Arby Gartley Period. 1 4/27/23 Have you ever met a person–maybe your boss or your mom–who wants absolute power over you? In William Golding's novel "Lord of the Flies", control and power play a huge role in the story and how they shape it. When the boys are stranded on the island, they quickly understand that there are no adults and they need to create order and rules. although when the story progresses, the desire for power and control makes the boys corrupt, leading to savagery and destruction. Through the characters of Ralph, Piggy, Simon, and Roger Lord of the Flies shows how peoples urges for control and power can turn into chaos. At the beginning of the book, Ralph is chosen as the chief by the boys on the island. As chief, Ralph tries to create laws and rules to establish a society similar to their British environment. For example he says “We’ll have to have hands up like at school.” (Golding 33). Ralph wants to have rules and order to be civilized, he fears that without rules the boys will succumb to savagery. Ralph wants rules to keep …show more content…
Early in the book, Roger was throwing rocks at Henry, one of the little ones. He is portrayed as wanting to hurt others so he can't get into trouble on the island, and he believes he has power and control, so he can do whatever he pleases. His motives are different from Jack's, as Jack wants to be a leader and have control over others, and Roger wants the power to hurt people and not get in trouble. By the end of the book, Rogers' hurtful behavior has turned for the worse, and he ends up killing Piggy with a large boulder. He mentally dehumanized those who were not in the hunter's group; he used it as a way to be freed from the restraints of his sociable ways, gaining the control to hurt others without guilt, like when he was about to kill Piggy, he just thought of them as nothing but features; it shows that when he thinks, "Ralph was a shock of hair and Piggy a bag of fat" (Golding,