How does Golding powerfully convey the tensions in the relationship between Jack and Ralph? Golding powerfully conveys the tensions in the relationship between Jack and Ralph by skilfully escalating the significance of their disagreements chronologically throughout the novel, from emotive and verbal disputes right up to full blown tribal warfare. The initial meeting of the boys provides the first evidence of tension and future conflict between Ralph and Jack, from their desire to have an organised hierarchical system of leaders and followers based on their own judgement. The boys decide to have a ‘vote for a chief!’. Though Jack is the most ‘obvious leader’, since he is ‘head boy’, Golding equips Ralph with a symbol of power and leadership, ‘a conch’, …show more content…
This was accepted by all the boys, but now we see a change in their ideas. The juxtaposition of ideas and priorities between the two central characters is intensified when Ralph, Maurice and Piggy have caught sight of a nearby ship. The fire, which Ralph instructed to be kept running as their signal flare is abandoned because Jack ‘needed everyone’. The reasoning given was the fact that they ‘needed meat’. This is the first situation where Jack outright rejects and order from Ralph by taking the boys who were in charge of the fire. This conflict sows the seeds of a full rebellion as Jack and ‘his hunters’ have gone feral, hunting to ‘Kill the pig. Cut her throat’. Jack’s hunting team have masked themselves with ‘paint’, shows they are hiding their identity with the murdering of the pigs and isolating themselves, as a new team under Jack’s rule, from Ralph’s more civilised followers. Golding shows again Jack’s inability to hide his feeling of shame, as he is ‘flushed, conscious of fault.’ This reflects on his lack of self control first seen in the voting earlier on in the