In Golding’s fictional novel, the Lord of the Flies, characters exert leadership qualities of confidence and focus. Confidence is a key factor in becoming a successful leader, it is needed in order to channel authoritativeness and respect from others. Using this confidence, a leader can develop trust with other people,”’And sooner or later a ship will put in here. It might even be daddy’s ship. So you see, sooner or later, we shall be rescued.’ He paused, with the point made. The assembly was lifted toward safety by his words.” (Golding 37). This quote is an example where Ralph channels his confidence in order to build a sense of safety and respect between him and the boys, he is confident in himself, making the boys confident in Ralph as well. …show more content…
Ralph throughout the book, is responsible and sets his personal focus on ideas that will help them survive while stranded on the island. However, Ralph is so focused on the importance of these responsibilities, that many are driven to Jack,”’We have lots of assemblies. Everybody enjoys speaking and being together. We decide things. But they don’t get done.’”(79). Ralph’s desire to focus, is the driving force of the opposition between sides. On one side, is Jack’s group of savagery, these boys joined this side because they did not want to deal with the obligations ordered to them by Ralph. They are attracted to Jack’s focus on hunting,”’Hunting,’ he said. He sized them up. Each of them wore the remains of a black cap and ages ago they had stood in two demure rows and their voices had been the song of angels. ‘We’ll hunt. I’m going to be chief.’”(133). Jack combined confidence and arrogance with the focus for the hunt, to create a desire within the boys, that ignited a thrill of excitement for hunting. Although Ralph’s focus held the right intentions, he took it to an extent where the boys only saw obligation and responsibility, and no fun. Whereas Jack took his focus in hunting to an extent to drive the boys away from responsibility, and towards the immaturity that the boys find
Even though they don’t last very long, the fact that he tried to help the group is what makes him a better leader. Ralph’s wisdom and ability to look toward the future also has an advantage over Jack. He has a sense of keeping his focus on getting off the island. When the fire goes out, Ralph gets upset because the chance to be rescued was gone as well. Ralph enforces his role of leadership as he gives the boys a sense of stability as an authority figure.
Ralph tries to resists the urge to become a savage through out the book. Almost all of the other boys become hunters and forget what is important. In the beginning, all of the boys come to the assemblies and decide that Ralph should be the chief. Ralph is the authority figure of the group. He was the one who kept reminding the boys that the fire is the important thing(chpt 4). The hunters let the fire go out and a ship just happens to come along. Because the fire is out, they lose a chance to be rescued.
In the novel, The Lord of the Flies, leadership is one of the main important qualities. If I had to choose between Jack and Ralph to follow in the story, I would choose Ralph. Although he ended up struggling near the end of the story, I still found him to be a good leader.
His concern for the individuals in the group is pertinent from the beginning: he conveys to Jack the necessity of shelters “as a sort of [home]”, upon noticing the distress of the younger children (pg. 58). It is seen that Ralph’s problems are not his own; he assumes the role of leader to bring orderly forces of civilization to all. By approaching circumstances with logistics rather than emotion, Ralph does not lose sight of himself in the face of adversity. Despite this, he is later forced to act irrationally in order to preserve his status. When confronted with the evidence of the beast, Ralph is hesitant to hunt it; he is only manipulated into doing so when Jack “[sneers]” and questions him if he is “frightened” (pg. 100). However, Ralph does not respond out of his spite or self-pride as he understands that he must retain his status among the boys. If he does not remain chief, Jack will secure the position, bearing the notion that there will always be individuals working against altruism for their own benefit. Ralph sacrifices his morals by becoming subservient to Jack’s ego, yet does so in order to preserve civility within the group. On the day of the boys’ rescue, Ralph understands that his efforts to preserve peace and order are all for naught. Man’s destructive forces overwhelm him as “[he weeps] for … the darkness of man’s
First Person Narration in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and Edgar Allen Poe's the Black Cat
As Ralph is trying to hide from them overnight, he wonders, “Might it not be possible to walk boldly into the fort… pretend they were still boys, schoolboys who had said, ‘Sir, yes, sir’- and worn caps? Daylight might have answered yes; but darkness and the horrors of death said no” (186). No matter how hard Ralph tries, he cannot discard his new knowledge of Jack and his tribe’s potential for evil and corruption. For a long time Ralph seems to be in denial; like many others, he seems to want to stay true to his belief in the overall goodness of the human heart. Ralph’s expectations for human kindness are finally challenged to the point of irreversibility when Jack attacks him and tries to pursue him on a vicious manhunt. When Ralph collapses on the beach and a naval officer arrives, “With filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, [and] the darkness of man’s heart...” (202). One might think it strange that rather than rejoicing over rescue, Ralph and the rest of the boys cry out in grief. The young schoolboys come to understand the enormity of human greed and evil, and unfortunately it is a lesson that they will not be able to ignore or forget. They witness and play a role in their own loss of innocence, and the time they spend on the island teaches them what
The novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, focuses on a group of English school boys who are stranded on an island due to a plane crash. They soon learn of each other's existence when one of the older boys, Ralph, blows a conch shell and holds the first of many meetings. Along with Ralph, there are a group of choir boys, a group of younger boys who they start to call "littluns", and an intelligent, civilized young boy named Piggy. The boys decide to vote Ralph as "chief." But, there is a problem. The choir boys already have a leader-Jack. Jack feels that he is more qualified than Ralph and should be the leader of the boys. The boys stick to their decision, since Ralph was the one who brought them together. As the reader continues to read through the novel, he/she can see that Golding uses the two of the main characters, Ralph and Jack, to contrast the different leadership qualities.
