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Essay on leadership in lord of the flies
World war ii us literature
Lord of the flies symbolism
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The date is 1954, just a few years after the end of World War Two, the great war still fresh and painful in the eyes of those living; on bookshelves stands the published novel by William Golding titled Lord of the Flies. This novel was written to tell the tale of a group of young boys stranded on an island after their plane crashes sometime after their departure of their evacuation for precaution from London, England. The idea of actual evacuation was only talked about and experimented on even if a plan of action was made if the need ever really arose. Those would would be evacuated would be mothers, children, and the handicapped from vulnerable ares such as London, England, which was hit harshly during the Blitz of 1940 where Germany bombed the city every night continuously for an entire year. The boys of this novel was evacuated because of that blitz and just as any reader would assume, a leader would be necessary, and two will come to power unable to stand for or be under the ruling of each other with views so completely different. This sounds awfully familiar for being a novel published a few years after World War Two ended. These leaders, Ralph and Jack, along with fellow evacuees, Maurice, Rodger, Piggy, and even the little children, all correlate to great leaders and their followers during World War Two.
Ralph is the all-mighty protagonist of the novel and in the relation to World War Two, would best represent the powerful Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of England. England, after World War One, became stronger, fair, and a major leader more than ever. It adopted universal suffrage for all in the first time in history (Fraser), and that being, is very important in it's role. Ralph is much like Chamberlain and Eng...
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...ould not have to fight, not get involved. The group of adolescences in the novel portrayed the novel are a best fit for the major leaders of the Second World War: Chamberlain and Hitler and his officers along with Simon and Piggy symbolizing the Jewish community which Hitler blamed for all of Germany’s problems.
Works Cited
John Simkin “Adolf Hitler” Spartacus Educational. September 1997. Web. 19 March 2014.
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Neville Chamberlain” Encyclopedia Britannica. 26 January 2014. Web. 19 March 2014.
The Editors of Encclopedia Britannica. “SS (Corps of Nazi Party)” Encyclopedia Britannica. 27 December 2013. Web. 19 March 2014.
Rebecca Fraser. “Overview: Britain 1918-1945” BBC. 2014. Web. 19 March 2014.
The Editors of Legacy Publishing. “Europe After WWI: Nov 1918-Aug 1031” How Stuff Works. 13 September 2007. Web. 19 March 2014.
The fictional novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is one of the first popular endurance novels of it’s time. The Lord of the Flies takes place during World War 2 and during this time, children were being brought out of war zones via plane. A group of boys were being evacuated from their homes to escape the war, when their plane crashed on a remote island, the only survivors a group of young boys. The island that they landed on would become the center for their savageous “game”, until they get rescued at the end of the novel. Once arriving on the island, Ralph, the book’s hero, is voted leader by the boys and he sets out to create a functioning and reasonable civilization amongst the boys. Conflict is present right away when Jack, the
William Golding, the author of the novel The Lord of the Flies, lived through the global conflicts of both world wars. World War II shifted his point of view on humanity, making him realize its inclination toward evilness. His response to the ongoing struggle between faith and denial became Lord of the Flies, in which English schoolboys are left to survive on their own on an uninhabited island after a plane crash. Just like Golding, these boys underwent the trauma of war on a psychological level. Ralph, one of the older boys, stands out as the “chief,” leading the other victims of war in a new world. Without the constraints of government and society, the boys created a culture of their own influenced by their previous background of England.
Ralph is the novel’s protagonist and tries to maintain the sense of civility and order as the boys run wild. Ralph represents the good in mankind by treating and caring for all equally, which is completely opposite of Jack’s savage nature. Jack is the antagonist in the novel and provokes the most internal evil of all the boys. Jack is seen at first as a great and innocent leader but he becomes t...
Moreover, Ralph is Golding’s symbolic method of democracy. To the audience, Ralph seems like Franklin D. Roosevelt during the World War II—he was certainly capable of stopping the World War II from breaking out, but he could not force anybody thus letting the War break out.
The book Lord of the Flies was William Golding’s first novel he had published, and also his one that is the most well known. It follows the story of a group of British schoolboys whose plane, supposedly carrying them somewhere safe to live during the vaguely mentioned war going on, crashes on the shore of a deserted island. They try to attempt to cope with their situation and govern themselves while they wait to be rescued, but they instead regress to primal instincts and the manner and mentality of humanity’s earliest societies.
