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Authority And Leadership In The Lord Of The Flies

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The authority and leadership of the ‘Lord of the Flies’ ' is one of the important themes. This power relation is divided into a symbol in the novel which is a dictatorial system with Jack as the leader, a democratic system with Ralph as the leader. Boys are in a shocking situation without any other choice. In the island, the boys themselves established their own new system and created society. There is no adult who precedes the role of authority, so the children resume power and assume roles. With this authority, the boys lose their innocence and become violent. It is the purpose of this essay to examine the various types of symbols used in novels and to show how they are tied to social power relations. If an airplane falls on an abandoned island without civilization, everyone can suffer injury especially children. First of all, if there are children without adults, many boys are embarrassed to do not know what to do. With these traumas on, boys learn to grow very quickly. Many innocent boys behave more violently because they are simply lost because they simply do not know the behavior of adults. They see violence as fun. Normally, adults will lead the role of authority and lead the children to stabilize their life on the island. But on this island where there are no adults, children begin to make their own society. At first, Ralph finds the 'conch ' and uses it to gather the children on one side of the island. Then, after opening the meeting, everyone started to talk
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Ralph, carried away by a sudden thick excitement, grabbed Eric's spear and jabbed at Robert with it,”(Golding 114). This citation illustrates not only the brutality created by the mob mentality but also how easily they turn on each other and find fun in torturing each other. Another instance such as the one of the boys on the island is depicted in William Golding's article where boys turn to brutality, “In Russia after the First World War, there were, I believe, gangs of children who had lost their parents. Dispossessed, without anywhere to live or anything to live on, they roamed the country attacking and killing out of sheer cruelty...left to themselves, these children found a kind of elemental cohesion in their viciousness.” To further the connection much like the boys on the island after experiencing much disappointment and inhumanity it was easy to turn to savagery as they saw no other better examples.

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William Golding’s Lord of the Flies depicts many different types of authority. Despite the fact that Piggy has the potential to gain authority, only Jack and Ralph have authority over the boys in the novel. Although they both have authority, Jack and Ralph rule as chief in very different ways. Ralph rules through order while Jack rules through fear, and a system of reward and punishment. Golding shows that authority based on desire and fear always triumphs over authority based on order and reason.

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Which is about a group of young boys that are marooned on an island for quite some time and have to make their own society. Ralph steps up as the leader of the boys but later on in the book, the position is taken by Jack which turns chaotic. The chaos leads to many problems within the group of boys. In the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it is shown that individuals make up society, Jack’s tribe shows this by controlling the boys with his beliefs, and making up his own rules that break the initial ones, although, the opposing side may say that society shapes the individuals. Beliefs are important in creating a society because it can organize the members values, however Jack does it tyrannically.

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The Cost of Contrasting Leadership In the 1940s, William Golding experienced the Second World War - a grave time of horrible happenings. Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, witnessed the different approaches to leadership during war, and how these approaches shaped society in various ways. The theme of differing leadership types is evident in Lord of the Flies, set during World War II, in which a plane crash leaves a group of British school boys stranded on an island. In the book, we are introduced to two boys in pursuit of power - Jack and Ralph.

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This shows the human nature of children and men when they are away from society and order for a long time. If they do not get what they want, then they will drive themselves crazy trying to fight and in turn, become savages, who are focused on killing and hunting. They are blinded by their anger and illusions that they forget about the real point, which is trying to escape from the island and their new goal is to kill each other off so they alone can be the chief of the island, but eventually all the boys will have to end up dying from natural causes or battles if they are not saved by a ship. Their morals are ruined and this leads to further chaos on the island. Once the chaos starts to happen on the island, Ralph also starts to rethink his idea of being chief.

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Ralph is a source of leadership and authority to the castaway boys on the island. Ralph processes the Conch, the only physical manifestation of authority and society on the island, this symbol is identified and given it significance by Ralph. Ralph is a lasting source of authority, and therefore the former society in which the boys lived in. Ralph’s rationality and natural leadership skills allow him to recognize the need to create a stable and peaceful society on the island that is the exact opposite of the war surrounding the eden that they inhabit. Ralph’s leadership is one based on a positive view of humans as civilized, and founded in morality, which ultimately fail: Socio-political and religious readings of Lord of the Flies converge, not only in the figure of the beast, but also in the question of law: the children 's rules.

