law and order lord of the flies

Piggy clings to the shell, stubbornly believing that the beauty of order cannot be denied. He shouts to Jack's wild tribe, "Which is better -to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?" In fact, most of the boys, while they may be attracted to the idea of an orderly society, are not willing to sacrifice their personal interests and freedom to submit to organization. Although Piggy clearly has the best ideas of anyone on the island, he is physically and personally unattractive to the other boys. "There had grown up tacitly...the opinion that Piggy was an outsider...” Piggy's intellectual vision of law, order, and a purpose beyond the immediate physical necessities is not as compelling as Jack's vision of an unordered freedom in a society based on physical strength and physical needs. In a society without agreed-upon law and order, might make right. From the beginning of Lord of the Flies, Jack has demonstrated a willingness to ignore social agreements in order to take what he personally wants. As the ground rules of the boys' society are being determined at the first meeting, Jack has no desire to consider the qualities necessary in a leader or to submit his candidacy for leadership to general scrutiny. He simply declares, "I ought to be chief". When the boys decide to elect Ralph instead, Jack is only appeased by being placed in charge of his choir, who are now the hunters. Jack magnanimously proclaims that his hunters will take care of the fire as well as the hunting, but once he becomes involved in hunting, he ignores his responsibility to the group in order to focus on what gives him personal gratification. Consequently, the fire goes out and a chance for rescue is missed. When Ralph and Piggy point out Jack's fault, Jack refuses to accept responsibility and instead turns to violence, striking Piggy and causing his glasses to break. The more freedom Jack has, the less responsible he becomes. Ultimately he rejects the small semblance of order that has been created, refusing to listen to the chosen leader or follow the agreed-upon rules. "Bollocks to the rules!". A few days later, he leaves the society and is soon joined by other boys who wish to hunt rather than build shelters and gather food. In this new society, Jack leaves behind any sense of social agreement or moral order. He is a brutal dictator who does not need to appeal to logic or reason to gain societal support. As two of his tribe's members discuss the planned beating of Wilfred, a third tribal member, one boy asks the other why Wilfred is to be beaten. The other responds, "I don't know. He didn't say". Jack appeals to the boys' fear of the unknown and desire for violent conquest with a regime in which he is free to behave as he pleases, with no limits and no set order. Ralph represents a government in crisis, an attempt to balance the freedom Jack desires and the order Piggy reveres. After his election to chiefdom, he establishes simple, concrete goals and basic rules that the members of his society can easily understand. However, despite the group's agreement to those goals and rules, he soon finds that the rules mean little when they cannot be enforced. Few of the other boys continue to build the needed shelters, gather fresh fruit, or even urinate in the agreed-upon location. He realizes that leadership is more difficult than getting everyone to assent at a meeting. "When the meeting was over they'd work for five minutes, then wander off or go hunting". Finally Ralph holds a meeting in which he attempts to force his authority. "You voted me for chief. Now you do what I say". Even then he realizes that his authority must be based on the others' consent. When a later meeting breaks up into chaos, Piggy tells Ralph to blow the conch and "be tough" with the boys, to force them to obey. Ralph responds cautiously, "If I blow the conch and they don't come back; then we've had it. We shan't keep the fire going. We'll be like animals. We'll never be rescued". The balance between order and freedom that he represents is as fragile as the conch. Although he does not see law and order as beautiful in and of themselves, he tries to convince the boys who have abandoned his leadership that there are benefits to an orderly society. "...you'll have rain...Where are your shelters? What are you going to do about that?". In the end, his society is reduced to one -himself. Piggy and the conch die together in a confrontation with Jack's group, the remaining members of Ralph's society are kidnapped by Jack's tribe, and Ralph is hunted through the forest as Jack attempts to destroy any challenge to his brutal authority. Ralph is saved by the arrival of a navy ship, but Golding leaves open the question of whether or not human society as a whole can be rescued. Golding points out that "the officer, having interrupted a man-hunt, prepares to take the children off the island in a cruiser which will presently be hunting its enemy in the same implacable way. And who will rescue the adult and his cruiser?" In Lord of the Flies, Golding has shown that humans are naturally attracted, not to law and order, or even a balance of order and freedom through social agreement, but to unlimited freedom without responsibility. This irresponsible freedom leads not to anarchy, but to a totalitarian regime in which those who are strongest exercise their freedom with impunity. Those who, like Piggy and Ralph, attempt to place limit on the freedom of some for the benefit of all, end up sacrificing not only their freedom, but even their lives in the struggle.