Peer Pressure In Lord Of The Flies

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When the teachers leaves the classroom and it’s just left with a room full of students, rules are broken, pencils fly, kids begin to run around, and in the matter of seconds the room is filled loud voices beaming from the children. Whenever there is a time when it is just kids in a room and no adults, it gets hectic very fast and most of the time turns into utter chaos. What do people do in a time of chaos? Some people become leaders and others become followers. In the book the Lord of the Flies the kids are faced with struggling to survive, and what roles they will be playing as they are on the island. The kids desire for popularity and power gets a little out of hand and the kids feel peer pressure to submit to these power crazed children …show more content…

At one point in the story Jack says “Conch! Conch! We don’t need the conch anymore, we know who ought to say things” This quote really tells us that Jack’s pride has overtaken him and the idea of the kids submitting to him and calling him “chief.” has gone to his head. Jack has become very popular by force and by the kids feeling peer pressured to join Jack’s tribe and be hunters, or else they might be killed by the rest of the tribe. Everyone on the tribe is scared to step up to Jack because the people on his tribe are beginning to get used to the violent acts savagery that have been committed on the island so far. The kids start to let the fear of man overtake them and give into the peer pressure of joining Jack’s tribe because there isn’t really another option. By the kids giving into the peer pressure to follow the “popular” leader, Jack, they are ultimately giving Jack more power so he can do whatever he wants with the support of others who agreed to be apart of the tribe. This theme reaches its climax at the end of the story when it is literally Jack’s whole tribe, which basically consists of all the kids on the island, against Ralph. In the end, Ralph was the only one who didn’t give into the peer pressure to join Jack’s tribe, and ultimately he was rewarded for it because he got what he wanted, to be rescued. Now just because he didn’t give into peer pressure doesn’t mean you automatically get rewarded. I feel that giving Ralph his desire was William Golding’s way of rewarding Ralph for not giving into being apart of Jack's

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