Order And Chaos In Lord Of The Flies

Submitted By darkshobu
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“Power leads to both order and chaos”, this statement is a very prominent idea throughout “Lord of the Flies” the focus of what I’m about to say surrounds this statement and how it is reflected in “The Lord of the Flies”. Throughout this speech you will hear of some incidents and the characters involved in each of the incidents and how their language is portrayed through the Author “William Golding” relating to the statement. William Golding does a very good job hiding this idea behind the story through symbolism and metaphors as you will soon find out.
William Golding uses two boys as his main features displaying order and chaos in his book, these two boys are the two opposing leaders on the island,” Ralph” is the symbol of “Order” who is handsome, attractive and fair as the text informs us. We also have “Jack” who is our symbol of “Chaos”, Jack is very similar to Ralph although he is the complete opposite at the same time. In this similarity we see hints of the statement as through the two boys power is given and is displayed in two very different manners as Ralph displays a positive effect which is “order”, and Jack displays a negative effect which causes “chaos”. Throughout the text we see that Jack very similarly is inclined to leadership and is very charismatic, although unlike Ralph, Jack is power hungry and gets a certain satisfaction from power, and he abuses his position over others, for example when Jack earlier in the book allows Simon to faint under his supervision this shows his lack of maturity in his role and responsibility as he also shows no cause of alarm for Simon. Ralph is elected chief in the beginning as he was in possession of the “Conch shell” this is a very important symbol of power on the island as it was what rallied the boys to a meeting when they first crash landed on the island, this is what set Ralph up as the natural choice for leader during the first vote. Ralph is very different from Jack if not the complete opposite in many ways because of one major thing, as Ralph is made better through his role as chief, because as he receives more power Ralph becomes a better chief than previously whereas Jack as he receives more power and a higher stature he is corrupted by his power and becomes worse and worse as he receives more and more power. This is a prime example that “Power leads to both order and chaos”. Power leading to order through Ralph is recognised through the tribes organisation and how civilised the boys are with each other, Ralph is level headed and his intentions are not clouded by his power, Ralph keeps the boys settled and focused which is mental “order”.
Jack’s chance at power shows how power can lead to chaos, the boys are rowdy and unsettled, for example during the feasts that Jack holds the boys dance around the fire and re-enact their previous hunts which leads to the mistaken identity of Simon for the
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