Ralph Bullying Research Paper

In the book there is conch which gives the beholder of it power over the rest of the group. Jack knows that the group is torn on who should be their leader, so he does whatever is necessary to get the conch and control the group. Jack knows that the only way to do this is to make the group turn against Ralph. With power on his mind his begins to belittle Ralph and make the group think Ralph hasn’t been a good leader. This happens when Jack says, “Who are you, anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do. You can't hunt, you can't sing” (Golding 238). The group then begins to trust Jack because Ralph seems inferior compared to him. Once Jack has this power he begins to think that everyone who isn’t with him is against him. This leads to Jack killing Piggy to stop and uprising from him and Ralph. There is no way that a 13 year old boy would kill another classmate unless he was fueled with power like Macbeth was. Jack isn’t the only one in the book to let power get the best of him, Ralph also falls victim to it. Ralph begins to disrespect his best friend on the island Piggy when the book says “Ralph pushed Piggy to one side. ‘I was chief and you were going to do what I said’” (Golding 132). This quote shows how Ralph is willing to harm someone he care about just to show everyone including Piggy how powerful he truly is. Both Ralph and Jack let power cloud their judgement which

The concept of bullying in the school system has been linked to many homicides and

He is often subject to harassment because of his weight. When taking roll call, Ralph introduces him as Piggy, so that “ a storm of laughter arose and even the tiniest child joined in” (Golding 14). As shown by this quote, even the youngest boys think they are better than Piggy because they aren’t chubby like him. He is much heavier than the other boys, which is one of the factors that sets him apart. He is never even given a chance to introduce himself; he is just given a nickname that exploits his weight. After this, Piggy never even tries to properly introduce himself. He knows that whatever name he gives will be rejected by the boys who view themselves as superior to him. Those who are isolated are also commonly made victims of. Once his tribe abandons him, Ralph is warned by Samneric about Roger and Jack. Eric says “‘They hate you, Ralph. They're going to do you. They're going to hunt you tomorrow”” (170). At this time, Ralph is considerably weaker than he was at the beginning of the story. He has no tribe to protect him, aside from a few littluns. Piggy and Simon are both dead, and Samneric now are joined with Jack’s tribe. Because of this, Jack can more easily target and kill Ralph.

Jack shows pride by electing himself to be chief so he can be in charge. “‘I ought to be chief,’ said Jack with simple arrogance, ‘because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.’” This quote exemplifies how Jack volunteered himself to be in charge. Jack wanted to be above everybody, so he tried to convince everyone to let him be chief. He wanted to have power and authority. “We’ll hunt. I’m going to be chief.” This is yet another quote that shows how Jack was stubborn about how he believed he deserved to be chief. He did not bother to ask the others about their opinion on who should be in charge. Instead he just appointed himself. “His tone conveyed a warning, given out of the pride of ownership, and the boys ate fast while there was still time.” This quote shows how Jack was obsessed with the power of being chief. Jack scared the other boys into respecting him as a leader. Jack shows pride in these quotes, because he shows that he believes he should be chief, because he is superior to everybody. All of the other boys chose Ralph as their leader, so Jack creates conflict by challenging Ralph as chief. Jack trying to usurp Ralph as chief shows how he was putting his needs before those of the entire group. Jack was too prideful to allow Ralph to be in charge, and constantly challenged him as a leader. This conflict gets in the way of the boys being able to work together to try to survive and get rescued.

Having such a divers array of people living in such close proximity, and not being able to escape one another also influenced the attitudes, and actions of the boys. In normal circumstances, when two people don’t get along it is relatively easy to not be around them, and hang around with others in which your more compatible with. However due to the fact that they are on a rather small island, and that their society only consists of a few people, it is not so easy for rare intellectual to escape people with ideals opposite to their own. Therefore often suffers defeat. This is very true in the case of Piggy.

In this first chapter of Lord of the Flies, a group of boys find themselves stranded on an island. The characters of Piggy and Ralph are introduced and they immediately get off to a rough start. As an attempt to gain Ralph’s attention, Piggy reveals a secret about himself–that back in school, the other boys used to call him Piggy. As Ralph is laughing, Piggy states, “‘So long as you don’t tell the others–‘“ (Golding 11). Against Piggy's wishes, Ralph proceeds to call a meeting.

Their ignorance is evident when Ralph persuades the boys to accept his authority by claiming he wants to both survive and enjoy himself on the island: “This is what I thought. We want to have fun. And we want to be rescued” (p.37). But when he fails to prove such by prioritizing the fire, Jack uses it to his advantage when taking control, as seen when Ralph says to the remaining boys: “Sit down all of you. They raided us for fire. They 're having fun” (p.141), and when Jack attempts to recruit boys by saying: “Who’ll join my tribe and have fun?” (p.150). Jack uses the boys’ desire to have fun to gain support and popularity. Having fun is easy, careless, and freeing, which can often quickly turn into reckless and thoughtless. When they are given the choice choice to be free or listen to instruction, they choose the easiest and most appealing option, which does not include maintaining civil order. Piggy’s intelligence is also ignored by the boys such as when Piggy has the conch and claims he has the right to speak, but: “[The boys] looked at him with eyes that lacked interest in what they saw” (p.44). An overload of knowledge, like in Piggy’s case, can bore one’s audience and make people dread their appearance, and lead to mockery and chaos. Also, Piggy falls into the category of the stereotypical “nerd”. This is evident from the beginning: “He came

