Lord_of_the_Flies

Spenser Hilton Accelerated English II November 12, 2010 At the beginning of Lord of the Flies, many, if not all of the characters seem like “ordinary” young British boys. They all attend boarding school, suggesting a state of some wealth. Their ages vary widely, and there are only a few candidates who are old enough (not necessarily mature enough) to possibly assert a semblance of order and stability on the island. They are the only characters that are deeply developed further along in the story, the only ones whose minds Golding takes you deep into. Ralph is one of the greatest players in the story, and is the main protagonist in Lord of the Flies. Early on, he is very strong willed and takes charge when he is elected “Chief” of the island, because he is the one who found the conch and blew it to call a meeting and bring together the scattered boys. His clear mind represents order and the need for leadership in society. Once Ralph is “elected” by popular demand, “‘Him with the shell!’ ‘Ralph! Ralph!’ ‘Let him be chief with the trumpet thing!’” , he inadvertently gains an enemy in Jack Merridew, who can be seen as the main tangible antagonist in the story, with the inner barbarian which seems to lurk in each of the boys being the greatest overall source of the conflict of the story. Ralph’s Hilton 2 mindset of order and stability does not mesh well with Jack’s, which is based on barbarian living and violence, with hunting as the source of food. This creates a situation where the group of boys is divided into two groups, with most of the older boys tagging along with Jack, and Ralph being left to take care of the “littleuns”. Ralph is dead set on the idea that his father, a military man, will come to rescue him immediately, and hold on to this belief for a period in the story. “‘He’s a commander in the Navy. As soon as he gets leave he’ll come rescue us.’” He is then made aware of the brutal truth that no one knows where they are, and that they are indeed stranded on an island, utterly alone. Ralph is bewildered by the preoccupation with violence that possesses the other boys, especially Jack, Roger, and Simon, and he does not wish to be sucked into their way of thinking. He does eventually succumb, however temporarily, and this has disastrous consequences. Jack Merridew is the main opponent of Ralph in Lord of the Flies, and is the most in love with the idea of becoming hunters and killing for their food. This leads to major conflicts with Ralph, who believes keeping a signal fire alive and gathering fruit for food is much smarter and safer. When Jack is set to watch the fire, a ship happens to pass by the island, but to Ralph’s great dismay, the signal fire they had build had been allowed to go out, because Jack had decided to go off and hunt a pig, which he did eventually catch, but to Ralph, the ends did not in this case justify the means. Jack is the leader of a boys’ choir from the boarding school they attended, which gives him a compulsive need to be in charge of the group of boys. He constantly tries to undermine Hilton 3 Ralph’s authority, with mixed results. He seems to have some problems, and is violent throughout, revealing a knife he carried on him from the start of the story. This may explain why he is so obsessed with killing something. Jack does eventually succeed in destroying the boys’ loyalty to Ralph and taking all but a few with him to his fortress on the mountain. Simon is a boy whose life is much more shrouded in mystery than either Jack or Ralph, and seems to have a darker mind even than Jack. He reveals his idea that the “beast” that seems to haunt the island may not be an actually physical being, but a manifestation of the boys’ fears and the inner demon lurking inside each of their minds, whether they know it is there or not. He, at one point, sits in a glade in the jungle for what seems like hours, but may actually only have been a short moment, contemplating the sow’s head on a stick, which he calls the Lord of the Flies. In Simon’s mind the head seems to come alive, speaking to him, taunting him, driving him mad. While Simon is having his revelations in the jungle, the other boys are getting riled up by bloodlust and the urge to kill something. When Simon come running out of the jungle, the other boys instantly jump on him, beating him, stabbing him and biting him. By the time they let up, Simon is all but dead, and slides down the slope to the beach, taken away by the sea. It is not until much later that Ralph, who was involved in the slaying as well, realizes what has happened. He is struck dumb by the magnitude of the act he was a part of, and despairs. Piggy is a chubby boy, which is the reason he is called Piggy. When he meets Ralph at the very beginning of the story, he begs not to be introduced to the other kids as Piggy, Hilton 4 anything but Piggy. “’ I don’t care what they call me,’ he said confidentially, ‘so long as they don’t call me what they used to call me at school.’” Piggy is a very cautious boy, cautious to the point of irritating the other boys and earning himself mockery and derogatory remarks. When Ralph decides to build a signal fire, Piggy’s glasses are taken as a means of starting the fire, because none of the boys has any matches or a flint. He protests loudly, because he is essentially blind without them, but he is ignored. Towards the end of the story, during a major conflict between Ralph and Jack, Roger pushed a large boulder, meant to be used for defense of the mountain fortress, down a hill, crushing Piggy, and smashing a path through the forest. Piggy, like Simon is sucked out to sea, leaving no trace of him behind. Golding does a superb job of defining the major players in this novel, which helps to bring the reader into the story. The story is a sometimes startling revelation of the problems of society and the inner beast that lurks inside everyone. Hilton 5 Work Cited Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigee, 1954. Print.