Is Jack A Good Leader In Lord Of The Flies

Imagine, your plane crashing and landing on an island. You are stranded with no adults, no communication to anybody, and no food nor shelter. You are scared out of your mind; the only people you have, are the ones that crashed with you. The hardest part about it is that you have to chose your leader, the one who can provide food but is not the nicest person, or the one who can provide shelter and is nicer. Which would you choose? This is one of the many situations for the characters In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. In Lord of the Flies, a group of children are stranded on an island; they learn to fend for themselves, and to accept that they may not be rescued. In the novel, the three main characters are Jack, Ralph, and Piggy. Throughout the novel, Jack is one of the main reasons why bad things happen; such as the death of two young boys. How can Jack be a good person and leader for doing such a horrible thing? Because he is determined to find and catch food, he is

intelligent, and has amazing outdoors skills.
All through the book, Jack tries to capture pigs to eat.
“Jack, smeared with clays, reached the top first and hailed Ralph excitedly, with lifted spear. ‘Look! We’ve killed a pig- we stole up on them- we go in a circle-’ Voices broke in from the hunters.” (69).
This proves that Jack would do anything to get food. Not only did he paint his face with clay and hide out to catch the pig, before this he was struggling to catch anything. He did not give up, and after trial and error, he worked harder and harder and finally achieved his goal.
Not only is he determined, he is also intelligent. Jack uses the vulnerability of the younger children, to be with him instead of with Ralph and Piggy. When he made the younger children choose between him or Ralph, he persuaded them to go with him by giving them food.
“I’m going to be by myself. Ralph can catch his own pigs. Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too.”.
Jack knows that he is the only person on the island that provides them food. He uses it against the younger children, in order to persuade them into going with him. It eventually works and so Piggy and Ralph are left with only Sam and Eric. Adding to that, in the beginning of chapter 9, “Jack stood up and waved his spear. ‘Take them some meat.’ The boys with the spit gave Ralph and Piggy each a succulent chunk” (149) Ralph and Piggy go to Jack’s camp, Jack spots them and gives them food and water. This shows that he is a good person because Jack could have easily thrown his spear at them to make them flee, but instead he invites them to eat and spoils them with the food that he hunted.
Finally, Jack uses his amazing hunting abilities and outdoors skills to have more people join him.

This shows how he is a good person and an excellent leader because, everybody on the island knows, that Jack is the only person who has the confidence and ability to kill animals. ” ‘Listen all of you. Me and my hunters, we’re living along the beach by a flat rock. We hunt and feast and have fun. If you want to join my tribe come and see us. Perhaps I’ll let you join. Perhaps not.’ “. (140) Without Jack, they will not have food and the children know they need that, but Piggy and Ralph could not provide that for them. Therefore, they had to leave them.
In conclusion, Jack was overall an unique leader and person, he went from killing pigs to killing humans, and being the nicest person, to not so nice. With great power comes great responsibility; having determination, being intelligent, and possessing great outdoors skills, is what Jack had to be, to be a great

leader.