William Golding's Lord Of The Flies Essay

The novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, tells the story of a group of British schoolboys, ages ranging from six to twelve, after they get stranded on an island due to their plane crashing. Being young, and rather immature, the boys are not fit to survive on an island with no adult supervision, but they do what they can to make their circumstances work. Although, as events play out and as the rest of the story unfolds, it is clear that the boys had taken very poor courses of action, resulting in multiple negative outcomes. The story opens with Ralph, age twelve, searching the island for signs of other people. He quickly comes upon Piggy, a rather fat but intelligent boy. The two come across a conch and, knowing other boys would be on the island, blow into it as a signal. Once all of

In the end, the younger boys elect Ralph as their leader, which serves as a good choice briefly, but it was only a matter of time until things started spiraling out of control. No twelve year old boy is capable of looking after a group of kids ranging from his age to half his age. After just a few months, forest fires are made, younger children get ill in their stomach, and one child even goes missing. Jack, who is a slightly obsessive hunter as well as more hands on, decides he doesn’t like Ralph’s leader strategies. He is opposed to these ideas due to the fact that he was more productive. Ralph said that they needed to build shelters and fire, as opposed to dressing up to hunt and kill pigs for meat. Jack eventually decides to branch off and create his own separate tribe which will hunt and have feasts. The idea of less rules and more fun appealed to many of the older kids, so they join Jack, leaving Ralph with few older kids and less control. It wasn’t until the boys killed an older boy who many had considered a friend, named Simon, that Ralph