In both temperament and physical appearance, Ralph is the antithesis of Jack. Ralph is idealized from the beginning, praised lavished on his physical beauty, and it soon becomes obvious to the reader why other boys would look up to him and be endeared to him, rather than be frightened by him; 'There was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil.' In the island sun he immediately achieves a golden hue, a physical manifestation of his inward qualities. Ralph is no great intellect and even behaves somewhat childish in his first encounter with Piggy, but otherwise he has a gravity and maturity beyond his years. He is charismatic, and a natural leader, a quality that the other boys recognize when they vote him 'Chief'; 'There was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out… most powerful, there was the conch.'
The conch shell is a powerful symbol of civilization and order in the novel, more still because it is associated with Ralph; the shell effectively governs the boys' meetings, for the boy who holds the shell holds the right to speak; a symbol of political legitimacy and democratic power, which epitomises what Ralph represents in the novel. He has a fair, open nature, and goes furthest out of any boy in the group to accepting Piggy, the group's social pariah. Unlike most of the other boys, who are initially solely concerned with having fun, Ralph sets about building huts and thinking of ways to maximize their chances of being rescued; for this reason, Ralph's power and influence over the other boys are secure at the beginning of the novel. Meanwhile, Jack is a direct threat to the conch’s status, and this is stressed when he shouts out, “bollocks to the rules!” The vote for chief establishes a conflict, which becomes to blame for a large majority for what goes wrong on the island, between the different values espoused by Jack and Ralph. Jack assumes that he should assume the role automatically, while Ralph actually achieves it reluctantly by vote. Ralph therefore comes to represent a democratic ethos. Though they are guardedly friendly towards one another at the beginning of the novel, eventually Jack grows tired of Ralph being in charge, letting the barbarism inside of him transform him into a savage-like creature, destroying the makeshift civilization the boys, Ralph, work so hard to create; other boys, seeing the appeal in this way of life, begin to follow him.
A smaller, but important point of conflict, is Piggy. Piggy, an educated boy condemned to be an outcast because of his aesthetic unattractiveness, as well as his asthma, which prevents him from taking part in activities the rest of the boys so, is marked out; it is the expense of his illness that the others have a lot of fun, referring to it as 'ass-mar', though it is more their ignorance about the condition that leads them to taunt him. Due to his academic childhood, he is more mature than the others and retained his civilized behaviour, and his experience of life gives him a more realistic understanding of the cruelty possessed by some people. However, the boys are too young to value the intelligence and pragmatic thinking Piggy offers them, and use him as a target to vent their own frustrations; in particular, his name as a constant source of amusement; 'The boys were a closed circuit of sympathy with Piggy outside.' Ralph, for the most part, in accordance to his fair nature treats Piggy with more respect than the others, which inevitably lowers his own status in the hierarchical standings.
Another large conflict, equal to that which goes on between Ralph and Jack is the conflict between the entire group and the 'Beastie'. The younger boys begin to have nightmares about a monster that supposedly inhabits the island; this monster is the titular 'character' of the novel, the Lord of the Flies. The boy with the mulberry birthmark first introduces it, “ ‘Now, he says it was a beastie’”. The Beastie symbolizes the Devil, and is a manifestation of all the evil inside the boys; in fact, the name "Lord of the Flies" is a literal translation of the name of the biblical name Beelzebub, a powerful demon in hell sometimes thought to be the devil himself. Their terror of this monster both unites and divides the boys; it unites them in the sense it gives them all a common enemy, and at points, drives away other in-group conflicts, but as different characters have different ideas as to, at first, whether the beast actually exists and then eventually how to deal with it, it causes even more strife to the already tense atmosphere building on the island.
The hunts and killing are the most blatant signs of savagery. When Jack is hunting he does not hunt like you would expect, his hunting is instinctive and Golding stresses that he acts like an animal, "dog like on all fours" and "ape-like". Golding also stresses that the way Jack hunts is instinctive "Jack himself shrank at this cry with a hiss of indrawn breath". He uses all his senses, which is unusual as normally humans mainly use their sight. But as Jack he is so primal he uses smell, to see if the droppings are warm. When he gets onto the pig run he draws himself up to his full height, like an animal would before it strikes its prey or if it was on the defence because it wants to make itself seem more powerful. Jack clearly wants the kill. He seems to have forgotten that to kill would mean muck blood but he still wants to kill " hard patter of hooves, a castanet sound, seductive, maddening - the promise of meat" The first time he tried to kill he found that he couldn't do it because of the blood but now it is almost as if he wants to do the kill so that he can prove to himself that he can do it. It seems as if he wants to kill for the blood more then the meat. This shows that the hold of civilisation he slipping and that the more evil part of his nature is coming through, and that he is regressing into savagery quickly.
