Lord Of The Flies

The lord of the flies is a book about a group of boys stranded on a tropical island to illustrate the evil characters of mankind. Lord of the Flies dealt with changes that the boys go through as they gradually got use to the stranded freedom from the outside world. Three main characters pictured different effects on the other boys. Jack Merridew began as the bossy and arrogant leader of a choir. The freedom of the island allowed him to further develop the darker side of his personality as the Chief of a savage tribe. Ralph started as a self-assured boy whose confidence in him came from the approval of the others. He was kind as he was willing to listen to Piggy. He became increasingly dependent on Piggy's wisdom and became lost in the confusion around him. Towards the end of the story when he was kicked out of the savage boys he was forced to live without Piggy and live by himself. Piggy was an educated boy that was more mature than the others, that was used to being picked on. His experiences on the island were a reality check of how extreme people can be with their words.

Ralph was introduced as a fair and likeable boy. His interaction with Piggy demonstrated his kind nature as he did not call him names with hateful intentions as Jack had. His good looks allowed him to be well accepted among his peers, and this gave him enough confidence. His handsome features and the conch as a symbol of power and order made him stand out from the crowd of boys and led to his being proclaimed Chief: "There was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerful, there was the conch" (p. 24). From the quick decisions he made as Chief near the beginning of the novel, it could be seen that Ralph was well-organized. Gradually, Ralph became confused and began to lose realness in his thoughts and speeches: "Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down." (p. 156) He started to feel lost as the boys, with the exception of Piggy, began to change and adapt to their freedom.. He was more influenced by Piggy than by Jack. Even though the significance of the fire as a rescue signal was slowly forgotten, Ralph continued to stress the importance of the fire at the mountaintop. As his supporters became fewer and Jack's pursue on being Chief grew, his strength as a leader diminished. During the play-fight after their unsuccessful hunt in the course of their search for the east, Ralph for the first time had an opportunity to join the hunters and share their desire for violence: "Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering." (p. 126) Without rules to limit them, they were free to make their game as real as they wanted. Ralph did not understand the hatred Jack had for him, nor did he fully comprehend why their small and simple society deteriorated. This confusion removed his self-confidence and made him more dependent on Piggy's judgement, until Piggy began prompting him on what needed to be said and done. Towards the end of the novel, Ralph was forced into independence when he lost all his followers to Jack's savagery, and when Piggy and the conch were smashed by Roger's boulder. He was forced to determine how to avoid Jack's savage hunters alone. Ralph's more responsible behaviour set him apart from the other savage boys and made it difficult for him to realize and accept the changes they were undergoing.

Piggy was an educated boy rejected by the kids of his age group on account of his being overweight. It was his academic background and his isolation from the savage boys that had allowed him to remain mostly unchanged from his primitive experiences on the island. His unattractive attributes separated

him from the other boys on the island. He was not welcomed on their first exploratory trip of the island. "We don't want you," Jack had said to Piggy (p. 26). Piggy was like an observer learning from the actions of others. His status in their society allowed him to look at the boys from an outsider's perspective. He could learn of the hatred being brought out of the boys without having to experience the thirst for blood that Ralph was exposed to. Although he was easily intimidated by the other boys, especially by Jack, he did not lack the self-confidence to protest or speak out against the indignities from the boys as the shy former choirboy Simon did. This self-confidence differed from that of Ralph's as it did not come from his acceptance by their peers nor did it come from the authority and power Jack had grown accustomed to. It came from the pride in having accumulated the wisdom that was obviously greater than that of most of the other kids at his age. Piggy not only knew what the rules were, as all the other boys did, but he also had the patience to at least wonder why the rules existed. This intuition made Piggy not only more aware of why the rules were imposed, thereby ensuring that he would abide by them even when they were not enforced. When the boys flocked to the mountaintop to build their fire, Piggy shouted after them, "Acting like a crowd of kids!" (p. 42). Piggy was a very liable person who could look ahead and plan carefully of the