How Does Golding Use Power In Lord Of The Flies

Stolen Power

People are most prone to abuse their power and become more greedy when they grow in luxuriance or are given more authority. The book Lord of the Flies by William Golding describes a group of boys who become abandoned on a deserted island and are forced to find ways to survive without the help of an adult. In the novel, William Golding illustrates the idea that as power becomes gained the amount of control gradually declines and dominance will be quickly abused.

Golding describes the theme of Good vs. Evil in his novel through his characters.

Jack is a very good example of one of the people who gains power and uses it against the ones lower than him, or abuses it. “I ought to be chief,' said Jack with simple arrogance, 'because

“According to the lore that’s grown up around the experiment, the guards, with little to no instruction, began humiliating and psychologically abusing the prisoners within twenty-four hours of the study’s start. This evidence proves that humans in higher ranking than others begin to misuse their authority. Such as how the guards were provided with too much power so they used it to their advantage and treated the prisoners much worse than how they should have been treated, such as mental and physical abuse. Toward the beginning of the book Ralph portrays some abuse of power, but nowhere near to the extent of where Jack crossed the line. "I was chief, and you were going to do what I said." (p.132-133) This shows how Ralph uses his power to order around the kids. He however does this in a responsible manner and allows them to grow when they are doing their duties on the island. Both the article and the novel give examples of how people with higher command use, take advantage of, and look down upon those with lower

Golding shows how Ralph’s dominance was earned and his respect was gained from the others. But also how Jack worked to steal that power from Ralph because he believed he deserved it. "And you shut up! Who are you, anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do. You can't hunt, you can't sing. I'm chief. I was chosen.” (p.238) The evidence shows how Jack takes the power which shows authoritativeness. While Ralph was chosen and voted against Jack to be the chief which shows democracy, which is what they all wanted. Jack was able to easily take this role of power in their civilization because of the fear he gave to the others. They were so scared of him that they became loyal because they knew what he would do if one of them betrayed him. "I don't know. He didn't say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up"(p.159)This evidence shows that when Jack became enraged with the others he ordered them to tie up Wilfred for no particular reason. This shows how he abuses the authority he took by ordering the boys to do things that they shouldn’t do; and of course the boys follow his orders because they didn’t want the same things to happen to them. They follow Jack out of terror of him and what he could do. Golding makes it known that as the book goes on Jack begins to feel more and more like he should be chief, and so if he can’t earn it he has to take it; and once he had