The abuses of power displayed in The Lord of the Flies and “I Only Came to Use the Phone” show how power when given or assumed can change the person who has been elevated above others as well as changing the person who is being abused. When people in authority abuse this power, they can affect people’s lives and well being.
A person that abuses power can often weaken the spirit of the person they are abusing and will change the person. In “I Only Came to Use the Phone,” the quote "Herculina standing in the doorway, Maria gave up"(Gabriel Garcia, pg 86) shows us how a person that will abuse or hurt us will weaken our spirit. Maria saw Herculina as an abusive, powerful person. So she gave up her will to try anything in the sanatorium. Before this Herculina already instilled fear in Maria. “No pleading would move that maniac in coveralls who was called Herculian because of her uncommon strength. She was in charge of difficult cases, and two inmates had been strangled to death by her polar bear arms.” (Gabriel Garcia, pg 75) This quote explains why Herculina weakened Maria’s spirit because of her abusiveness to other patients. After repeatedly asking to use the phone, Maria was denied and thought to be crazy. She was not allowed to use the phone. This abusive figure ruined Maria's fighting spirit to stay sane and to escape the sanatorium. This abusive figure pushed her so far that Maria gave up and really changed into a crazy person. An abusive person will change and break our spirit.
An image can be used as a powerful symbol like our United States flag is a symbol of power. Or an image can be an abusive symbol like face paint in Lord of the Flies. Jack, the savages’ group leader, would put blood on his group members faces to show...
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... position for his own gain. Since Jack was so willing to kill he would kill anything or anybody that would not obey him. Jack expects complete obedience from everyone on the island.
There is a certain amount of power and authority that has to exist for a society to work properly. When people like the matrons and Jack are placed in positions of power they tend to take advantage of their positions. Also they will mistreat or harm the people they feel are below them. This power satisfies their ego, they feel it completes them but it leads to their own demise as leaders. It will take away their basic human feelings and a sense of right and wrong to the extent that they are only right.
Works Cited
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Penguin Group, 1954. Print.
Garcia, Gabrielle. “I Only Came to Use the Phone.” Strange Pilgrims. April 1978. 71-91. Print
What is power to a human? As time has gone by, there have been many forms of control and influence in the world. Many strive to achieve total rule over a society or group of individuals. Yet the question still presents itself to the average man. Why does man desire power so greatly even though there is visible trouble that follows? Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, whether through the situation or the character themselves, depict the evils and hardships due to an imbalance and poor management of power.
Authority plays a vital role in the modern world through contrasting forms of government and the struggle for power between leaders. The leader of a society asserts power over its citizens with the aim to create the laws, which hold the society together. Once authority is demolished within a community, the power spreads to its citizens in which total chaos collectively overtakes the society. The process of law-making and a struggle for power takes precedence in William Golding’s allegorical novel, Lord of the Flies, through the conch shell found upon the shore. The conch grants superiority to one member of the group over the others, it is used to call assemblies and assists in choosing the speakers during important meetings. When the conch
He wants to dictate everyone’s actions. He feels he’s superior and is always right, because of these thoughts he doesn’t listen to anyone but himself and will do whatever he feels he has to do to accomplish his motives. Slave masters definitely didn’t listen to their slaves either. They would whip, beat, slap, torture, sometimes even kill to get the jobs they wanted done finished. They knew they were considered superior over the slaves as Jack felt over the others on the island. The slaves wanted freedoms and the right to speak. I feel this correlates to the boys and their wish to be heard when they had the conch shell.
Jack, William Golding’s antagonist in Lord of the Flies, reveals through his experience on the island that it is an individual’s assertiveness, manipulative abilities, and charisma which dictate who commandeers power and privilege over others, and that possessing these traits often negatively impacts the lives of the people leaders seek to control.
Americans as they go through their day to day lives, do not very often see corruption of power here at home, so they very frequently forget the sufferings of other nations under the power of oppressive regimes. It is important to remember that human power, in its pure form, will tend to be used for evil rather than good. In fact Golding creates such a situation in his book Lord of the Flies which will later be seen. It is also important to know that even if a person is conditioned to use his human power for good and not for evil, the temptation to use that human power for evil is often so great that the user will succumb to the temptation and could use that human power to do something terrible. This is seen in both I Only Came to Use the Phone and Lord of the Flies. Another important aspect of human power is that human power with good intent is often stamped out by human power with evil intent. This is demonstrated by some characters in Lord of the Flies. So basically, human power is an indiscriminate force which can be used for either good or for evil depending on the human who is yielding said power; however, in general, human power is used to achieve selfish and evil desires.
