The Importance of Government As Shown In "Lord of the Flies"

Jack respects Ralph as a leader and another alpha, however deems himself the higher qualified to lead the group; bringing forth a vote for a chief. However, the choir boy followers weren’t strong enough in numbers to counter the seemingly endless supply of little kids that voted for Ralph. After this unexpected result, Jack develops an instant grudge towards his only competition for power. Ralph begins to form a democratic society solely focused on rescue; yet jack has other plans in agenda. Under Ralph’s seemingly boring command, Jack develops other outputs for his primal necessity of dominance. Jack begins focusing on the task of hunting animals and finding weaker beings to prey on. Jack even blatantly leaves the rescue fire to chase after a pig; had he not have done so, the group could have possibly been rescued by the boat passing by during the fire’s absence. Once Jack finally has enough of going in circles with Ralph, he makes the decision to shake off Ralph’s influence and create his own niche. Within Jack’s tribe, lifestyle is greatly different to that of one designed by Ralph. Jack and his followers seemingly devolve into primal beings, as Jack gets his fill of power. Control over others was all that Jack longed for, with a crazed and burning

As the French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu believed, a system of checks and balances of power are necessary to have a society. William Golding had written the Lord of the Flies, a book about a group of young boys stranded on a island needing to find ways of survival. His book portrays how Montesquieu's idea of checks and balances are needed to make an ideal community. On the island, Jack and Ralph were the two boys that seemed most fit to be leaders among these stranded boys and at first the island was a safe place for living, until Jack gains more and more control where the levels of authority are not equal. With Jack having most of the control, there is an absence of balance and this absence of balance between powers on the island causes the boys turn to savagery and chaos. Golding writes of the boys failing to have a mindset of surviving together by living their life on the island with an imbalance of power to govern themselves and by having this imbalance, the boys kill each other and destroy the island to rise in dominance, which is what Montesquieu predicted would happen if there was no checks of power and balance between sides.

Jack insists that since Ralph had never hunted and provided meat for the boy’s he shouldn’t be chief; the other boy’s disagree, and, upset that he has not proven himself to the boys, says, "I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you… I'm going off by myself. He can catch his own pigs. Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too" (144). Jack then walks off, and many of the boys follow him and leave Ralph behind; in doing this, Jack takes a good portion of Ralph’s tribe, as well as much of Ralph’s dignity as a chief. Later, Jack names himself chief of the other group of boys. He uses his power to make rules, all of which establish that Jack’s side of the island is different from Ralph’s; "We'll hunt. I'm going to be chief… I say this. We aren't going to bother about the beast… And another thing. We shan't dream so much down here. This is near the end of the island" (146). In his anger, Jack created a society based on what children want instead of what adults need, which Ralph had. Jack has made himself the opposite of Ralph out of

He has a disagreeable attitude toward them and uses Piggy’s glasses to his advantage. “Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks.” (71, Golding)  When Jack slapped Piggy and broke them, that resembled the full disorder and chaos experienced on the island. It showed how far the group has come from orderly civilization when the glasses are misused and not being used for smarts or reason anymore. The glasses are also one of the last remaining tools from the outside world. The boys use this tool, instead of more primitive means, to light the signal fire which shows the initial desire for order. But the glasses, like the conch shell, are broken by savagery. When the glasses break, the last link the boys had to their past society is broken.

Jack still wants the others to believe the beast still exists in order to keep fear in the boys and have power over all the boys.Moreover, due to the beast Jack is in power and the boys turn into savages.The boys on the island believe in Jacks rituals and look for some “protection” from Jack.Jack performs rituals and dances to influence the boys into believing he is keeping the boys safe.The boys believe Jack since none of the boys have been killed or harmed ever since Jack began to protect them.Jack wants to be the leader since the beginning. In the beginning, when boys chose Ralph based on his looks, Jack is not pleased.Therefore, Jack is able to scare the boys with the beast and keep control over the boys.Moreover, Jack believes in savagery

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies presents a story of a group of boys who become stranded on an island together, and in their struggle to survive; some begin to fight for power. Having power makes them feel in control of their situation; however, this power struggle quickly begins to consume them. Golding uses the power struggle between Ralph and Jack, the two main characters, to illustrate the power struggle between good and evil.

“Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide,” said John Adams, the first Vice President and second President of the United States of America, at the beginning of the modern world’s greatest democratic nation. According to Adams, democracy never possessed a long term future, and the boys on a tropical island in William Golding’s classic novel, Lord of the Flies, make a great example of a crumbling democracy. A democratic government works with the people to serve their best interests and requires participation from it members to function properly. Meanwhile, totalitarian

By disobeying Ralph’s rules, Jack is trying to weaken the rules. Jack still has an effect on the boys, and his breaking of rules weakens the their will to follow them. In a later meeting, Jack claims that Ralph “isn’t a proper chief” and that “[he’s] going off by [himself].” Jack’s departure weakens Ralph’s tribe, since the choir has been with Jack before the crash on the island, and showed loyalty to him on the island. This results in a majority of the boys abandon Ralph for Jack. Some of the non-choir boys go off with Jack’s tribe, because of the beast they want protection from. They believe his hunters will supply that. Jack is no longer under control, but is now in control. Jack’s department of the tribe, and weakening of the boy’s opinion on Ralph leads to his desire for power being satisfied.

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 the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding emphasizes the essential values of a democracy to the people on the island through Ralph’s democratic leadership style and goals and Jack’s controlling and manipulative. These two leaders of the tribes draw a parallel reflection on the two leaders of World War Two, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler. Lord of the Flies beings with a plane crash in the middle of the ocean; the boys are left alone on an island without any adults, fending for their lives. Ralph steps up after being elected leader, but Jack declares himself the leader of the hunting tribe and ends up recruiting most of the boys to transfer into his group using paranoia and abuse. Throughout the book, the boys lose their grip on humanity, civilization, and morality leading to deaths of some of the boys and the struggle to keep a democratic society to survive the island until rescue. Similarities can be seen between Ralph and Roosevelt as well as between Jack and Hitler throughout Lord of the Flies.

In the novel The Lord of the Flies a group of young boys are stranded on an island after their plane mysteriously crashes.I believe that William Golding was getting the point that a society cannot function without a basic set of rules and boundaries . Throughout the book their society does extremely well when they have leadership and simple laws to keep the boys in place. When Jack decides to start anarchy and disrupts the balance of their system everything goes to hell. In the time Ralph was in charge one small boy died on the mountain but it was an accident in the time Jack was in charge two boys were brutally murdered, this just validates my point that a community can not survive with no laws or rules.

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

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

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