Imagine living for months with a group of immature, smelly, and hormonal 12 year old boys… William Golding’s take on that scenario is probably much different than what you’re imagining in your head right now. In the renowned novel, Lord of the Flies by the brilliant William Golding, the novel follows the development of a group of schoolboys abandoned on an island during an attempt to escape the nightmare casted by World War II. Upon crashing, the charismatic Ralph is elected as leader with Piggy, a level headed intellect, acting as his voice of reason. As the audience witnesses the band of boys fight towards survival, the raw form of each character is unmasked allowing readers to watch their actions and morals revert back to savagery without
The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is about a group of boys that were on a plane crash in the 1940’s in a nuclear War. The plane is shot down and lands on a tropical island. Some boys try to function as a whole group but see obstacles as time goes on. The novel is about civilization and social order. There are three older boys, Ralph, Jack, and Piggy, that have an effect on the group of younger boys. The Main character Ralph, changes throughout the novel because of his role of leadership and responsibility, which shapes him into a more strict but caring character as the group becomes more uncivilized and savage
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The flies’ presents us with a group of English boys who are isolated on a desert island, left to try and retain a civilised society. In this novel Golding manages to display the boys slow descent into savagery as democracy on the island diminishes.
Importance of Leadership Leadership is something that stands out in people. In a group, people tend to look for the strongest person to follow. However, the strongest person may not be the best choice to follow. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Ralph and Jack each have leadership qualities. Jack is probably the stronger of the two; however, Ralph is a better leader.
My Essay is about Ralph and and his Motivation’s and did he contribute to the tragedy in any way. Also about if he prevented any of the deaths and what would I have done differently in his situation. I defend Ralph’s actions as leader, He had tried his best but everyone fell apart.
William Golding said “I learned during World War II just how brutal people can be to each other. Not just the Japanese but everyone”. In the book “the Lord of the Flies”, Golding tells us about World War II and the Holocaust by making Ralph represent democracy and Jack represent dictatorship.
Golding was able to depict how savagery life was like through the actions of the boys and he was also able to capture the symbolism as a social commentary in World War II. Hitler’s brutal actions against the Jews revealed his true inner dark self, similar to Jack. The Jews were viewed as inferior by the Nazis and they treated the Jews awfully. Piggy was treated the same by Jack because Jack makes fun of him constantly. The symbol portrayed by the author has a connection to an event in World War II, which is the Holocaust. The Lord of the Flies and the Holocaust symbolizes the wicked side of every human. William Golding had experienced the tragedy of World War II and he used many symbols to symbolize the war. Lord of the Flies and World War II relates to one another due to their tragic events and savagery within the leader.
...competition for power is mirrored in the book by Jack and Ralph’s fight for the position of chief on the island. Their fighting, however, results in death and destruction, not only of people, but of civil behavior as well. Another way destruction of humans and civil behavior is achieved is through abuse of technology, which is signified in the story by the misuse and ill-treatment of Piggy’s glasses. In addition, the boys commit crimes on account of their fear. These crimes cause the boys to become savage and lose their civil ways. Golding wrote this novel as a reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima, which also displayed American hunger for power, destruction by atom bombs, and the U.S.’s reaction to their fear of Japan’s destructive capabilities. It is important that readers at least recognize these faults, because only then might they attempt to correct them.
People are privileged to live in an advanced stage of development known as civilization. In a civilization, one’s life is bound by rules that are meant to tame its savage natures. A humans possesses better qualities because the laws that we must follow instill order and stability within society. This observation, made by William Golding, dictates itself as one of the most important themes of Lord of the Flies. The novel demonstrates the great need for civilization ion in life because without it, people revert back to animalistic natures.
The Lord of the Flies is an ultimately pessimistic novel. In the midst of the cold war and communism scares, this disquieting aura acts as a backdrop to the island. The Lord of the Flies addresses questions like how do dictators come to power, do democracies always work, and what is the natural state and fate of humanity and society, getting at the heart of human nature in a very male-dominated, conflict-driven way. The war, the plane shot down, and the boys' concern that the "Reds" will find them before the British, shows Golding's intention of treating the boys' isolated existence as a microcosm of the adult military world.