Piggy's Leadership In Lord Of The Flies

In the novel The Lord of the Flies, a group of boys crash-land on an island without adults. Although the boys were quick to appoint a leader, the leadership role struggled to be filled adequately. Leadership is a role not to be taken lightly; a great leader is one with character traits such as patience, intelligence, respect, and communication. Throughout the novel, it was evident that Piggy was the boy with the majority of these qualities (regardless of his lack of confidence—most likely due to the constant bullying he receives from the other boys because of his weight, his asthma, and his glasses).

Piggy’s most apparent leadership traits were respect, communication, and patience. When the boys first land on the island and begin to group together, Piggy was the first to take the time to learn each boy’s name. The boys found a conch shell and determined that it were to be held by the boy who wished to speak to the group; Piggy helped to enforce this rule when a small boy with a birthmark on his face stepped up to talk. As the boy reached out for the conch, the group laughed at him and

For example, when the boys determined that the beast lived atop the mountain where the signal fire was located, they thought they had to go without a fire in order to stay safe from the beast. Piggy quickly came up with a solution to this issue and suggested that the boys moved the fire to the beach. Although the beach did not offer the greatest visibility for the signal fire, it was still far away from where the beast presumably resided (129). Throughout the novel, Piggy repeatedly stressed the fact that the boys needed to remain together in order to survive on the island. Piggy realized that if the group were to break apart, the little bit of civilization and order the boys had left would be lost (which happened later on in the novel—after Jack broke away and started his own tribe, Simon and Piggy ended up getting