Ralph And Jack's Leadership In Lord Of The Flies

“If we have a signal going they’ll come and take us off [the island]. And another thing. We ought to have more rules.” (Golding 42) From the beginning of Lord of the Flies until the end Ralph’s trying to keep peace and order throughout the boys while Jack attempts to steal the power given to Ralph by the rest of the group. Ralph, being a more democratic chief on the island, tries to keep equality amongst the boys. Although Ralph attempts to hold peace on the island his punishments do not tame the boys therefore, creating chaos. During Jack’s time of leadership he seeks to take complete control. Although Jack is capable of taming the boys on the island, his ruling style and punishment isn’t civil and doesn’t have enough boundaries. Ralph’s leadership

Jack’s ability to pull his tribe together and catch the bores proves his natural talent of leadership, however, he overworked and took advantage of the boys under his power. Ralph was willing to do work himself when the others chose not to. For example, when they build the shelters Ralph tells Jack “All day I’ve been working with Simon. No one else.”(Golding 50) Ralph was trying to explain to Jack that they have other priorities to take care of and letting his choir boys slack isn’t acceptable. Ralph’s choice of how he governed the group gave everyone an equal share of labor and was aimed to create

While deciding who’s the chief Jack’s first instinct was to declare himself leader without considering what the others wanted. This may prove that Jack knows he’s a good leader yet he still didn’t care who the rest of the group felt was the best fit to be chief. Conversely, Ralph shows he wants who’s best for the job and will keep peace amongst the boys, not just to have their control. He proves this during the vote when he says “‘All right. Who wants Jack for chief?’ With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands. ‘Who wants me?’” (Golding 23) While Jack only thought of the personal benefits he’d gain by becoming chief Ralph took everybody into consideration and didn’t take advantage of his