In the beginning of the novel (chapter 3), Jack, the antagonist, is defiant and chooses to hunt for animals rather than help his fellow survivors build shelter on the beach. Jack angered Ralph due to Jack’s unhelpful actions to the point where their arguing was almost too common. Ralph was elected leader among the boys and when Jack was not elected, he needed to prove himself and he needed to gain the other boys’ respect if he was ever going to be in power. Their empire was already starting to fall just because someone did not get what they wanted. In chapter two, page 40,
In “Lord of the Flies”, the boys stranded on the island try to form a government. The government fails due to the lack of adult wisdom and experience. One of the boys, Jack, then leads some of the others to form their own separate tribe to have fun and hunt. Because of this, responsibilities are set aside whereas if an adult were there, they would keep control of the children and provide motivation so the jobs were done. The boys, later, come to the point of killing each other, which is because of the absence of adult supervision and self control.
They quickly transform from being civilized human beings to savages. The boys are alone and afraid of what the future has in store. Golding’s use of powerful characters demonstrates how the fears of others can be used to manipulate and maintain authority. Jack, a monarchical leader in the novel, has a dominant personality from the start. He is the controlling leader of the choir boys and is naturally intimidating.
The island society plan could have worked but due to the immaturity of twelve year old boys, it fails. Jack’s jealous of Ralph’s power, and decides the boys should go against civilization and become savages. This is a result of immaturity and because of this, there is a civil war. Another result of immaturity was when Samneric, Piggy, and Ralph go up to the tribe and try to maturely make things right with the savages, the tribe attacks Piggy and as a result, he dies. Samneric also got forced to go over and join the tribe and maybe, if they were more mature, they could have stood up for themselves and stayed on Ralph’s side.
His thirst for power led to the boys separating into two tribes. His actions also led to the murder of Piggy and Simon, and the turning from boys to savages while on the island. Another example of power corrupting is Roger’s power. When the boys split into two groups Jack gives Roger the “honor” of torturing the boys who disobey Jack. This gain of power only made Roger hungry for more and nothing could stop his reign of terror.
Golding intricately details the rise of a demagogue, JACK, through the development of the PLOT and the power struggle between the two major leaders, Ralph and JACK. Ralph struggles to provide for the wellbeing of the group, while JACK “want[s] meat’” (51). This opposition of values is essential to understanding JACK’s rise to power because while Ralph wants to take steps to increase the groups’ chances of rescue, JACK wants to “‘catch a pig first-’” (53) which reveals that JACK does not value the, more civil and less delusional, society outside the island. Like the others, JACK has lost his connections to reasoning and reality in exchange for power through extortion and fear. Ralph and JACK’s confrontation, essentially, sets the stage for the competition between Ralph’s path of civility and order versus JACK’s path of evil and demagoguery.
He becomes one of the prominent leadership figures and his interest in establishing a society aligns with Ralph’s, the first elected leader, but he shows a propensity for aggressive behavior by yelling that it would "serve [them] right if something did get [them], you useless lot of cry-babies!" (Golding 64). Choosing to attack the young boys for their fears plays into Jack’s fanaticism about his nearly-embraced island life. Becoming defensive about what he is doing for the group, he attacks the same people he attempts to govern. Later, the ideological differences between Jack and Ralph prove too great, and Jack sets fire to the island in his bid to kill him, “smoke...seeping through the branches in white and yellow wisps, the patch of blue sky overhead turned to the color of a storm cloud” (152).
simon also does stuff about people who are poorly treated. Simon represents the opposite of savagery. The battle between the id and the superego is shown during his encounter with the Lord of the Flies. In the end, William Golding's book Lord Of the Flies Freuds theory is shown by how the kids act as they turn from well behaved boys to bloodthirsty hunters with no desire to return to civilization. Because their superegos were not fully developed and they had no parental guidance caused them to be affected differently throughout Lord Of the
He can hold it when he's speaking.’” (Golding 36), which gives everybody a chance to voice themselves and support Ralph voluntarily. This strategy of gradually building a positive reputation prior to giving orders to the boys highlights Ralph’s ability to gain authority, whilst acknowledging that he is not superior to any of the boys. This is in comparison to Jack, who falls prey to the excitement of proving his hunting capabilities to the boys, using it as an excuse to lead the boys, which essentially serves as the cause of the chaos the island falls into. He eventually even destroys the conch, symbolizing his role as a catalyst in the loss of democracy, and thus
Ralph was the first of the boys that washed up on the island only to find that he wasn’t alone it wasn’t long before he met the other boys ,and was eventually chosen to lead all the rest of the boys which is why he is one of the main causes behind tragedies that happen on the island and why the boys split up into separate groups and begin to antagonize each other because him and the leader of the other group Jack didn’t share the same views as each other which only negatively escalated the situation. Instead of building shelters and signal fires like Ralph wanted Jack wanted to only hunt and kill. In the end, Ralph’s civilized nature couldn’t compete with the primitive and savage nature of Jack’s group and the iron fist by which Jack