“‘I don't care what they call me,’ [Piggy] said confidentially, ‘so long as they don't call me what they used to call me at school.’[...] ‘They used to call me 'Piggy.’(11)” Here, one can see that Piggy’s real name is not actually Piggy but, is meant to endure such a horrid name due to his looks. His body size causes the children around him to make fun of him and from then on, the name sticks with him till his very last moments. On this new island with new faces, Piggy’s suffering starts with the horrid name. From the moment Ralph tells the other boys about his name, the boys immediately start to treat him as a different person. These boys realize that on such an island with no other source of entertainment, the only other resort for these children is Piggy. One would assume that Piggy’s intelligence would be able to write off the insults and discrimination, but to these children, his intelligence served as a vulnerability as the boys use it to make him seem different from the others. Overall, Piggy acts as a source of entertainment for the boys. They want fun. They wanted entertainment. They want to enjoy the life without adults when they have the chance.

Piggy clearly requests Ralph not to reveal his nickname, but Ralph tells the other boys without his consent. Ralph does not stop the injustice shown towards Piggy or the humiliation he suffers. This reveals his ineffectiveness as a leader because he does not make decisions or take actions that are necessary for the wellbeing of everyone. Many more unfair incidents take place later on in the book that may have been avoided if Ralph realized the importance of Piggy earlier in the novel, before everything slipped out of his control. Furthermore, Ralph does not demonstrate concern for everyone’s safety. Piggy attempts to talk sense into the boys and make them realize their mistakes, however Ralph fails to take action when the boy with a mulberry-coloured birthmark disappears. His reply to Piggy’s question is “muttered [...] as if in shame”: “‘Perhaps he went back to the, the-’” (47). Ralph’s lack of empathy and initiative is clearly shown in this passage. By being unable to provide an explanation, Ralph proves that he does not view the disappearance of a young boy as a serious matter. He once again breaks the trust of the boys while they remain unaware of his unfair actions. Although a majority of the island’s inhabitants appear unconcerned, Ralph acts unjustly when he chooses to do the same. He does not take the responsibility to search for the boy with a mulberry-coloured birthmark. Instead, Ralph simply “muttered [...] as if in shame” and tries to

When Ralph made fun of Piggy for looking different then all of the other kids, The other kids were laughing along. Piggy felt like he didn't belong there since day one, all because of these kids. All of the emotional trauma that laughing at a young kid for looking a certain way can really put an emotional toll on a child. He has extreme anxiety now all because of situations like these. When Piggy had some great ideas like having a bigger signal fire, They all laughed and blew him off like he was nothing. Another time would be when Piggy lost track of one of the kids. The others wouldn’t help Piggy watch all of the kids and learn their names. Piggy was all on his own and one of the kids wandered off. Piggy didn't notice until it was too late and the child died. All Piggy was doing was trying to do something nice and nobody wanted to help him. So, when all the kids found out that one of them died, they didn't care. They didn't want to step up and take responsibility of the actions that

He is the type of kid that is overweight, and the boys make fun of him for not only his chubbiness but also do not care much for his glasses, despite how useful they are to lighting the fire. Furthermore, he is spoiled and that is most likely one of the reasons Piggy is so chubby, as well as a reason that Ralph does much care for Piggy at the start of the book. Piggy has asthma and, because of this, it makes him even more of an easy target to be poked at especially since the boys on the island do not really know what asthma is. All of these reasons were enough for the other boys on the island to think Piggy is lesser than the rest of

Ralph's first description about Piggy is the “fat boy” and this is a great example of how Ralph first sees Piggy as nothing but fat. “The fat boy waited to be asked his name…the fat boy stood by him breathing hard…’on account of my asthma and I’ve been wearing specs since I was three’”. Instead of asking Piggy his name Ralph refers to him as “the fat boy” only because of his overall appearance Ralph refuses to learn his name and when Piggy informs them of his asthma and his eyesight they judge him more, this is a perfect example of how the other characters judge Piggy because of his overall appearance. Piggy is once again ignored because of his physical appearance when jack says to him “‘there isn’t anything we can do. We ought to be more careful’. ‘I’m scared’- jack dragged his eyes away away from the fire ‘you're always scared Yah- fatty’” (Golding 45). This quote demonstrates that instead of listening to Piggy Jack rolls his eyes and calls him fat this shows that instead of respecting Piggy Jack decides to shun him down because of his perceived

The boys stop having respect for Piggy, and immediately they having no respect for each other. “Ralph pushed Piggy to one side... Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy’s head. “ and a few pages later “Eat! Damn you! He glared at Simon. Take it.” Immediate disrespect arises, not just to Piggy.

Ralph and Jack and their ideas to survive are very different compared to Piggy and his ideas. These show how Jack and Ralph are still not able to understand that they are on a island and they will eventually die in the future, and when told that they do not care. Throughout the story, Jack is very aggressive towards others and likes to be rude to others purposefully. However, Ralph is rude but he does not he is rude towards people, and he does not know what to do as leader, survival wise. These characteristics show how they are not suited for leader because they do not take suggestions from others and also are rude to other which creates a biased opinion towards a suggestion.

Piggy just wanted some recognition but it said, “They looked at him with eyes that lacked interest in what they saw...” The boys really do not care for Piggy and brush him off. It also says, “Unwillingly Ralph turned away from the splendid, awful sight,” when Piggy tried to talk to him. He wouldn’t have done this to anyone else, but he did not want to hear what Piggy had to say. They act like he is a bug, only acknowledging him when he does not go away. They are annoyed with. From the way the boys act towards Piggy to way he acts shows how awfully he is