Barbaric Anarchy in The Lord of The Flies by William Golding

What qualities does one of authority posses which allows a group of civilized boys to revert back into barbaric anarchy within weeks? In William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies a plane of evacuating British school boys crashed onto an island, the oldest only twelve years old. A boy, Ralph, elected chief, and allowed the group to stray further and further into the darkness which lies in all. For, Ralph acted immature, froze up during crucial moments, and did not utilize his best assets.
For instance, Ralph took liberty to say what he wants, regardless of others’ feelings or having a mature disposition. In particular, he disregarded Piggy’s request of not telling anyone his old nickname. Called Piggy in school as a form of bullying, he asked Ralph not to mention it to anyone. When Jack called Piggy Fatty though, Ralph quickly blurted, “He’s not fatty… his real name’s Piggy!” (21). This resulted in Piggy called such from that point on, exactly what he did not want. Despite Piggy specifically asking Ralph not to tell and why, Ralph still did, absent minded to Piggy’s feelings. This condoned to the other boys the disrespecting of Piggy and each other, for as the leader, Ralph set the example. Next, Ralph also yelled at a crying “littlun” in frustration at an assembly. The group worried about a “beastie” “littluns” said they saw. At the meeting, a group of them encouraged Percival to tell Ralph and the others about what they have experienced of the beast, but when asked his name, he started to ramble the broke out sobbing. To this outburst Ralph yelled, “Shut up, you! Shut up!” (87). Instead of comforting a member of this group, or calming people down, he disregarded Percival’s anguish and immaturely screamed at him, ...

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...acceptable. Ralph treated Piggy as a lesser being, instead of using his creativity to better the group's lives. This hurt everyone in the end because without Piggy creating ties to civilization, they lost touch of it and ended up in the state of savagery that they did.
In short, Ralph’s qualities of immaturity, stressed induced paralysis, and ignorance of his best asset let a group of boys fall victims to inner demons. His failure to respect to his group gave example to the boys to also follow suit. His failure to act quickly brought detrimental consequences to his group’s mentality. His failure to regard Piggy’s ideas destroyed possible forms of civilization the boys could have clung to instead of falling into savagery. Ralph allowed the boys to sully themselves with evil.

Work Cited
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Penguin Group, 2006. Print.