In chapter two, Ralph starts to make rules. The first one he does is to “Have hands up like at school” and only be able to speak if you have the conch. This seams a very good rule, and is kept quite well, especially by Piggy and the littl’uns, but Jack tends not to follow this rule at all, and he always interrups Piggy. He states that “the conch doesn’t count on the mountain.” Ralph too, gets annoyed when Piggy talks too much. “’That’s enough!’ said Ralph sharply, and snatched back the conch.” I don’t think this is very good of Ralph, as a leader. When a littl’un says that he saw a beastie in the dark, Piggy is the only understanding one, who interprets him. Ralph is mean to the boy and laughs at him. This shows he is starting to show that he is unable to be a good leader. Jack is not much better, but he tries to make the boy feel better by telling him he will try to kill it while out hunting. “’Ralph’s right of course. There isn’t a snake thing. But if there was a snake, we’d hunt it and kill it.’” Then, Ralph goes on to say that they have to get rescued, which is a very good point. It shows that now he’s not there only to have fun, but it’s up to them to get rescued. There are no adults on the island. “We can help them to find us…So we must make a fire on top of the mountain top.” At this point all the children follow Jack to make a fire, forgetting the conch. Ralph gets left behind, with Piggy. This shows that in a way, Ralph is more mature than Jack, but then, he leaves too, and only Piggy is left, acting as the adult figure.
In this next chapter, Ralph and Jack start to have more arguments about hunting and keeping the fire going. Jack is really starting to get obsessed with hunting, and can’t see how anything could be more important. Ralph, however thinks rescue and being sheltered is more important. “I was talking about smoke! Don’t you want to be rescued? All you talk about is pig, pig, pig!” I think that it is good that Ralph was elected leader because, as Piggy states, much later in the book if Jack was chief, they’d just hunt all the time and never get rescued. Ralph thinks it’s unfair that Ralph can do something he likes and that he and Simon have to do evrything else. “’I work all day with nothing but Simon…’ ‘I was working too----‘ ‘But you like it! You want to hunt. While I-----‘”
Chapter four, painted faces and long hair, starts with Roger being mean to the littl’uns, when Jack asks him to come and watch him paint his face.This symbolises the start of their evil friendship. Later in the chapter, Piggy is talking to Ralph about making a sundial. Ralph does not understand and makes fun of him, by saying ‘and an airplane, and a TV set…’ Piggy is having a good idea but Ralph is not willing to listen. He thinks Piggy is a bore, but, at the end, doesn’t know what to do and wants Piggy’s help. Ralph enjoys joking with Piggy and making him look stupid. This is mean of Ralph, and not good leadership qualities. As Piggy states, “You said you wanted things done. So as we could be rescued.” Ralph responds with a ‘shut up’. It is true that Ralph said to try and get ideas, but not thinking about them when Piggy does have an idea. I think this is one of the reasons that in chapter five things start to break up. Ralph then spots a ship. When they run to the fire, they see it had been let out by the choir, who were supposed to take care of it. “They let the bloody fire out.” When the hunters come back, they have a dead pig with them. They are very pleased at having killed a pig, but Ralph gets very angry. Jack still doesn’t understand the importance of fire, and does not really understand that it was his fault they were not rescued. “’Look! We killed a pig-we stole up on them-we got into a circle-‘ ‘You let the fire out.’” When Piggy talks, and says to Jack they should have left the fire going, Jack gets angry. Ralph tries to defend Piggy by taking a step forward, but Jack still punches Piggy, and breaks one side of his glasses. Ralph tells him “That was a dirty trick.” When he says that, Jack does apologize about the fire, which shows just how much Ralph is overpowering. The hunters think that Jack had done the descent thing but Ralph was to angry and knew it was too late now. Then they ate the pig, and did a reenactement of the hunt. At the end, Ralph calls an assembly.
For this assembly, Ralph decides that “This meeting must not be fun, but business.” While Ralph is thinking, he easily loses his concentration. He finally works out that he isn’t as clever as Piggy. “The trouble was, if you were a chief, you had to think, you had to be wise…Only, I can’t think. Not like Piggy. When he starts the assembly, he states “We need an assembly to put things straight.” He talks about the work that isn’t getting done and that the rules aren’t being followed. He then goes on to speak about the fire and about how they “ought to die before we let the fire out.” “so remember. The rocks for lavatory. Keep the fire going and smoke as a signal. Don’t take fire from the mountain. Take your food there.” These are the rules he said that evening, and the first time he really uses his power as chief to make the boys do stuff. “All this I have to say. No I’ve said it. You voted me for chief. Now you do as I say.” The last thing they talk about is the idea of a beast. Ralph says that things are breaking up because they are getting frightened. The littl’uns talk about a beast on the island, but Jack says he has been all over the island and hasn’t seen any. A little boy talks about his nightmare, in which in the middle he woke up and saw something moving. Ralph quickly says that it was just a nightmare, but still asks if anyone was out. He then finds out Simon was out, and gets quite angry. He says to him, “Don’t do it again. Understand? Not at night.”
A bit later, during the assembly, Jack wont let Piggy speak, even if he has the conch. Ralph tells Jack to let Piggy speak but Jack gets angry: “And you shut up! Who are you anyway? Sitting there, telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing-.” “I’m chief. I was chosen.” Here, Jack is saying that he should be chief. Piggy, and others are against this idea, but a couple of boys agree with Jack. He is becoming more and more overpowering, so much that Ralph says “I ought to give up being chief.” Piggy quickly pushes that idea aside. The assembly falls apart and the hunters sing and dance again.
All in all, I think that Ralph becomes a better chief as the story goes on. At first he didn’t really do anything and was only there to have fun. He didn’t listen to Piggy, but only thought about himself. I think he was unable of being a good chief because of Jack, who brought him down and made him feel bad, almost to give up being chief. He got obsessed with fire, whilst Jack got obsessed with hunting. I think it is much better to think about rescue than meat. “If Jack was chief he’d have all hunting and no fire. We’d be there till we died.”-Piggy. I think this is a very important quote which shows why Ralph is a good chief. It is not really his fault that things start to break up. It is because of Jack and his hunters not doing what they have to do, like when the fire burnt out because of them.
