Ralph, Jack, Roger, And The Savages Stepped On The Cruiser

I wake up from the comfort of General Zaroff’s bed. I get up and stretch, yawning. There was a lot to do. I get the up from the bed slowly, not wanting to leave the comfort of the bed, that I hadn’t had felt for three days. First of all, I have to get off this horrible island.

The isolation that comes with crashing on a deserted island affects all the characters, seen most dramatically through Jack. Being brought into this setting transforms the civilized choir leader into a savage hunter and murderer who’s given into his inner demons. When the boys first crash land onto the island, they were proper English schoolboys. Due to the separation from society, however, the boys start to regress, giving in to their more animalistic instincts. Jack starts off as the ‘‘chapter chorister and head boy’” who tries to take leadership of the tribe the boys form; he fails to do so, turning him away from order and reason (Golding 22). He neglects his duties and turns his attention to hunting the native pigs, prompting him to let the fire, their gateway back to society, go out; this pits Ralph against Jack, who represent civilization and savagery

Ralph concentrates on being rescued and Jack goes along taking on the responsibility that he and his choir will mind the fire. “We’ll be responsible for keeping the fire going-”, (Page 38) but while Ralph remains focused on being rescued, Jack’s new-found interest in hunting leads him to forget about rescue. “Jack had to think for a moment before he could remember what rescue was. “Rescue? Yes, of course! All the same, I’d like to catch a pig first-.” (Page 58) This also starts to show that Jack has entered the realm of savagery.

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

Ralph's character comes back stronger than ever before in the final chapters of the novel. At this point, like Simon had before him, Ralph becomes aware of the savagery existing within all the boys—including himself. "That was Simon," he admits to Piggy, recalling the barbaric act he took part in. Even upon Piggy's death, Ralph still manages not to let the savagery overwhelm him, only momentarily considering joining Jacks tribe for safety. His firsthand knowledge of his aptitude for sin builds his motivation to throw down the Lord of the Flies near the end of the novel. By the time he finally realizes the evil on the island is within the boys themselves, it is too late for Ralph to fight for anyone but himself.

“Listen, everybody. I’ve got to have time to think things out. I can’t decide what to do straight off. If this isn’t an island we might be rescued straight away. So we’ve got to decide if this is an island. Everybody must stay round here and wait and not go away. Three of us-if we take more we’d get all mixed, and lose each other-three of us will go on an expedition and find out. I’ll go, and Jack, and Simon.” (Golding, 24) The boys find that they are indeed on an island using Ralph’s intuition. “There’s no village smoke, and no boats,” said Ralph wisely. “We’ll make sure later; but I think it’s uninhabited.” (Golding, 30) Ralph concludes that they are alone on the island. Again we see Ralph using his leadership qualities to help the group

The naval officer took all the boys that were on the island to the ship. One by one they got on the ship and sat down quietly. Most of them thought about the things that happen on the island like what happen to Piggy and Simon and the littlun with a mulberry-colored mark on his face. Others thought about what they were going to do when they got home with their families and how their families were going to react. Ralph thought about his friend, Piggy, and how he got killed. Jack thought about his mom and what would happen if she knew what he did on the island. Everyone’s faces seemed shocked by the news that they were rescued. Ralph seem like he wanted to say something, but he was too shocked to even say a word. The naval officer asked the littluns what their name was but some of them did not even remember their names not even Percival.

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

Have you ever thought of having the same personality for the rest of your life? Many people would expect to have same personality for the rest of their lives, but "change is constant [and] change is inevitable" (-). This is well demonstrated in Lord of the Flies, as the character Ralph regularly changes his attitude in the face of unpredictable events. Further, Ralph undergoes massive changes in mood, due to his lack in leadership, thus ultimately taking away his role as leader. Lastly, in the term of the story, the belief in Ralph's order begins to significantly fade, ultimately sinking into savagery.

