A Civilized Society In William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

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Imagine a 12 to 13-year-old child. They probably worrying about their grades or about a cute boy/girl, not about how they were going to survive on a deserted island. That is what the young boys in William Golding's Lord of the Flies had to worry about. The audience is introduced to the cast of characters at the beginning of there book where they are stranded on a deserted island with no adults on it. The boys try at the beginning to set up a civilized society but throughout the book, it is shown how the lack of adults and rules cause there efforts and morals to slowly crumble. In the beginning, the boys initially vote Ralph as their leader and it can be seen how he tries to maintain and his influence over the boys, but he ultimately fails.…show more content…
His first rule was allowing everyone to speak as long as they have the conch. The conch is a symbol of their connection to society and it can be witnessed through the course of the book its power starting to wane until it is ultimately shattered in the killing of Piggy. The fact remains though that he tried to enforce freedom of speech in their society and this is similar to the qualities of a democratic society. Jack, on the other hand, is more of a dictator as he has stated “Conch!Conch! We don’t need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill or Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us-” (Golding 111). Jack shows complete disregard for the conch and as the conch symbolizes society, he is disregarding society as well. Jack believes certain people should be quiet and leave decision making up to a select few since only there opinions matter. This is similar to the thinking of a dictator where rulemaking is solely up to one person or a select few. This shows Jacks disregard for others opinions and really them as people while Ralph truly cares about his…show more content…
In chapter 3 Ralph and Jack get into an argument as Ralph states shelter is more important and that more people should be helping him and Simon to make them while Jack believes that hunting pigs is more important. While both are important shelter is definitely more important as it can protect them from the elements and will give the littleuns more security, as well as they already have fruits for food. Jack relies on the boys more primal instincts to gain power which leads them to forego common sense. Even Piggy states that the boys are being completely unreasonable and are acting like children as he says “Which is better-to be a pack of painted savages like you are or a sensible like Ralph is?” (Golding 200). Piggy here is acknowledging that Ralph is one of the last sensible ones on the island and is chastising the other to rethink if it is better to have fun and hunt or be a civilized human. At the end of the book to find Ralph the savages decide to set the whole island on fire. Not only are they setting the place they are living on fire they are also setting all there food and shelter on fire for one person. On top of that, they likely would have found Ralph without doing all this since it was one verse about twenty. Ralph main focus is to keep the fire going since he knows it is the only way to get rescued is to keep the signal fire going. As the boys start to shift more to Jacks side they start to lose hope of
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