An individual by the name of Donald McGannon once said, “Leadership is an action, not a position.” In order for a leader to know what needs to be achieved and be able to relentlessly drive to complete it, they must exhibit different qualities and abilities that will be beneficial and vital to their success. This is important in view of the fact that it prompts and inspires others to be able to follow in their example. In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, after a group of boys crash onto a deserted island, an example of this is seen through Ralph, who best exhibits good leadership qualities that will help bring the boys to safety and rescue. This is especially in comparison to the power-hungry Jack Merridew. The three main leadership qualities
In William Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies Ralph though not the stronger person, demonstrates a better understanding of people than Jack which gives him better leadership qualities. Ralph displays these useful human qualities as a leader by working towards the betterment of the boys' society. He knows the boys need stability and order if they are to survive on the island. He creates rules and a simple form of government to achieve this order. Jack does not treat the boys with dignity as Ralph does. Ralph understands that the boys, particularly Piggy, have to be given respect and must be treated as equals. This makes Ralph a better leader as he is able to acknowledge that he was not superior to any of the other boys. Ralph's wisdom and ability to look to the future also make him a superior leader. Ralph has the sense to keep his focus on getting off the island. He insists on keeping the fire burning as a distress signal. Ralph's leadership provides peace and order to the island while Jack's leadership makes chaos.
Leadership In The Lord of the Flies “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but not folly.” —Jim Rohn. Good leaders are classified by their morals, their qualities, and their actions, all of which interconnect. Characteristics of a good leader include honesty, commitment, intuition, confidence, the ability to delegate, and fearlessness. In the Lord of the Flies, the boys on the island needed a leader that could help them survive, stay strong, and ultimately lead them back to safety and civilization.
For years, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, has been a staple in college, high school, and even middle school classes. The eloquent story follows a group of young boys stranded on a jungle island. They are left thousands of miles away from civilization and are left to survive by themselves. Throughout the story, many insights in leadership are seen through the power struggle between Ralph and Jack. Both have extremely different styles of leadership with varying levels of success. Lord of the Flies teaches me about leadership in the initial selection of the leader, how they solve problems, and how they motivate others.
Leadership encourages hope within the doubtful group of kids headed by Ralph in the novel, Lord of the Flies. Ralph's leadership brings the boys together by giving them a common goal to survive. By giving the boys a common goal they respect one other and have a sense of togetherness to complete their goal to survive. Also their respect for each other brings peace and happiness for a little while on the island. Through Ralph's leadership, hope is obtainable for all those who live on the island.
Ralph shows what the boys need by the way he handles the then. Jack considers the boys lower to him, meanwhile, Ralph treats...
struggle for power. Humans constantly want to be above other human beings. From the very beginning of the novel, the conflict between Ralph and Jack emerges. When all the boys in the island gather for the first time, Jack shows his autocratic characteristics by treating the choir as the military. Jack even arrogantly says ¡°I ought to be chief, because I¡¯m chapter chorister and head boy¡¦¡¦¡± (Golding, 22). The conflict between Ralph and Jack becomes more obvious as the novel progresses. One of the reasons why Jack hunts is for power. By leading the hunters, he obtains a power base and by providing the meat to the kids, he provides immediate gratification for the group. To gain more power, Jack promises littlun to give meat without any responsibilities that Ralph has demanded (Moody, 12). This difference eventually leads to the worst case scenario: the separation of the group. Now the kids fight each other rather than working together for the benefit of the whole group and
Their fixations led to more destructive and careless manners as “Extreme behavior comes from a radicalized sense of belonging, a desperate attachment to a single-minded goal that causes a short-sightedness of the ‘other’” (Gleiser). The obsession with hunting overshadowed the boys’ main goal of trying to escape the deserted island. It caused many disagreements between Ralph and Jack, as their objectives clashed with each other. The tribe killed a boy due to their visceral reactions to attempting to protect themselves.