Bullying In Lord Of The Flies

In the novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, bullying is displayed greatly through the teenagers minds. Piggy is by far the most bullied though because of his characteristics. He is short, chubby, wears glasses and by context a “nerd.” Jack takes any opportunity possible to bully him. Throughout the book the kids would get in arguments and find any way to make an insult towards the other person. Jack and Ralph were the most argumentative people because their ideas were always different towards the end of the book. Since Ralph was voted the leader of the group at the start of the book by his fellow classmates that also were stranded on the island, Jack has had a problem with him. Piggy helped Ralph come up with his ideas and make the

most optimal decisions for the group as a whole although Jack disagreed most of the time, he had to deal with it but would still bully and make sure that Ralph knew he was not happy about the decisions. During the novel and in today's society, bullying is becoming an important problem for parents, school administrators, and it affects our society as a whole.
During the story, Ralph gathers the boys for meetings to decide what the next move will be when they either gather something or have ideas. Jack does not ever agree with the squad decisions so he decides to hold the conch and speak out against Ralph. The conch decides who will speak and when blown, kids gather at their meeting spot. Jack suggests a new vote of a new leader and they vote and Jack gets shut down with no votes. He storms off and says, “I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you." (Golding 75). Although Jack is usually the one who does the bullying, in this case it is the others who bully him in a way that only Jack, himself, can explain. Jack thinks the boys bullied him by not giving him any chances. In an article on StopBullying.gov, it states that kids are mistreated or misunderstood when they are bullied or being bullied. When they are being displayed as a bully or a victim, they are more likely to be hurt when being bullied. Even if a kid is joking around, the kid being bullied will be hurt as if he takes to a seriousness. When Jack appears to do the bullying he does not feel grief or pain but when he was bullied by the rest of the boys he felt as if he did not want to live with them on the island anymore.
The island itself was very hard to live with due to the temperatures and the kids being the only ones there and trying to get off of it with no knowledge great enough to escape.

The boys gather up when the conch is blown and they meet and discuss what has to be done as there leader, Ralph, passes the conch around and speaks his ideas. Jack never gets what he wants cause he does not deserve it. He is rude and has a hard hate passion for the boys he is stranded with due to the lack of likeness towards him. Jack says, complaining about Ralph, “Ralph is like Piggy. He says things like Piggy. He isn't a proper chief.” (Golding 50). Ralph and Piggy collaborate with each other because Piggy is by far the most intelligent and that is what Ralph needs, intelligent, working, and optimal ideas that would work best for the group of boys. In, The Bully Mob by Denise Balkissoon, she states that even a little bit of the slimmest bullying towards someone can be extremely harmful. As the years go on more and more people are committing suicide due to bullying issues and kids telling other kids to kill themselves when they may disagreeing during a conversation. A joke can go a long way when someone does not think they are being too funny. So when Jack calls Piggy fat or stupid or to shut up it may be funny to Jack but to Piggy it could mean the world and if he deserves to be alive for the way he looks or even the way he acts around some people. This leads to when the boys were out hunting

and Piggy talks too long Jack can come out and pick on him.
During the hunters hunt, they seemed to be picking on Piggy quite a bit and Piggy was not too happy.

The hunters consist of Ralph, Piggy and Simon. Ralph was the leader of the hunters so it did not matter as much when he was making fun of him ofcourse because no one could tell him to stop talking. As the others strolled along they did not say anything or even try and help Piggy. Jack says to Piggy as they are walking and taking, “You’re talking too much… shut up, fatty” (Golding 21). As you can see, Jack finds every way possible to pick on him even when he may be suggesting a good, well thought idea for the teens to survive and get off the island safely. Another noticeable thing that happens when kids are bullied is that they become insecure. From the APA (American Psychological Association), studies show that students who are bullied will not fight back because of what they are being bullied for and do not want to be embarrassed anymore. As Piggy gets bullied by Jack he does not say anything or fight back because he knows he is not big enough

to.
Bullying is becoming an important problem for parents, school administrators, and it affects our society as a whole when a kid is bullied and has serious thoughts about suicide or something in that nature. Jack and Ralph had the most problems but Piggy was an easy target due to his features. The island that they crash landed on was a brutal location because of the supply and no civilization for them to communicate with and get help faster for them to leave but they had to work together, which lead to bullying. The hunters on the other hand had been bullying Piggy excessively with the others letting it helping and not coming out and being a bystander. Bullying is a major problem in schools all around the world and as kids become bigger without learning the damages it can do to other people, kids will react in a devastating act.