Ralph In Lord Of The Flies

William Golding’s 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, is a historical work of literature that has been cited time and again by psychologists investigating human nature. Perhaps more interesting than its implications of human nature, however, are the characters and their wildly differing personalities, who make the engaging and bloodthirsty plotline a possibility. Ralph, Jack, Simon, Percival, and Samneric, five major characters of Lord of the Flies, contribute to the story in different ways, yet their names only occasionally match the way they act. A natural-born leader and athlete, Ralph is the person who takes charge of the other boys, managing each person’s duty from maintaining the signal fire to building shelter. In the early stages

Given that the definition of his name is “God is gracious,” Jack’s name hardly fits himself at all (Jack 1). Essentially the representation of immorality and irresponsibility, Jack delves the boys deeper and deeper into savagery as he beckons nearly everyone into joining his tribe of wild celebration and constant murder of pigs. He even convinces Ralph to temporarily participate in a hunting session with the tribe, during which Ralph heavily wounds a pig with a lethal throw of a spear. Ralph later celebrates his achievement with the savages, chanting, “Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!” (Golding 159). The cruel being that Jack temporarily turns Ralph into is made more evident when even “Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering” (Golding 159). As Jack encourages violence and immorality, things that nearly all religions frown upon, it is safe to assert that he does not at all reflect the principle that “God is

The main reason why the reader is much more acquainted with Percival than any other littlun is simply because his name is mentioned unlike the other littluns. However, as a representation of an ordinary littlun, Percival allows the reader to get a glimpse of the basic behavior of littluns, which is little more than an all-day affair of “bathing, eating, or playing,” as Ralph explains, adding that “they’re hopeless” in being productive (Golding 63). The most prominent example in which this is shown is during the meeting that Ralph, Piggy, and Jack hold in order to gain different perspectives of the supposed beast living among the island. When asked before the entire assembly for his name, Percival’s mind racks with terror and fright. Cracking under pressure, “his face puckered, the tears leapt from his eyes, his mouth opened till they could see a square black hole” (Golding 116). Percival’s sobbing soon spreads to the other littluns, and moments later they all “began to cry in sympathy, two of them almost as loud as Percival” (Golding 117). The fact that Maurice imitates them for a laugh by the “biguns” doesn’t help stop their frequent irrational crying and is a prime instance of the mistreatment they suffer from the older boys. As the harrowing situation of being at the center of attention in a meeting shows, the littluns homogeneously share immature, naive behavior almost identical to that of