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Democratic power can be used to control a society, as well as establish a closeness as civilians. To lose sight of this can mean the corruption of a civilization caused by the lack of order. One’s choice of independence in order to better the chances of their survival requires complete dedication and willingness to risk. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Ralph loses his democratic power due to his failure to ensure survival and protect the boys as a leader. Ralph’s failure to lead the group is due to his initial and chronic independence and inability to compete with Jack’s followers, accounted for mainly by fear.

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Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a novel that revolves around the concept of civilization versus savagery. The boys argue about points that eventually split the boys amongst themselves. These disputes come up multiple times over the course of the novel. One of which being the fight over the leader of the boys. Some believed the leader should be Jack while others believed it should be Ralph.

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Kaylee Tran Ms. Cruz English 2A (5) March 2, 2023 Stealing Authority Written by William Golding, Lord of the Flies is a novel about young British boys who, stranded on an uninhabited island, are forced to find leadership and order among themselves. In the beginning of the novel, the group of boys vote for Ralph to be chief, but as the story progresses, the power begins to shift to a boy named Jack who acts as the catalyst for the violence and savagery that the boys engage in towards the end of the novel. Although others may claim that as chief, Ralph should bear some responsibility for the tragic events that occur at the end of LOTF, Ralph is in fact not at all responsible because Jack diminished all of Ralph’s power when he ignored Ralph’s

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Leadership Abuse in Lord of the Flies The famous 17th century poet Jean de la Fontaine once said “Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.” When the children in Lord of the Flies find themselves stranded on a distant island with no adults to be found, they encounter many forms of power, hence encountering many forms of abuse of power as well. This power abuse can be organized by the two leaders who each ruled the island during their own periods. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding utilizes these leaders, Ralph and Jack, to illustrate how people in positions of power will abuse their power for personal gain when given the opportunity.

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“Power is dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best.” When the young boys first gathered after the crash, they were civil, mostly well behaved boys until the need for power took advantage of them. Two crucial symbols from the novel are the sow’s head and the conch shell. Each of these symbols represent power however, their powers have different meanings.

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Authority is what creates order, so when authority is lost, chaos reigns. In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, authority is needed on the island so that chaos isn’t created. Authority is needed for survival, hope, and order. Survival is based on authority. People look up to authority to tell them how to survive.

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In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ralph and Jack compete to have the title of chief, this illustrates Golding's message that in society dictatorship can be more successful than democracy. Characters in this novel resemble people in WWII. Jack is a symbol of dictatorship and Ralph is a symbol of democracy. Though in the beginning of the novel Ralph had control, Jacks dictatorship caused him to take total control. Between the two boys Jack is the more successful leader.

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Meanwhile, in Lord of the Flies, the situation is very different- several young boys have crashed onto a uninhabited island and have to find a way to survive. In the absence of any structure, the boys wreak havoc on the island, despite their efforts to create a working system of authority. George Orwell’s 1984 and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies provide differing views on the relationship between individuals and society, understood through characterization of Winston and Jack, and the social hierarchies present in each text. Orwell and Golding’s opposing views on the relation between society and the individual are apparent in their uses of characterization concerning Winston and Jack, respectively. In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, after Jack neglects building shelters in favor of hunting, Ralph is unhappy.

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In the book The Lord of the Flies we can see that many conflicts happen while the kids are in the island, most of these conflicts are struggled to be solved. The main conflict and the one that I 'm going to be talking about is the conflict between Ralph and Jack, were both boys compete for power. Ralph is more civilized and tries to make a fire and build tents while Jack is more of a savage who uses violence and wants to hunt all the time. Its is easy to see that in this literary piece the author uses many conflicts to make the reader visualize wants happening in the island. Ralph is voted by the boys to be the leader of the group, in the book he represents leadership, civilization and order.

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