Lord of the Flies

November 10, 2011

Lord of the Flies

The Fair Boy

            In Lord of the Flies, a pod of boys is ejected from a plane on to a inhabited island near the Indian Ocean. One of the main character's names is Ralph. He is described as being, “twelve and a few months” and “the boy with fair hair”. Ralph blows on the conch and gathers all the surviving boys at the platform they decide to have a vote on who should be the chief. Piggy, who has asthma, finds a conch and explains to Ralph how to blow it. This shows us the roles of Piggy, who is realistic, and Ralph, who tries to keep everyone together, together make a perfect survival group. They elect Ralph as chief on account of him being the one who was able to blow “the conch”.

            In the beginning, Ralph is discovering the island with his new, friend Piggy: “This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun” (35). When Ralph arrives at the island he wants to have fun and he is relying on the grownups to find them. Later in the day Ralph realizes that if they wont do anything the wont be rescued as he tells the boys:

            There's another thing, We can help them find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not       notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.                   (35)

This is the exact opposite of Jack's thought development. He was the first to bring up the subject of being rescued at the assembly and later he makes his descent into fun and savagery. Jack and his hunters were given the task of keeping the fire going. Ralph sees a ship pass the island and he runs to the top of the mountain to find a burnt fire. Ralph asks Jack and the Hunters: “Don't you all want to be rescued?”(102)

            Things start to deteriorate between the objectives of Ralph and Jack. Ralph wants to be rescued and Jack wants to hunt and have fun. Jack has got enough of Ralph: “I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you”(127), and starts his own hunting clan by the castle rock. The rivalry between Jack's clan and Ralph's group continues to escalate. The stealing of Piggy's spectacles was first event that marked the complete change in Jack's clan into savagery. Ralph and his group went over to Jacks group to ask for the spectacles back for their fire in which caused a physical fight between Jack and Ralph which lead to the shattering of the conch and Piggy's death.

            Jack and Roger forced Sameric to join to their group to make Ralph be all alone. Jack starts to plan to kill Ralph and Sameric tell Ralph that: “They're going to hunt you tomorrow”(188). Ralph dreading for his life finds a thicket, where Jack would not be able to get to him, and stays there throughout the night. In the morning Jack and the Savages find Ralph and are unable to force him out of the thicket. Jack lights the thicket on fire so Ralph would have no choice but to get out. Ralph run out towards the beach where he bumps into his rescuer, a Naval Officer.

            Ralph breaks out into a cry. He mourns for his dead friends and realizes that mankind is cruel and that their war is similar to the one that the Naval officer was participating. Ralph notes the irony of the fire when the Officer said: “We saw your smoke”(201). The whole time Ralph's been on the island he was trying to make smoke to bhe rescued when Jack lit the fire to kill Ralph and made the recue happen.