The pig that they have chosen is one that has piglets so in killing her they are also condemning the piglets to death, so they are causing unnecessary hurt on the pigs as they could have chosen a pig with no piglets, this is not rational as this kills of the future generation and if the continue like this then it means that they will run out of food. When they are hunting it says that Jack was 'happy, and wore the damp darkness of the forest like old clothes' this tells us how often jack has been hunting and how easy and at peace he is even though they are going to kill the pig. They follow the blood trail and it leads them to the place that Simon uses to meditate, although he's hidden at the moment. The fact that the death happens in this place of harmony, spiritually and goodness means that evil is finally taking over everything. The butterflies, which stand for hope and peace, are replaced by flies which are dirty, it has become tainted. The hunt is described with sexual imagery, as if it were a rape, 'the sow collapsed under them and they were heavy and fulfilled upon her', 'Jack was on top of the sow', 'wedded to her in lust'. The use of these words strengthen the evil of this act and how the death and torture of this pig goes beyond survival and shows us how sadistic and evil this act is. Roger needlessly causes the pig pain by stabbing with his spear, becoming sadistic and evil he has slowly regressed from savagery from when he was throwing stones but threw to miss to now where he purposely causes pain. Jack at the end of the kill is flicking blood at the boys as if it were a kind of game, he is very different from the boy who landed and could not kill a pig, to now where he thinks it a game of sort. It is Jack though who cuts the head off and leaves it in Simons place as a sacrifice for 'the beast'.
When Ralph and Jack first attack each other it is never to kill, it is as if they are play sword fighting, but when Roger throws the rock and kills Piggy Jack realises that he can kill and that there are no boundaries then he starts to really attack to kill Ralph and not just injure him. When Piggy is shoved off a cliff, the conch is also destroyed, 'ceased to exist, broken into 1000 pieces". This means that freedom of speech; democracy, unity and order are all gone. Jack has no regard for people, and in his society only the strong survive which Piggy wasn't so in his eyes he didn't deserve to live. The death of piggy is ironic because it is like the death of a pig. Pigs are weak and so is Piggy and it doesn't matter if the pigs don't survive, so it doesn't matter if Piggy dies and as the have no regard for pigs that also have no regard for Piggy and human life.
It is Roger who throws the boulder that destroys the conch and Piggy and afterwards has the hangman horror about him but can still torture Samneric. Roger adopt the role of executioner in the tribe with the rest of the tribe looking up in awe at him as he has taken that step further than the rest of them, he has killed on purpose. Now that he has killed he can do it again. The killings have worsened, first there was the boy with the mulberry mark who died from negligence when the fire went out of control, then there was Simon, but he died when they were in a frenzy and no-one realised what they were doing. But Piggy's death is something that was calculated and no-one cold excuse what Roger had done. This episode shows us that in human nature the strong can prey on the weak with no civilisation and no rules, and with no rules there is anercy. And that there are different types of people, those that succumb to their evil desires or those that resist the evil. It also shows us group mentality that people can be like sheep or follow those because they want safety.
Golding employs several linguistical techniques and unique styles to demonstrate the transition from civilisation to savagery. Golding’s use of irony is both intriguing and highly relevant to the tone and message of the novel. Piggy is angry about the forest fire and the disappearance of rthe boy with the birthmark – but Piggy’s glasses were used to start the fire, so he is indirectly responsible. Simon returns to the camp with the truth regarding the “beast”, which could dispel the boys’ fears, however he is killed before he can shed light on the matter. The rock which kills Piggy clears a space in the thicket- enabling Ralph to escape the hunters and so survive. In contrast with the complexity of the descriptive pieces, the sections of dialogue are short and almost monosyllabic. The boys rarely speak more than a few sentences at a time; often theirt utterances amount to just a few words and their vocabulary is limited. They also resort to boyish slang and mild swearing, representing the decline into savagery in speaking terms. There is countless examples of symbolism in the novel. The pig’s head symbolises the cynical ways of adults and the hollowness of their world. It is Simon who sees the parachutist as epitomising the capacity fo adults for death and destruction. He symbolically frees this “unknown soldier” when he releases the suspension lines of the parachute. Although symbolism is, in part, tied to objects, it can be seen here that actions can also be symbolic. Examples are when the hunters baptise themselves with the blood of the pig, or the death of the sow show the boys relinquishing a mother figure, and so parental ties and innocence.
In conclusion, the overriding theme of the novel is the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the good of the group on the one hand; and the instinct to gratify one's immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one's will on the other. These two instincts may be called "the instinct of civilization" and "the instinct of savagery," as one is devoted to values that promote ordered society and the other is devoted to values that threaten ordered society. Throughout the novel, the instinct of civilization is associated with goodness, while the instinct of savagery is associated with evil, and the latter prevails. It is only at the very end of the book that the group is drained of savagery, as the captain pictures these small, ragged, confused little boys.
