LOTF Essay

Submitted By edsomniac
Words: 964
Pages: 4
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Bailey Laidlaw
ENG 1D
Mrs. Retty
April 11th 2014 Power Crazed Chaos
Imagine a world with no rules or order. What if our prime minister or president was a monkey? It would be chaos right? In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies everything was okay at first. Throughout the novel Jack starts to rebel and he becomes obsessed with hunting. Piggy’s glasses crack during a fight, and that’s when things start going downhill. Ralph still has control, and the conch possessed power. Soon after that Jack starts his own tribe on the other side of the island; the dark side. He is leader and there are no rules, just fun and games. Sounds okay right? Wrong. If power and control gets in the wrong hands, chaos occurs.

The first sign of Ralph losing his power, and control being lost is when Jack and his hunters let the fire go out because they are too focused on hunting, and doing what they want. Ralph is leader and he assigned them one job to do while he builds shelters. Ralph notices a ship while talking to Jack and he says to him, “I was talking about smoke! Don’t you want to be rescued? All you can think about is pig, pig, pig!” (Golding, 55). This shows that they were beginning not to care about what Ralph says, they just want to do their own thing. Ralphs power is beginning to disappear. When the boys are arguing about the fire going out, Jack punches Piggy. This causes Piggy’s glasses to go flying and one of the lenses cracks. This is when things start to get chaotic. The control on the island breaks slightly, along with Piggy’s glasses. Piggy’s glasses soon become a symbolism of power. Once the glasses/fire is all Ralph and his group have since the conch has lost its power, Jack comes to steal them. “I know they didn’t come for the conch. They came for something else. Ralph−what am I going to do?” (Golding, 186). Jack now has everything but the conch, so this is his way of manipulating the others to join his tribe. The power is in the wrong hands.

The conch plays a huge role of power and control on the island. When is loses its power, chaos occurs. For example when Jack states, “And the conch doesn’t count at this end of the island−” (Golding, 166). They have an argument and begin a chant. Jack leads the chant and Simon crawls out of the forest to be brutally murdered by the boys. This shows that when a once huge symbolism of power loses its significance, mayhem takes place. Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric march over to Castle Rock with the conch to try and get Piggy’s glasses back, and maybe restore some peace. Ralph calls an assembly with the conch and no one listens to him. Ralph and Jack get into a brawl and Jack nearly stabs Ralph with a spear. Jack orders his tribe to grab Samneric and tie them up. Ralph now only has Piggy and the conch. He is trying to persuade them into thinking logically by saying, “Which is better– to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?” (Golding, 200). Unfortunately now Jack was yelling too loud for Ralph to be heard. Roger saw Piggy holding the conch in his hands, and aimed a giant bolder at him. It stuck him with force sending him off the cliff to his death, and causing the conch to break in his hands. Now no power was in the right hand, and all the power was in the wrong hands.

Jack running his own tribe is a disaster
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