Who Is Ralph A Good Leader In Lord Of The Flies

To be an ideal leader takes a lot of work and is nearly impossible. Ralph was elected leader in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding and in the novel, Ralph’s continuing struggles result in failure. Ralph could not maintain a sense of civilization, could not keep the boys working together, nor could he keep his position as chief, which results in his overall failure. Ralph’s struggle to keep the boys working together to survive failed and added on to his overall failure. Ralph struggles to keep the boys working together on the grounds that everyone, except Piggy and Simon, are narrow-minded. For example, in chapter 2, when the boys made the signal fire, Piggy says:
‘I’m scared-’ … ‘You’re always scared. Yah-Fatty!’ … ‘Now look-’

Not many people understand why things are the way they are without an explanation and after Jack says this, Ralph does not try to explain why they need the conch or dare say anything but “‘you haven’t got the conch… sit down.’” If the boys understand they will follow them more often or try to follow them, but they do not understand, so they do not follow the rules and are slowly killing civilization. The boys’ desire for freedom, Ralph not being able to create a home like atmosphere and the fact that Ralph did not explain why the rules are important lead Ralph to his failure to maintain a sense of civilization and his overall

Ralph failed to maintain his position because he is too compromising, like in chapter one, when all the boys voted for Ralph to be their leader, “Ralph looked at [Jack], eager to offer something… ‘Jack is in charge of the choir’” (19). Ralph feels terrible that Jack loses the election and decides to give a portion of his power to Jack, hoping he was doing a good thing, but it ended maleficently. This gives Jack the idea and the hope that he can gain more power and potentially become the leader. Giving Jack this idea and hope, he undoubtedly goes after what he wants and leads to Ralph being striped away from his title as ‘chief.’ As stated before, Jack is selfish and only cares about power and to gain this power, Jack manipulates the children into following him. For instance, in chapter six, while they are discussing what to do after Sam and Eric supposedly saw the beast, Jack repeatedly hints that the beast does exist and that it is coming after them even though he knows it is not real. He also states “‘This is a hunter’s job’” (111). Jack feeds the fear and makes it grow. Additionally, he hints that he can protect them and Ralph cannot. The children are frightened at this point and will follow anyone who makes them feel safe, so they start to follow Jack and later join his tribe. Ralph also failed to maintain his position because he did not appeal to the other boys. For example, in