How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don't keep a fire going?". Also, another motivation that he has is living a life of civilized survival on this foreign island. In chapter 3, page 64, he says,"We need shelters". Also, another example, is that in chapter 5, page 107, Ralph states that if anyone has to go to the bathroom, that they use "those rocks right along beyond the bathing pool as lavatory...sensible...tide cleans the place up." This shows me that Ralph is utilizing his authority to try to make logical and sensible decisions in order to try to benefit the group as a whole. Ralph is not only concerned about the well-being of himself, but also about the welfare of his fellow "subjects". He tries to be firm and pushes them to try to construct shelters to live in, basic food and water to find, as well as the act of working together. Ralph is also motivated by his father, who happens to be a naval officer. In the story, Ralph says positive things as he remebers his dad, such as "...father's in the Navy...are'nt any unknown islands left...got a picture of this island... ", which leads the boys to feel "...cheerfulness and better heart...", on chapter 2, page 45. The way he speaks about

Ralph is good and resists the savage impulses, while Jack gives in and becomes wild. Ralph is distracted by the pleasures of the island but he takes responsibility and conquers his wild impulses to try and keep society intact on the island. He despairs at one point asking Piggy that “[s]upposing I got like the others––not caring. What ’ud become of us?” (p. 139)

They return to the group and tell them the news. The group decides that if they want to be rescued they'll have to make a fire on the top of the mountain. Jack suddenly leads the boys to the mountain where they build a ginormous pile of branches and sticks. They use Piggy's glasses to light the fire before they can think things through. The fire quickly spreads, burns, and dies out, leaving a major part of the forest charred. Piggy tries to talk some sense into the group but is shunned and laughed at, making him feel even more disconnected from the group. Jack tries to hunt pigs but is too scared, so he returns to the beach where only Ralph and Simon are unsuccessfully trying to build a shelter. Ralph and Simon have a small squabble about their priorities. The group becomes accustomed to the island and are beginning to understand how to cope with their new lives. Jack is becoming more crazed and is going to further measures to try to capture a pig for meat. He paints his face and makes a spear as well as recruiting other boys to help him. While swimming in the lagoon, Ralph spots a ship on the horizon and looks up at the mountain. The fire is out. Ralph sprints up the mountain to try to signal the ship but to no

Ralph blew the conch to bring to announce that they were having a meeting. In the meeting Ralph told the boys what they discovered on their journey. He addressed that in order to be civilized they have to set some rules, which was whoever had the conch should be the only one speaking. Someone ask Ralph who knows where they are and Piggy announced that nobody knows where they are. Ralph quickly address that the island is a good one so no one would freak out. After that was said a little boy came up and told the boys that he saw a beast in the dark. Ralph and Jack quickly assured everyone that there isn’t a beast on the island and the boy just had a dream about one. When that topic was over Ralph told the boys that they need to make a fire on

First viewing Ralph’s positive leadership, Ralph makes a small effort to keep an organized, rule-obedient, sanitary, sane society. For example Ralph assigns the choir boys the task of hunting for meat. Ralph also uses a conch to call the other boys for an assembly so they can discuss issues and solutions to arising problems. During one of the assemblies Ralph had brought the problem of the proper place to relieve themselves so they do not dirty the island, he plans to use the “tides clean up the place”(Golding 90).Ralph believes that “the most important thing on the island” is fire, because smoke can be used as a distress signal(90). Ralph cares for the fear the littluns have for “the beastie”(56).

Ralph lay there, wide awake as he listened to the boys he once led yelling at him from across the thick bushes. They had set fire to the area he had been resting in. He panicked, and shot up from the thicket, but it was no use. While he did try to run, believing running would be his best option in this horror he was faced with, he was unable to escape. The smoke was filling the entirety of his safe haven, where he had decided to stay in attempt to seclude himself from those who had turned their backs on him. As he watched the the leafy greens surrounding him turn to ashes, he heard the screams of the boys he once knew as a family of sorts. They too, had trapped themselves in this horrible attempt to assert dominance over Ralph.