Ralph's Natural Rights

In the novel the lord of the Flies, Golding uses Ralph’s responsibility and Jack’s persuasiveness and authority to argue that effective governments must be both fair and able to keep peace in a country.

     Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel that represents a microcosm of society in a tale about children stranded on an island. Of the group of young boys there are two who want to lead for the duration of their stay, Jack and Ralph.  Through the opposing characters of Jack and Ralph, Golding reveals the gradual process from democracy to dictatorship from Ralph's democratic election to his lack of law enforcement to Jack's strict rule and his violent law enforcement.

In Lord of the Flies by William Golding the different views and beliefs of Ralph and Jack and the need for power in both boys’ segregates the group and

The story “lord of the flies’’ by William Golding, the novel correlates to the philosophical views of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. John Locke was an English philosopher that surmised man's natural moral compass would point towards good, Locke's philosophical writings stated “ that individuals in a state of nature would have stronger moral limits on their actions. Essentially, Locke thought that our human nature was characterized by reason and tolerance. People, Locke believed, were basically good’’ ( Locke and Hobbes Overview 2). John Locke thought if people were given no rules they would make a paradise, flourishing in law, order, and structure, Thomas Hobbes believed people were naturally cruel and chaotic, with a need of a strong ruler to make decisions. Hobbes stated, “Who felt that mankind was inherently evil and required a strong central authority to ward off this inclination toward an immoral behavior, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish’’( Locke and Hobbes Overview 2 ). Thomas Hobbes believed a strong iron-fisted ruler was needed for the safety and well being of a society. The ideals of man in a natural state, follow Thomas Hobbes philosophical view represented through Jack's brutish and monarch like attitude which lead to them living in a dystopian society.

Imagine a world without order. A world with no leadership—no rationality whatsoever. Take Ralph's character away from the equation and William Golding's Lord of the Flies would be just that—chaos. Being the protagonist of the novel, Ralph is the major representative of civilization, order, and productive leadership. If it weren't for Ralph's coordination, determination, and logical thinking, the boys would never be rescued, and would eventually die. As the novel progresses, Ralph's self-confidence is gradually chipped away, leaving him only enough strength to fight for the one person who should matter most—himself.

The Lord of the Flies is a story about a group of boys who are stranded on an island. There aren’t any adults with them because the plane they were on had crashed and the pilot died, he had been the only adult with them. That main character Ralph is elected chief of the boys and is supposed to be in charge, but finds it hard to keep control. Ralph believes the most important thing is to keep the fire going, so that if a ship passes by they can get rescued. As the story goes on dissent begins to form among the other boys. The leader of this dissent was Jack. He had wanted to have control from the beginning and was fed up with Ralph’s rules.

One major conflict in The Lord of the Flies is man vs. society. Ralph is good for the island society because he concluded there need to be rules and order so that the boys stay balanced and are concentrated on getting recaptured. “ The rules! ‘Shouted Ralph’ You’re breaking the rules!” pg. 130 Ralph is fighting for civilization, he is trying to make everything is coordinated, all he wants is for all of them to get rescued. Society need rules in order to be civil, because if everyone was not civil, the world would be turbulent. Ralph is the leader of the “tribe”. When Jack separated from the group and made his own tribe it all became crazy. Jack’s group was chaotic; however, they did know how to hunt and they had the ability to start a fire because of Piggy’s specs. One boy states, “We did everything adults would do, what went wrong” (Golding). When boys from Ralph's tribe decided to leave and start their own clan then everything started becoming chaotic. If they all would have stayed together they would have had trouble getting along but at least it wouldn't be hectic. Ralph did the best he could trying to keep everyone from going insane. Ralph represents humanity, and jack represents savagery.

