Leadership In Lord Of The Flies Essay

There are two major types of leaders in this world, there is the genuine, caring, and for the people leader, or there's the greedy scumbag who does for himself, not really worrying about the others. These two leadership roles are both demonstrated in William Golding’s book, lord of the flies, when two of the main characters, Jack and Ralph, take lead of a group of boys who are stranded on an island after a plane crash. Jack and Ralph both have different intentions and goals of what needs to be done. Jack believes that they need mainly focus about surviving on the island by hunting for food, while Ralph somewhat agrees, but believes they should be focused on signaling for help to be rescued from the island. In other words, the goals of every

leader should be driven by the needs of the people.
In the beginning of the book Ralph is trying to figure out the situation they are in and how to handle it. Ralph realizes that they are on an island by themselves and they need to have some type of order to work together. Ralph says, “Were on an island...uninhabited island with no other people… we shall have to look after ourselves… we can't have everybody talking at once... hands up”(Golding,32-33). This statement show that Ralph acknowledges that they could be on the island for awhile, and he thinking of an effective way to work together and keep everyone safe. He says that they should raise their hand if they want to talk, this is a good idea because it allows everyone to speak and keeps them from arguing. The next quote from the lord of the flies is about how Ralph notice that the boys are frightened at night, “Have you been awake at night? Jack shook his head. The talk and scream. The littluns. Even some of the others. As if- As if it wasn't a good island…. So we need shelters as a short of-Home,”(52). In that quote, Ralph displays worry for the boys. He has been hearing the boys scared at night and he sees it as a problem. Ralph wants the boys to feel safe by building shelter, which nobody wants to do, that will keep the boys safe from the weather, but Ralph really wants them so that the boys feel safe because they have a “home”. These shelters are only temporary until they get rescued, which is Ralph's main goal. “The best thing we can do is get ourselves rescued…. So as long your hunters remember the fire- You and your fire!... We don't make enough smoke,”(53). This is where Ralph sets his main goal, to be rescued. Ralph at this time was in charge of the boys, and he allows Jack and some of the other boys go hunting, but they still had to keep watch over the fire, and keeping the smoke signal going. As you can notice in the quote Jack gets frustrated with Ralph because he keeps making the fire a big deal. When Ralph is the leader he allows the boys to have freedom, but he also tells them they have to do things they don't want to do, but has to be done.
Jack believes that the group of boys, including himself, will not be rescued and will have to survive on the island by themselves.

When the boys are figuring out what happened and what to do, Jack's first idea is to hunt for “pigs”. “Jack broke in, all the same you need an army- for hunting. Hunting pigs-”(32). Jacks first thought is to make an army of hunters to have protein in the boys diets. The boys already have fruits they've seen and eaten on the island, but they will need a source of protein. Jack uses the word army which could suggest he really wants to kill something because he did stutter with saying what the army is for and what they would be hunting, but he does eventually say his goal is to get meat for the boys. Sidenote, the word pigs is also used to describe a traitor or enemy. As jack goes through the book he clearly becomes a little uncivilized and some might even say crazy, which brings up the next point that when Jack finally kills a pig he decides to cut its head off as a present for the beast. “Jack held up the head and jammed the soft throat down on to the pointed end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth…. Jack spoke loudly, This head is for the beast. It's a gift,”(137). Even though Jack may have also been frightened by the beast, he thought of a way they beast might leave them alone by leaving the beast a gift, a chopped off pigs head. By Jack cutting of the pigs head, even though he probably wasn't trying to show this, it showed the boys that Jack is willing to do what it takes to keep them safe. Jack did anything for his group of boys, including fighting his counter group, Ralph, Piggy, and SamnEric, to get fire. After the fighting that group, it reached a point of where Jack’s group was in full control. “He was chief now in truth; and he made stabbing motions with with his spear. From his left hand dangled Piggy's broken glasses,”(168).This quote, talking about Jack, demonstrates that Jack is going to do whatever he wants,

but this time he did it to get fire for the boys, so they can eat. Jack did a lot of things to help the group, including going to the extreme.
Both, Jack’s and Ralph's ideas or goals ended up to reach the needs of the other boys, but Ralph had a different approach, then Jack. Some people may think Jack did everything wrong, but that doesn't matter because he kept his group safe, and provide them with their needs. Jack had the intention to take after each on the island and only worry about that because he believed that they would not be rescued, and that's what drove his goals. While Ralph believed that they were going to be rescued, and had to focus on signally ships or planes that went by. The goals of Ralph and Jack may have been for the benefits of themself, but they were driven by the needs and wants of their people.