Therefore, people forget their morals and defy their personality. Shea states people can change their morals due to the effects of power (Shea). Fromm claims that an individual’s decisions reflect his or her conscious because their conscious is what brings them “back to ourselves, to our humanity” (Fromm 126). Fromm would state that Jessup believes he could do anything because of the power he holds; therefore, Jessup allows power to rise above his conscious. This demonstrates how easily authority can corrupt an individual. Jessup knew Santiago would physically not be able to handle the “code red”, yet power overrules his morals (A Few Good Men). Fromm would admit that Jessup’s authority trumped his morals, yet also believes that Dawson and
Many people who have power and authority have the ability to have a strong influence over the behavior of others. They show great dominance over them, and have a lot of say in their actions. And many characters demonstrate this in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men. The novel stresses us to view the advantage power has in its characters’ actions and
Jack ruled with, what we call today, an “Iron Fist”. Golding shows this by telling how Jack ruled, how he’d beat those who didn’t obey him and how he was violent, greedy, and self-absorbed. He rolled a boulder down the mountain the killed Piggy and organized a party to mutilate Ralph. By this point in the story, he was so infatuated with power that he didn’t care about being rescued and that he was willing to spend the rest of his life on that island just to be the leader and ruler of all everyone. This is Golding’s way of showing how Jack had become so obsessed with power that he would kill anyone who said he was unfit for it and have a public “example” to show what would happen to those who opposed and threatened his
When you’re in a position of high authority, it comes with a great sum of power. Having a great deal of control can corrupt and can lead to the abuse of it. Abuse of power is using their power for their own benefit even if it may harm others. In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the effects of the abuse shown by Curley and Curley’s wife to the other characters will ultimately lead to a tragic end.
One of the things that changes Jack was his hatred and drives him to the point where he was willing to kill. In the beginning he was a choir boy who knew nothing much, but his hatred grew when he was not elected leader. In the book it quote “And you shut up! Who are you anyway? Sitting here telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing-” (91). This quote shows that Jack had
Often, too much power can go to that particular person’s head, and he/she can become corrupt. As readers have seen in literature, abuses of power are often harmful to the abuser and their subjects. Corrupted authority and abuses of power eventually lead to the collapse of society. This concept is shown many times throughout the novel Lord Of the Flies and the short story “I Only Came to Use the Phone”. Displayed through characters and actions, abusive power has dominated what should be morally correct in literature.
Jack, on the other hand, is doing nothing but causing chaos. Jack fails to realize that the boys need security, stability, and order on the island. Jack was a leader of the choir before the boys landed on the island. These boys, who were in the choir, still want to follow Jack; however, they have no discipline at all. The only thing that is on Jack’s mind is hunting.
The political system that they had on the island was corrupt. It wasn't the system but the individuals who were responsible for corruption in society. At first they had a leader, Ralph. He made rules, held meetings and tried to keep things in order. Soon Ralph's rules are being ignored and questioned. Jack was too concerned with hunting, to worry about the other things that can keep them alive, like the signal fire that would get them rescued, Madness came into his eyes. "I thought I might kill." "But you haven't yet (51)." Soon, Jack decides he's had enough of Ralph, "I'm not going to be part of Ralph's lot. I'm going by myself. Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come (127)." He lures the other boys away and makes a tribe. Ralph's community deteriorates. Jack is responsible for the corruption of their society.
When viewing the atrocities of today's world on television, the starving children, the wars, the injustices, one cannot help but think that evil is rampant in this day and age. However, people in society must be aware that evil is not an external force embodied in a society but resides within each person. Man has both good qualities and faults. He must come to control these faults in order to be a good person. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding deals with this same evil which exists in all of his characters. With his mastery of such literary tools as structure, syntax, diction and imagery, The author creates a cheerless, sardonic tone to convey his own views of the nature of man and man’s role within society.
From the displays of power that have been shown through out this essay, we see that this story is a story about power. Power is the story is primarily about peoples need for some small amount of power to survive in life and to feel that hey have a purpose within their society which every society it may be whether its is Gilead or Nazi Germany or modern day Britain.