lord of the flies :: essays research papers

Lord of the Flies My character in Lord of the Flies is Ralph. The theme of Lord of the Flies is how human beings’ natural defects are the cause of society’s problems. No matter how good the laws or governments are at controlling people’s savageness, the inherent evil in people will cause chaos. Ralph tries to resists the urge to become a savage through out the book. Almost all of the other boys become hunters and forget what is important. In the beginning, all of the boys come to the assemblies and decide that Ralph should be the chief. Ralph is the authority figure of the group. He was the one who kept reminding the boys that the fire is the important thing(chpt 4). The hunters let the fire go out and a ship just happens to come along. Because the fire is out, they lose a chance to be rescued. At first the meetings were the things that brought them together. Meeting had rules and order in them. Jack was the boy that started the unraveling of civility. He wanted to be the chief and ended up being in charge of the hunters. He resented the power that Ralph had. Jack hated Piggy because he was always on Ralph’s side. The rule at meetings was a boy could only speak if he had the conch shell. While Piggy was talking, Jack interrupted him and tried to take away the shell. Ralph yelled out â€Å"The rules! You’re breaking the rules!† Jack shouted â€Å"Who cares?† Ralph exclaims â€Å"Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!†( pg 91) Ralph was the one who tried to keep everyone together and Jack did every thing to turn the other boys away from Ralph. There were times when Ralph almost when to the dark side. In chapter 5 on page 93, Ralph says â€Å"I ought to give up being chief.† He had a fight with Jack over being responsible for the fire. Piggy and Simon convince Ralph to stay chief. When the rest of the boys don’t care anymore about things like being clean, Ralph thinks to himself that it is sad(chpt 7). Ralph comes closer to being one of the hunters when he participates in a mock kill. He too fells the urge to kill and to destroy. He also goes to the hunters and feasts with them on the pig.