Essay on the Unwavering Leadership Spirit of Ralph in Lord of the Flies

The savagery that underlies even the most educated and the most civilized individuals in the society is tackled in Lord of the Flies. With a little twist in taste and conformation, Golding intended this novel to be a tragic parody of children concerning tales of adventure. The whole underside of intrinsic human nature of being evil is revealed in this piece of literature. The reader is therefore entangled in a historical tale that leads the fate of a group of young boys from grace to grass. These boys attempt to survive their unsupervised and uncivilized environment, quite isolated until they find the intended rescue. They then elect a leader who happens to be Ralph. With the help and support of piggy, Ralph manages to establish rules that would assist them in housing and sanitation. The chief of the group, Ralph, also purports to make a signal fire hoping that any passing ship would recognize the signal and rescue them. However, Jack is a major stumbling block to the leadership of Ralph who also eyes the leadership position. Jack begins his negative tactics to create his camp group by coaxing a group of boys to sacrifice their duty of tending to signal fire to hunt.

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One night, the boys headed by Ralph and Jack confront one another in an aerial fight. The consequence of their action leads to casualties and a subsequent split of the group into two subgroups, one led by Jack and the other, by Ralph. The ferocity-cum-protection entices the boys who happen to have joined Jack that Jack seemed to have been offering by playing the role of savages. At one point, the group of Jack slaughters a sow and puts the head on a stick as a sign of performing a ritual to the feared beast. After some time, Ralph is only left with three boys in his camp. The group of Jack then attacks that of Ralph in their camp with the intention of stealing glasses to start a cooking fire. Successfully, they achieve their intended purpose after which Ralph and his three counterparts leave a devastating signal fire in pursuit of their glasses. Feud rises again in which one of the savage boys kill Piggy. They then capture the other two boys leaving Ralph desperate for his life. With the intention of killing him, they set fire to the hiding location of Ralph only to realize that the raging fire consumed the whole island. Miraculously, a marine ship notices the massive fire and reaches for the island. In the process, the captain of the navy ship saves Ralph at the brinks of death. This essay article will, therefore, analyze the purpose of Ralph as a character employed by Golding in achieving the intentions of Lord of Flies.

Ralph is quite a leader, civilized and social enough. He demonstrates basic common sense when he says, "we have to make rules and obey them. After all, we are English people, and the English are the best in everything." (Pg. 42) Ralph happens to be a natural leader. When Piggy, who is considered the smartest supports him, Golding demonstrates the fundamental conviction that leadership and smartness are a unit; only that leadership is a little more essential social quality. At the time of crisis, he possesses abject calmness with a lot of sense and caution. He focuses on vigilance to keep the group together in one accord of getting solutions to their situations whereas Jack is more of a vigilante. In an argument with Jack, Ralph says, "shut upIt seems to me we have to get a chief to decide things." (Pg. 12) On the contrary, Jack argues by saying, "I ought to be the head because I happen to be the chapter chorister and head boy. I can as well sing C sharp" (Pg 28). By posting a real question of leadership within a lost group of uncivilized and unsupervised boy troop, he portrays having the conch. Concerning the same issue, Jack appears to be dumb, by thinking he is good in singing, he clouds his mind that he can lead as well. At this juncture, we can describe Ralph as golden boy according to Golding. He is described with good looks and proper leading capabilities. He is also the conch which is a symbol of power and order. He has the nerves in himself too. When the group decides to look for the beast, Ralph decides to appoint himself.

Unfortunately, the leadership of Ralph depends on civilization. He is only a leader as long as everyone in the group agrees to live by the rules of civilization. From the perspective of Golding, The form of leadership of Ralph is all about trying to ensure the smooth will of the students as they survive the terrible ordeal in the island. He is also innately good because he does not conform to savagery and throw boulders at the other boys. On the contrary, Ralph is not at all without blemish. The first contradictory action to his qualities is removing his clothes. From the perspective of Golding, making Ralph strip was not of any real intent and also of no good sign. From the narrative, Golding writes, " He jumps down from the terracewith the thick sand on his feet and heat hitting himhe became aware of the weight of clothes on himhe kicked off his shoes and ripped off each stocking" (Pg. 53). Even though the decision made by Ralph to run around the deserted island all stripped is more sensible, it cannot be ignored as well that this action is a sign of a little savagery lacking in him. When they had the opportunity to hunt as a group, Ralph even gets more sinister and begins to think that the activity was right after all. The little savagery also happened to have saved him. At the end of the narrative, he launches himself like a cat. He is stabbed and yet snarls with the spear, a situation that leads to his savagery doubling up.

To sum up this marvelous narrative, we realize that Golding uses Ralph to portray how one would lose his mind in cases of difficult situations. Ralph as a character is a symbol or a statue used in breaking the logics behind savagery portrayed by Golding. Ralph manages to find a way of coping with the situation he faces in the island. He can deal with the horrors posed by his fellows. Ralph is, therefore, a tragic figure in Lord of the Flies. He is the only one in the group of boys who has to revisit his knowledge portrayed underneath his schoolboy uniform. Moreover, he is nothing more than a lawless and orders less savage. Through him, Golding hits on point, the objectives of his book.

Reference

GOLDING, W. LORD OF THE FLIES. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from https://d2ct263enury6r.cloudfront.net/X2bpH13Xnjn4ZJspWQzb5LMu7BGp5CUGaPGFQqVXvLT2M1AW.pdf