The Downfalls Of Society In 'Lord Of The Flies'

Ryan Eigenmann
Mrs. Bernstein
English 20
11 January 2023
The Downfalls of Society in The Lord of the Flies
Have you ever wondered what you would do if you were stranded on an island? What if you were with complete strangers and no adults? This is what happened in The Lord of the Flies. However, throughout their time on the island, the boys transformed it into a dystopia. Dystopian societies are typically bleak and demotivating. There is usually one person or governing body who controls all aspects of their subordinates’ lives. Normally in these societies, there is a reason for the dystopia, like the recession that caused the rise of the Nazi Party which caused the holocaust, but sometimes they are just caused by power-hungry individuals like

At the beginning of the story, the boys try to create a functional society. Ralph and Piggy are the first to try to establish this. They find a conch shell, which creates a noise that eventually becomes a way of summoning everyone on the island. At the first meeting, the boys decide that they need a leader, or at least some sort of hierarchy to create order. They decide on the “chief” democratically, with Ralph getting more votes than the only other person who runs, Jack. Jack is very intense in his speech, he plays to the boys’ feelings. However, “there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch” (Golding 4). At his first meeting, Ralph tries to create order by making plans to build signal fires and shelters, but the plans fail. The most important part of their new society is the conch. The conch represents the integrity of that society. At the

Authoritarian leaders tend to work best when “decisions need to be made quickly and the leader is the most knowledgeable person to make those decisions,” (1). Whenever an issue arose throughout the story, Jack usually just followed his instincts and had an answer quickly, but Ralph was very indecisive and let others decide for him. The one time that Ralph was assertive when he set the rules on the conch, was the time that the boys listened to him which created order. The conch is a powerful symbol that Jack used to his advantage. He understood that people follow the rules that the person holding the conch gets to speak, and used it to share his dissent directly with Ralph and Piggy. He also understood that the conch represented the order among them and that the person in control of it really has the power over the tribe. Jack used the conch to silence the other members of the tribe, wanting to take sole control over it. When the conch was broken at the end of the book, it is when all hell broke loose. The island became a dystopian society, and all order or sense of civilization was lost upon the