Lord of the Flies is an extraordinarily well-written novel that teaches one how to live life. When asked about the philosophy of the book, the author, William Golding, replied, "The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectful." This completely exemplifies the theme of the novel. Lord of the Flies truly shows that it is not the government that determines survival, it is the sheer human nature in all of us that proves whether a society can function. A person's personality will always trump another person's because of difference

For example, following Ralph’s election as chief, he sought to distribute power, “Ralph looked at him [Jack], eager to offer something… ‘Jack’s in charge of the choir. They can be一 what do you want them to be?’” (Golding 23). As Ralph comes to power, he immediately delegates some of the power to his opposing candidate to create a literal democratic structured government on the island. This decision shows that a democratic government in the real world, contains structure and a distribution of power to seek the will of the majority. In addition, Samuel Hynes, in his Several Interpretations of “Lord of the Flies”, comments that, “He tries to establish and preserve an orderly, rational society; he takes as his totem the conch, making it the symbol of rational, orderly discussion,” (Hynes 59). Possessing an “orderly, rational society”, remains one of the key elements in any democratic governing body in the real world. The rational and orderliness allows for equality among voices and presents everyone the opportunity to speak, one of the fundamental qualities of democracy, as seen with the conch. In a like manner, Ralph establishes the freedom of speech in assembly on the island early in his, “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking,” (Golding 53). Wisely, Ralph establishes a system that allows anyone to speak their mind, they only need the conch and everybody else must listen. Although different from a conventional free speech policy, Ralph’s method still works, giving everybody the chance to voice themselves, regardless of whether Ralph or anyone else agrees or disagrees with them. Much like a real democracy, any can voice their opinion, indirectly with large populations, creating the defining principle of successful

Golding used Locke’s idea of revolution in Lord of the Flies; the right to revolution is a duty in which the people must overthrow the government if it fails to protect people’s rights (We the People 7). In Lord of The Flies, Jack believed that progress was not being made by Ralph’s government, and their rights were not being protected, so Jack left the small group and established a “tribe”. The tribe gained power as children began to join began Jack’s “tribe”; there was almost no one left in the original democratic group (Lord of the Flies). Jack did not like the first system with Ralph in charge and started a revolution, confirming that William Goldberg was educated in Locke’s philosophies. Locke's idea of revolution was just as important to government as Rousseau's idea of equality

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which is set during World War II, English school boys, escaping war in England, crash on a deserted tropical island. From the protected environment of boarding school, the boys are suddenly thrust into a situation where they must fend for themselves. In order to survive, the boys copy their country’s rule for a civilized life by electing a leader, Ralph. He promises order, discipline, and rules for the boys so that they form a small civilized society. This civilized society does not last. Struggling with Jack who wants to be the leader and the boys’ fears of the unknown, Ralph is unable to maintain control, and the boys fulfill Golding’s perspective that human

The Lord of the Flies is a gruesome story about young boys stranded on an island, who underwent a transformation from polite British choir boys to savage hooligans. One of the main difficulties the boys face during their adventures upon the island, is their method of government, they either follow the path of Ralph, the democratic leader whose main focus is to escape the despairing island; or Jack a power-hungry monarchical leader who won't ever take no for an answer. The two boys are constantly bickering and arguing over who deserves the leader-position. We all understand Ralph wants to be leader so that he can ensure that the boys will return back home, but in Jack's case, it is a constant mystery to us about why he

Civilization can be destroyed as easily as it is created.  Without the walls of society, humans are capable of committing actions that they would have never thought possible.  Lord of the Flies focuses on a group of boys who are alone on an island without authority. The novel reveals what can become of humanity without the presence of authority.  In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the protagonist Ralph symbolizes leadership, civilization,  as well as the loss of innocence.  Ralph is the closest resemblance to authority that the boys have on the island.  His appearance plays an important role in him signifying authority, “You could see now that he might make a boxer, as far as width and heaviness of shoulders went, but there was a

Power is key part of the book “Lord of the Flies”, the topic of power in the book can relate to a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr., “I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right, and that is good.” In the book there are two characters that can somewhat relate to this quote, one character affirms the quote and one refutes it. Ralph is the character that affirms the quote he uses his power to help the community not use his power to command the community. Some actions that Ralph takes that shows are “If we have a signal going they'll come and take us off. And another thing. We ought to have more rules. Where the conch is, that's a meeting. The same up here as down here.” This shows how Ralph tries bring the

There are different ways to run a society. A society can be run by a group of leaders, a dictator, or even no leader or dictator at all! Many philosophers have different points of views on how to run a society so people can live the best life. In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, different characters have different views on how to run a society. These views represent each of the philosophers view. Lord of the Flies is an allegory for the different philosophers’ speculations of “the state of nature.”