagery. In Lord of the Flies, Golding uses the characters of Ralph, Jack, and Roger to symbolize that there are violence, evil, savagery, and good that exist in every society.

“‘And you shut up! Who are you, anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do. You can't hunt, you can't sing—’” (79). When the boys land on the island, they are innocent and still affected by the rules that society had put in place for them. But as the children realize the extent of their freedom, they begin to become corrupted. Without morals or elders to keep them in line, the boys question authority, avoid responsibility, and become rebels who are obsessed with doing whatever they can to escape their duties. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Golding proves that everyone has a flaw that could potentially corrupt them and harm others if society is not present to keep them in check using the characters of Jack and Roger, who bring chaos and

Ralph is a good leader but most of the boys follow Jacks lead because of a few reasonings and one of them being that he can hunt and he provided them with food. Even though it was uncooked meat at least it was protein that needed. At this point in the book William Golding has been foreshadowing how the boys split into two “tribes”. One of them being Ralph and the other of course being Jack. Ralph is the nice and kind leader who wants to get off the island. Jack is the type of leader who rules with fear and power. His power as being able to provide meat for his people.

Human nature is like a stream. The people are the water and the direction of the stream is the evil that nature is leading humans towards. Throughout life, evil has always been present and sometimes we fall victim to these type of corruption if pushed to an extent. For example, in the Cold War, conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union had become so grand as to almost ensuing a mutual assured self destruction almost killing innocent people and destroying many nations. Evil is not born, but rather it is created from the situations you are facing. William Golding was part of this Cold War and in it he learned of the evil that men possessed

Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s famous novel, reveals the influence that personal advantage can convey in human decisions. The novel describes the diversity in the fundamentals and corruption of power, exemplifying the lure of personal advantage in contrast to a moral sense. When first on the island, the boys held a common view of order and leadership, in which they gravitated to the evidence of classical social order they found in Ralph. As time progressed the group of boys stranded on the island experienced a change in mindset and they rebelled against the classic expectations of society, as the lack of adults on the island led the boys to decide what actions needed to be taken. Jack corrupted Ralph’s authority using the lure of personal advantage and reciprocity, and the conflict between Jack’s goals, driven by personal gain, and Ralph 's goals, driven by a moral sense, caused the boys to act against their morals and thrust Jack into power.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an allegorical novel that demonstrates some dreadful things throughout the novel which was a depressing account for human nature. The novel is extremely dark and it gives a sense that human nature is evil with merely any positivity in the novel. The boys faced problems with each other continuously and eventually the one whole group split into two groups; Ralph’s and Jack’s tribe. This sparked the savagery that Jack and his tribe had developed over their time on the island. Despite this, Ralph’s group was weak because they didn’t have anyone to protect them since they themselves weren’t the violent and savage person Jack was.

William Golding uses literary elements perfectly to describe characters and scenes in the novel. Focusing on the choir, we can see that Golding introduces the choir by calling them associating them as “creatures”. As they approach Ralph and the rest of the boys Golding writes “the sweating march along the blazing beach had given them the complexion if newly washed plums” (Golding 19). This metaphor compares the sweaty boys to a washed plum; they both are dripping of water/ sweat from the heat. Golding also uses a lot of imagery to describe the characters. “He was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red underneath … His face was crumpled and ugly”. (Golding 20). This quote by Golding illustrates Jacks looks. Golding tends to repeat the

“Isolation is a dream killer” (Barbara Sher). In the novel Lord of the Flies written by William Golding, kids stranded on an island must figure out how to survive. By hunting pigs and building shelters the kids tried to subsist on the island. Through the process of hunting, the kids became cruel, evolving to the point of being barbaric. Thus, through the barbaric actions of the boys and the outside world, Golding shows that savagery exists in all people.