The Island Under Ralph, then Jack

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 “A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in adventure allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.” William Golding’s Lord of the Flies starts out as an adventure for the boys who crash on the island. To control this wild adventure with no adults, the boys decide to choose a leader. In a group, there are always people who come out with better qualities as a leader than others. The strongest people however become the greater influences that others decide to follow.  It is not always the best choice to follow that person, though that is exactly what the boys decide to do.

Ralph, though not a strong person, demonstrates a better understanding of people giving himself better leadership qualities than Jack. Through the book, it is shown that Jack thinks he is better and should be the leader, though all he creates is mayhem. Ralph tries his best to create a society based on survival. As time progresses, it is clear that Jack's feelings are towards living life and having fun. Jack's society eventually leads to corruption, killing innocent people, while Ralph's prevails as the boys are rescued.

At the beginning of the novel, Ralph is chosen to be the boys’ supervisor but as time progresses it is obvious that the boys are much more inclined toward Jack’s behavior, mainly because of fear. Ralph's original society is split because of lack of interest with some of the individuals. They begin to loose faith in themselves, and thus seek fun and fortune. In the end the group seeking a long-term reward beats out the group looking for short- term rewards, as Ralph's group prevails, causing Jack's to lose stimulating death among the other boys.

From the start, Ralph tries to keep the fire as the key-stone in the group. He knows that fire and smoke is used best to signal ships at a distance. This is what in fact saves the stranded boys. In his group, Ralph makes shelters and calls assemblies. By using this method of bringing civilization to the island, the boys can thus remember what modern day society was like, and from then on can keep faith in themselves towards being rescued. Never once throughout the novel Lord of the Flies, does Ralph become influenced or influences others towards savagery.

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Although, Ralph may seem like the leader, he lacks in many characteristics, one of them being intelligence. Throughout the novel Ralph has to depend on Piggy for ideas.  "`He's like Piggy. He says things like Piggy." (2) At this point, the others began to feel the effect that Ralph has brought on to them from listening to Piggy's ideas. Ralph continues to use ideas from Piggy throughout the story, but they are ignored more and more. The ideas that once formed democracy throughout the novel, have now turned to dust. Even though they are much stronger, having more thought put ...

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