Assess The Significance Of Ralph's Leadership In Lord Of The Flies

Elected as leader of the island, at the beginning of the novel, Ralph represents the need of order, civilization, and productivity. He focuses on what the desired needs of himself as well as the other boys are. “’You hunters! You can laugh! But I tell you smoke is more important than the pig, however often you kill one. Do all of you see?’ He spread his arms wide and turned to the whole triangle. ‘We’ve got to make smoke up there – or die.’" (Golding, 86-87). This quote displays how Ralph is attempting to maintain order and civilized behaviour. By being the first to tell them what to do and by showing initiative and by setting goals for the boys to follow, he is creating a plan that will help the boys get rescued. The power and influence Ralph

Towards the end of the novel, Ralph reverts to his old ways, questioning if they will ever make it off the island. Although, he fails to show his hesitation to the other boys, many worrisome thoughts roam through his mind. “‘I’m chief’, said Ralph, ‘because you chose me. And we are going to keep the fire going. Now you run after food--” (Golding 150). At this point in the novel Ralph starts to lose confidence, but is still trying to make it seem as if he is strong and no facing all these questioning thoughts. When leading the other boys, Ralph tries to avoid losing all hope to maintain the control he has. If all hope is lost no one will ever listen to him. Several of the other boys have lost hope and care less about surviving anymore and only care about the good time they are having. At the very end of the novel when Ralph comes across the sailor and breaks down into tears, all of the scary feeling of not coming out of this alive were relinquished. Overall, throughout the novel Ralph has drastically changed from a energetic, confident, and powerful person into someone who is pondering thoughts, second guessing decision, and losing

He is helpful and caring towards the other boys and relates to their normal human actions. Later, however, Ralph grows apart from Piggy, which is the good side, and grows closer to Jack, the bad side of human nature. The ego of the human personality is represented through Ralph; he must compromise between the attitude of Jack, following under the id category, and the superego thoughts of Piggy. Jack believes that he should have the freedom to do what wants and it doesn’t matter what the outcome is,while Piggy believes that decisions made on the island should be logical and they should follow the rules of the regular word. After the death of Piggy, deciding what to do next is hard for Ralph. As a result of not knowing how to act or what to do Ralph reverted to the id part of someone's personality, trying to no longer be Jack’s