Leadership In Lord Of The Flies Essay

Adolf Hitler was able to destroy his government’s previous parliamentary democracy and create a dictatorship to bring about a fascist state hell bent on killing people he deemed not worthy. But for Hitler to get access to all this power he was able to convince normal, ordinary citizens to side with him, begging the question: how are leaders able to appeal to good, civilized people in order to carry out their despotic ideals? William Golding, through his novel, Lord of the Flies, answers this question and explores how human nature works. In the novel, young English boys are stranded on an island without any adults and are forced to form their own civilization. However, things quickly change for the worse when the boys begin to turn on each other.

Early in the story, the boys start the foundation of their society and work together to figure out how roles will be distributed, and rules set in place. At the mention of rules Jack interrupts to exclaim, “’We’ll have rules!... Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks ‘em-”’ (Golding 33). Straight away, Jack’s eagerness to enforce punishments is shown, emphasizing how he likes the idea of hurting others. Normally leaders wouldn’t be so keen on punishing their followers, but readers can immediately see how Jack is interested in the consequences of the boys breaking the rules, instead of focusing on the rules themselves. Despite this, Jack later gets fixated on the idea of going on a hunt and starts breaking Ralph’s rules by ignoring the conch and shouting, “’Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong—we hunt! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat—!’” (Golding 91). This rapid change in beliefs shows how Jack only follows and takes advantage of rules when it benefits him, instead of for the greater good. Additionally, Jack exploits the little boys' fears by presenting himself as a hero who will hunt down the beast, so that the littluns idolize and turn to him for protection. However, there is no beast, and Jack only reinforces the idea of one to scare the young boys into following him. Through repetition in “beat and beat and beat” Golding highlights Jack’s

As the boys are voting for a chief on the island, they all gravitate towards Ralph because “there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch” (Golding 22). Golding sets Ralph apart from the rest of the boys by portraying him in a very heroic way. Ralph was able to gain respect from the other boys just by his presence and could naturally command power. Additionally, the conch is used to symbolize power and authority as all the boys respond to it, and Golding chooses to put Ralph in the possession of the conch to emphasize how he has this control over all the boys and is looked up to as a role model. Moreover, the author describes Ralph’s leadership by showing how Ralph “would treat the decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player… Vividly he imagined Piggy by himself, huddled in a shelter that was silent except for the sounds of nightmare” (Golding 117). Golding includes this simile, to draw a connection to how Ralph isn’t able to make decisions just logically—like a chess player. However, not being able to make these calculated decisions is one of Ralph’s strong suits; he is able to empathize with other people and think about their emotions while making a decision. By “imagining