Outline Jack’s rise to power. You should use evidence from the early days when Ralph was the leader, through to the time when Jack became chief of his own tribe.

Over time, Jack led his choirboys in the many hunting trips, while he did not care much about he basic elements of a society like shelter and the all important fire. In chapter 4, we see all these come together into an important event. The boys on the beach spotted a ship and looked to see if the fire signal was there, but it was not. They then ran up the mountain to see what had happened, and found that Samneric, the two responsible for the fire at that time, were not there. At the height of Ralph’s anger and frustration over the fire, Jack, along with the twin and the other hunters, appear on of the mountain with a pig they killed. After Ralph’s scolding, Jack again did something similar to what he did earlier. He apologized for letting the fire out, and it was received by his hunters with ‘admiration at the handsome behavior’, putting Ralph in the wrong. This deed of Jack’s made Ralph look like the more incapable of the two elder biguns. Later on, when they were eating the meat of the pig, Simon refused the portion Jack gave him. This resulted in Jack trying to reinstate his position as the provider of food, when he shouted ‘I got you meat’ to him. As we move on into chapter 5, the third meeting is held and by now, Jack, in his heart, is already unhappy about Ralph’s ideas and way of doing things. He now chooses to use human emotions to try and buy over the favour of all of the boys. While Ralph says that they have to ‘talk about this fear and decide there’s nothing in it,’ Jack on the other hand call the little ones crybabies and ‘sissies’. This may seem rude, but if one were to think in the place of a little one, he would find that it would be easier to relate to Jack’s accusations and ideas than it would be to try and understand the scientific explanation. At a certain point of their discussion about the beast, Jack ‘had not got the conch and thus spoke against the rules; but nobody minded.’ This is something wroth noting, as Jack has been accepted to talk without he conch, and again showing he did no care much about the rules that Ralph had put in place. This attitude of being concerned about the things that most of the boys are interested in could be seen again within the same chapter, when Ralph said,’ Jack! Jack! You haven’t got the conch! Let him speak.’ Also, he tries to tell Ralph that what the boys would really want in a leader, as he tells him off by saying, ‘ You can’t hunt, you can’t sing.’ In the final part of this chapter, Jack once again work on the practical action to the boys’ fears when he is quoted saying, ‘We’re strong-we hunt! If there’s a beast we’ll hunt it down!’

With the basic order and sanity of any society braking down, Samneric now clam that they saw the Beast. Jack, being the practical person, suggest to the little ones that they should hunt down the beast. Once again, Jack does the same thing as before, trying to do something that would clam the fears of the little ones, while Ralph has failed in doing so. This allows Jack to portray himself a capable leader, unlike Jack, who one have meetings to talk about their fears. Finally, in chapter 8, when the 3 main big ones confirm the existence of the beast, there is much confusion among all the boys. This is when Jack tries to cease his chance again to be chief instead of Ralph. First, he took the conch away from Ralph and blew it to call for a meeting. This is a first, since Ralph has always been the one blowing the conch since chapter 1, and is a sign of Jack trying outright to take power from Ralph. In the final push, he ask for a vote if they wanted him to be chief instead of Ralph, after telling lies, outlining the failures of Ralph and a slight tiff with him. However, when Jack fails to become chief on votes, he leaves the group with some other boys to form his own tribe.