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How Is Power Shown In Lord Of The Flies

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Recommended: Lord of the flies as an examination of power

Michael Kuchar Mrs. Hollmier English II Honors Pre-AP 17 May 2023 A quote on power, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Dalberg). In society, there is a great struggle to gain power and keep power. In the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, there are characters in the book who are granted the ability to have power. When these characters are granted power other characters grow jealous and think they deserve to lead. There is also a boy in the book who struggles against the boys with power. In the novel, the characters that display having power are Jack and Ralph, but the character that struggles against these boys is Piggy. Undoubtedly, in the novel, Lord of the Flies Ralph is the best at managing his …show more content…

Jack is a great example of not having power to get to the top. Jack at the beginning of the novel has to fight from the bottom for everyone to respect him and give him that power. Jack never sees eye to eye with the leader and this leads him into wanting to be chief of the people. The first time where he undermines the leader is, “Ralph spoke again, hoarsely. He had not moved. "You let the fire go out." his repetition made Jack uneasy. He looked at the twins and then back at Ralph. We had to have them in the hunt," he said, "or there wouldn't have been enough for a ring. He flushed, conscious of a fault. The fire's only been out an hour or two. We can light up again” (70). At this very moment, he is showing that he does not care that Ralph wanted the fire, he wants to follow his own agenda and could care less if they get saved. Jack is not showing qualities that leaders should show at the moment because great leaders will look to do actions that will benefit the people in the future. This, however, does not play a factor in whether the boys follow him or if they do not. Jack in the book, once he achieves the feat of gaining power, starts to abuse it. One instance, when Jack does this is, “He's going to beat Wilfred. What for? Robert shook his head doubtfully. I don't know. He didn't say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He's been―he giggled excitedly―he's been tied for hours, waiting―But

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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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People are overly ambitious in wanting to take power from the person who has the most of it. In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding a group of boys, none who are older than 13, are deserted on an island after their plane crashes. The boys make a sort of government and elect a leader, they create rules and have fun. This was in the beginning though over time the boys start to become more savage and brutal they start to lose their once civilized nature and end up killing some of the other boys. In the Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, power corrupts people by limiting others without power, searching for more power, and losing yourself for power.

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While Jack is on the rise for power, he talks bad about Ralph to the boys in order to make himself stand out more as a leader by providing

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Once he got the power, he became this brutal and abusive leader because he was so deprived of power previously. He beat people because it elevated his power and because he could. Multiple things made Jack change, but greatest were savagery overtaking him and the need for

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Jack’s unearned power is used to not have responsibilities. “...a great log had been dragged into the center of the lawn and Jack, painted and garlanded, sat there like an idol” (Golding 149). Jack wants to be the one in power so that he wouldn’t have to do any real work, and can order the boys around. He wanted the power so he could do whatever he wanted. In Whittaker’s real life case he is foolish with the money and the power that came with it.

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Jack was corrupt, starving for power, and ruthless. But he didn’t always show it. In the beginning of the book, he was simply rude and uncaring. He was upset at not being elected leader, but was happy leading the hunters. Gradually, as order fell and Ralph’s control decreased, Jack gained more power.

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Powerful or Powerless The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an interesting novel that shows many different circumstances that happen to civilization, for better or for worse, through the actions of children. Ralph, the main character, and Piggy open up the novel, strolling through the woods on this island that they have been stranded on after surviving a horrible plane crash. From their knowledge, there were no adults that survived the crash, but there were other boys on the island that they had yet to meet. By coincidence, they found a perfect conch shell in a pond nearby, and they summoned up their first meeting where Ralph and Piggy met Jack, a character that thinks he is born to be the leader and doesn’t care what anybody else thinks about it.

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Powerful or Powerless The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is an interesting novel that shows many different circumstances that happen to civilization, for better or for worse, through the actions of children. Ralph, the main character, opens the novel up with Piggy. The two boys are strolling through the woods on this island that they have been stranded on. They had survived a horrible plane crash, fleeing the land that they came from, hoping to find somewhere safer to stay.

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Power is a stunning instrument that can either build towering nations or destroy them. Under certain hands, civilizations can prosper and achieve goals far beyond human comprehension; but in the hands of savage and irrational beings, civilization can dissolve into madness. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a groups of young boys are stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. The boys try to build a temporary society until they are rescued, but as time goes on their civilization begins to suffer as leadership and power is tossed around. Soon, power is put into the hands of more savage people, such as Jack or Roger, until their civilizations crumble.

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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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William Gaddis, an American novelist, once stated that “Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power”. In Lord of the Flies, the characters fight over the holder of the conch which gives them leader roles. In the novel, Ralph leads with the sake of law and order while Jack leads with the sake of war and savagery. As the story progresses, Jack’s need for power grows as does his corruption. The power makes him feel stronger, building his self esteem, which ends up causing him to separate and lash out on his peers.

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' said Ralph. "I'll give the signal... Keep the fire burning’(Golding 53). As a result, Ralph is portrayed as an instrument of power among the boys, as he is able to influence their decisions, in this case building a signal fire on the mountain to try and attract the attention of any passing ships, as well as using a conch to let them know who is speaking and

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The desire for power is one of the strongest human drives. In Lord of The Flies by William Golding there is a constant struggle for power between the main characters, Ralph, Jack, and Piggy. Ralph has power because he was voted chief and uses his power in an ugly way. Jack is struggling to get out of Ralph's power and gain his own power. The boys’ struggle for power is an ugly struggle and the author uses this to demonstrate the ugly struggle for power that is human nature.

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In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows the progression of absolute power, and how ambition can take over one's mind. Stranded on an island after their plane crashed, the boys create their own democracy with one absolute ruler, just like many other governments throughout history. The boys voted Ralph as their ruler, but Jack slowly starts to take some of Ralph’s power, and eventually usurps him as their chief. Lord of the Flies suggests that absolute power is corrupt, and that humans are overly ambitious in wanting to take power from the person who has the most of it. Just like any large group of people, the boys decide that they “ought to have a chief to decide things” (Golding 22).

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