Jack And Ralph's Leadership In Lord Of The Flies

Madrinan, Shaina

Per. 7

Mr. Kaipa

Lord of the Flies/LOST Comparison Essay “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” (Albert Camus) To this day, there are many people who exist to have respectable qualities and diverse personalities, but in reality, humans have a side to them they aren’t aware of until they are forced to face it. In the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the idea of natural human character is portrayed through the story of a group of boys crash landing on an island without any adult survivors. The elected leader, a surviving boy named Ralph, is shown to be fighting against human nature in favor of organization and discipline. He also uses his kindness in leading the surviving group of boys. Likewise,

Jack shares Ralph’s stubbornness and good-natured personality while Sayid and Ralph are shown to prioritize their leadership by using organization and prioritizing. One of the characteristics that helped Ralph survive on the island for as long as he did was his determined and stubborn personality towards civilization and order. In Lord of the Flies, Ralph showed his determined characteristic by upholding his position as the chief of the group of boys. “‘Let’s stay here-’ ‘Back to the shelter-’ ‘I’m tired-’ ‘No!’ Ralph struck the skin off his knuckles. They did not seem to hurt. ‘I’m chief. We’ve got to make certain. Can’t you see the mountain? There’s no signal showing. There may be a ship out there. Are you all off your rockers?’” (Golding, 98) This shows that Ralph is determined to assert the fact that he is the chief and that the boys need to stay focused and civilized while they are on the island. When they start to go off topic or get lazy, he stubbornly forces them to get back on track with their main goal in mind, which is to get rescued. In addition, Ralph also conveyed his strong persistence

In the book, during the fight between Ralph and Jack about the shelters, Ralph had argued that “‘if it rains like when we dropped in we’ll need shelters all right. And then another thing. We need shelters because of the… They dream. You can hear ‘em… They talk and scream. The littluns.’” (Golding, 47) This displays that Ralph was thinking, not just of weathering the rain, but of the littluns when he was building the shelters. He wants the littluns to feel safe while they stay on the island where the supposed “Beastie” is lurking. This is similar to how Jack, who had good intentions, gave Claire, a pregnant woman in the drama series, sleeping pills because he wanted her to rest feeling that she and her baby were safe. (LOST, Season 1 Episode 10) In addition, later in the book Ralph had said “‘...we’d have given them fire if they asked.’” (Golding, 155) This shows that despite the split between the group of boys due to a fight, Ralph would have willingly helped Jack’s group by giving them fire if they had just asked for it. He knew they would need the fire eventually and would have gladly helped the opposing group of boys despite having some hard feelings against some of them. Relating this back to Jack from Lost, the doctor traveled between both groups on the island. Throughout the episodes, he is shown relaying water to the beach group so the other survivors would be able to drink fresh water like the cave group.