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Ralph And Jack In William Golding's Lord Of The Flies

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Ralph and Jack have very differing views on how the society of boys on a stranded should be run and the governmental ideas. Their physical appearance, personality traits and their political ambitions shape their identities on the island and causes conflict when choosing a leader. Jack's ideas for society showed great leadership but his physical appearance and the way he represented himself caused others to vote against him for someone else. "Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked around challengingly," (Pg 33). Jack's physical appearance and the way he acts tend to scare and fear the little kids on the island causing them to not like him. This causes a chain of events that lead to the election of Ralph because of his fair boy appearance. …show more content…

Throughout the book Ralph is described as the boy with the fair hair, sometimes even the fair boy. All the while the kids follow him due to his looks. Electing a leader based on his looks is detrimental to a society and can majorly ruin the population. This ideology leads to profiling in society along with racism through classifications on race and how people look. Rules and regulations on electing a leader as well as thorough explanations on each candidates is what makes a civilization successful. Jack's personality helps shape his identity and political ambitions through his tough can do attitude and high expectations for the other kids. "A fat lot you tried, you just sat,” (Pg 42). "Jack waved them off, 'Shut up,'" (Pg 63). Jack has very high expectations for the people on the island especially the older kids. He expects them to listen and obey and when they don't they face punishments. This mentality and type of government representing a dictatorship Jack would like to run would've worked great on the island and would've gotten a lot more done than Ralph did. He doesn't take no for an answer and knows how to appeal to emotions to get stuff done even if he hurts someone's

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Ralph represents civilization and order, while Jack symbolizes the opposite, savagery and anarchy. This is shown throughout the movie where Ralph always wanted to have fixed rules and jobs for everyone, while on the other hand Jack ruled by force and had only one unspoken rule: that whatever he said was law. They were both appealing as leaders for a variety of reasons, such as their confidence, authoritative disposition, and their seniority. Ralph was appealing because he solved problems, like starting a fire, and when they first reached the island, he was the one who brought them all together with the conch. Jack was appealing because as time went on, Ralph slowly had more difficulty keeping order, causing the boys to lose faith in him as a

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However, in the book, you start to realize that Jack is selfish, he doesn’t care to listen to what other people have to say, and he also wants everyone to join his tribe. Jack’s mind is always filled with the idea of hunting, while Ralph is mostly focused on finding ways to elude the island, and keeping people safe. This is shown when Ralph says, “There’s another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us.

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In the beginning of the book, Jack wishes to have rules and order. However, Jack begins to change and it is first noticed when the group of boys choose a chief to lead them. Jack then begins to turn his ways as he is not chosen to lead and a boy named Ralph was. Jack, believing that hunting is the most important part of surviving the island, turns on Ralph as Ralph believes that to get off the island they were stuck on, they have to light a fire that

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1042 Words | 5 Pages

Due to Jack's egotism, he elevates his leadership role among the boys to suffice his hunger for power. Upon arrival to the island Ralph holds an assembly, being their current chief, to discuss their situation. During

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Ralph bringing the group to listen and act accordingly reestablishes a sense of community. Ralph shows qualities of leadership by staying calm, unlike Jack, who descends into madness when under pressure. In summary, Ralph conveys his newly developed leadership skills by showing authoritativeness, being a quick thinker, and understands that disorganization can lead to chaos. Secondly, Jack’s relentless search for power and dominance alongside his disbelief in democracy and distaste for youthfulness points to his descent into insanity, and dictatorship on the island. He is always trying to overthrow Ralph, but at the cost of purity.

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Throughout the novel, Jack consistently demonstrates a disregard for rules and a desire for dominance and power. When he leads the boys in hunting and violence, he taps into their savage and primal instincts - including Ralph’s. As Jack proclaims, "The conch doesn't count at this end of the island" (Golding, 150) it becomes evident that he prioritizes dominance and power over order, authority, and the established rules on the island. In the midst of their destructive rivalry, Jack’s failures teach Ralph important lessons. Witnessing Jack’s inability to maintain the signal fire makes Ralph recognize the value of collaboration, communication, and planning for survival.

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Jack lost his sanity and civility and this changed him in more ways than imaginable. Jack was a natural leader when the boys first came onto the island, but as time continued he became a horrible dictator. On the first day on the island, Ralph and Jack competed for chief of the island. Ralph won. Jack was unhappy with this result, but it didn’t yet throw him into a spiral of craze and anger.

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The characters are as follows: Ralph is described as being attractive and having a natural charisma. These two traits most likely played a large role in his disposition as a leader

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His priority was to have a signal fire so they can get off the island quick and effective and also he wanted to build a shelter so they had somewhere to sleep. However, Jack can be considered a fierce leader and Ralph can be considered a civilized leader. Jack is known to be cruel but when he is a leader he can be fierce because they

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When comparing Ralph’s sweet childhood and Jack’s position as a leader, we begin to realize that their situations before the island had all the influence on what kind of people they became. We see what happens next when both are exposed to isolation and the absence of an authoritative figure. Even though Ralph is elected leader, Jack still demands obedience as a leader and doesn’t know how to carry himself when he isn’t one. On the other side, Ralph only wants what is best for the island and getting rescued. In chapter 2, Ralph says, “Any day there may be a ship out there… and if we have a signal going they’ll come and take us off.

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Jack wasn’t persuasive but was a power thirsting leader who acted for himself. Both Ralph ,and Jack had problems with their leadership skills ,because one leader didn’t have good enough reason to create rules. While the other leader was a dictator who abused his power over the island for his own goals. The boys on the island had no proper leader to trust. Without a strong leader it didn’t help the boy differentiate what was right ,and wrong.

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The democratic system the boys had set up quickly deteriorated as Jack began challenging the rules; later, he separated into a group of his own. Ralph said, “Didn’t you see what we did- what they did,” (Golding 173) as he acknowledged they were no longer a unit. Jack felt the need to separate because he wanted control, as Wani puts it, “Jack fights for power he did not care for the group to rescue and maintain order on [the] Island, [this] is completely opposite of Ralph’s civilization.” (Wani 5). Without a group or agreed upon rules, power struggles and violence quickly escalated.

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As far as leadership skills, Jack is a self-centered individual who only has two motives, one is to be the leader and the second is to hunt and kill if needed. Jack wants to issue orders to the group and if they are not followed he threatens the boys to physically hurt and punish them.

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Ralph and Jack at first started as friends but as time went on and feelings changed, they began to despise and envy each other over greed and power which soon destroyed themselves and later the entire island. Both of them wanted power but they each had different views of handling it when it was given to them. Neither knew what to do in their situations of power so their "empires" collided and crumbled quickly. Ralph has a representation of a responsible leader and an aura of civilization and tranquility. He organizes assemblies, creates rules, and quickly matures on the island by expressively talking about responsibility and leadership.

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773 Words | 4 Pages

The first difference between Ralph and Jack is that they have different ways of organizing things on the island. Ralph wants to lead everyone to work together to get off the island in a civilized order. Jack also wants to lead everyone but not in the same, properly ordered way as Ralph. When they first meet on the island, everyone who was stranded on the island wanted to be organized into some type of governing body so that they were ordered.

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