Which pair do you find more interesting, Ralph and Piggy or Jack and Roger?

      Piggy and Ralph are together all through the novel up until Piggy is murdered.  These two are very different we see this in the first chapter.  Piggy is fat, has glasses, asthma, and the way he speaks leads us to think he comes from the working class.  He is called ‘the fat boy’ for quite a while up until page sixteen and even then we don’t know his real name in fact we don’t find out what it is through the whole book.  None of the boys ask what it is.  None of them really care enough to.  But he is intelligent, for example when he and Ralph find the conch he says: ‘“we can use this to call the others”’(p.32).  His intelligence isn’t appreciated by the boys as his socially unattractive qualities out weigh the attractive ones.  He is really the brains behind Ralph as he gives him all the ideas but Ralph takes the credit for them.

     Ralph however is athletic ‘you could see now he might make a boxer’(p.15) and   middle or upper class ‘ “daddy taught me , he’s a commander in the navy”’(p.19). But he is immature we know this because when Piggy tells him his name he ‘danced out into the hot air of the beach then returned as a fighter plane…machine gunned Piggy’(p.16) – the reason why they are on the island is because of war.  Ralph doesn’t understand the seriousness of the situation and thinks of it as a game.

      At the beginning of the novel Ralph doesn’t care about Piggy he doesn’t wait for him when he is exploring and when Piggy asks him his name Ralph doesn’t return the question ‘the fat boy waited to be asked his name in turn but this proffer of acquaintance was not made’(p.13). Ralph also betrays Piggy's trust by telling the other boys that his name is Piggy.  Piggy is visibly hurt but Ralph doesn’t show any remorse he just says ‘ “ Better Piggy than fatty”’(p.33).  In chapter seven when the boys are looking for the beast Ralph sends Simon back to the beach to tell Piggy that they wont be back until after dark.  This shows he is beginning to value him more as he doesn’t want to exclude him from plans and make sure he knows what’s going on. ‘ “someone’s got to go across the island and tell Piggy we’ll be back after dark.”’(p.145).  Near the end of the book  Piggy and Ralph are closer they only have SamnEric with them. In chapter eleven when they go to see Jack to try and get Piggy's glasses back Ralph has to lead Piggy as he can’t see. This shows that Piggy trusts Ralph and also Ralph gives Piggy the conch to carry ‘ he held out the conch to Piggy’(p.211).  The conch was a symbol of power and to Ralph group it still is.  He trusts Piggy to carry it showing he accepts him. At the very end, on the last page ‘Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy’(p.248). Ralph realises that Piggy was a good friend who always stuck by him and he is upset that he is dead, he didn’t real appreciate him until now.

         I  prefer Piggy and Ralph to Roger and Jack as their characters developed more, and the changes were good for their friendship.  We see more of them throughout the book so we can learn about this development more thoroughly.   I also think that they were nicer and more interesting than Jack and Roger because Piggy really stayed the same through the novel but it was Ralph who changed his opinion of Piggy and finally learned that he was, despite his appearance, a good and valuable friend.