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Lord of the flies and society
Sociol theory in lord of the flies
Sociol theory in lord of the flies
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The book that I am going to write about is “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. “Lord of the Flies” is based during World War II on a deserted island. The plane, full of boys from a school, originated from Britain. The importance of the setting of the story is that the boys have been taken away from a normal society and are isolated on an island where they need to figure out their own form of society and decide on what should be considered normal to them. When we are in a society where someone has already come up with the rules and penalties; it is easy make decisions between right and wrong. When these boys are left to their own devices, they are mixed on the right way to run their community.
When the boys all first realize that they are on their own, they are excited to think of life without adults. To these boys, adults represented rules and order, which wasn’t fun to the boys. The boys all just want to play and have fun. Ralph makes failed attempts at telling the boys that they need to keep the fire going as well as build shelter. None of the boys wanted to actually do work; everything in their life prior was controlled by adults.
The main characters in this book are Ralph, Jack, Simon, Piggy, Roger, Sam and Eric. Ralph and Jack are the two main boys who are in control of their own tribes. At first, Ralph is the leader of all of the boys. Ralph is a good boy at heart, he was not the strongest of the group but because of his popularity he was able to win over the other boys and become the leader of all of the boys in the beginning. Throughout the story, Ralph never wanted to believe that there was evil in him or the other boys. As the story progresses, Ralph has to try hard to keep the order of the grou...
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...years, human nature doesn’t change.
Works Cited
Benn, S. I. (2006). Society. In Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2nd ed., Vol. 9, pp. 93-97). Detroit: Macmillian Reference.
Geser, H. (n.d.). Georg Simmel: Work. Sociology of Switzerland Homepage. Retrieved April 11, 2011, from http://www.socio.ch/sim/work/htm
Gingrich, P. (1999, December 8). Notes on Structural Functionalism and Parsons. University of Regina. Retrieved April 11, 2011, from http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/n2f99.htm
Keel, R. O. (2011, January 26). Sociology 3210-Sociological Theory: Weber. University of Missouri-St. Louis. Retrieved April 08, 2011, from http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/3210/3210_lectures/weber.html
Williams, D. (n.d.). Max Weber: Traditional, Legal-Rational, and Charismatic Authority. Cranium Hostage Productions. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://danawilliams2.tripod.com/authority.html
Every chapter, these three boys, have demonstrated they have great behaviour on the island in comparison to the rest of the group. But it was tiring to constantly have an acceptable attitude because the other boys would not be so pleasant towards them. First, Ralph represented democracy, from the time he crash landed upon the sand, strategies on how to be rescued flowed in his head. He was introduced to the conch and from that point he assigned daily tasks and rules that would be completed so the island would not go insane such as creating shelter, where to dispose waste and if the conch was in your hands, you were able to speak. Next, Piggy represented scientific facts. he may lack in the athletic field, but his brain made up tremendously for that loss. In the first couple chapters, Ralph thought a fire would be beneficial in order to get rescued so, Piggy utilized his glasses, directed the lenses towards the sun and fire appeared. Thirdly, Simon represented the good on the island. All the young boys turned to Simon as their leader because Simon did not see age difference, he welcomed all with open arms. He also helped Ralph with the unstable shelters when the rest were distracted with antics, Simon is an overall warm hearted kid. These boys
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...
Dillon, Michele. Introduction to sociological theory: theorists, concepts, and their applicability to the twenty-first century. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.
Ralph is one of the few boys who realize that the only way to survive is through peace and order. Because he summons the boys at the beginning of the novel with the conch he and Piggy find, they look upon him as the most responsible of the boys and elect him as a chief over the humiliated Jack. Ralph creates a stable and peaceful society for the children to live; this significantly bothers Jack because he wants to have fun and do things that he never did back in the civilized society. Jack is eventually successful of pulling nearly all of the children out of Ralph’s control to form savages. Ralph represents the civilization, and Jack represents the primitive society.
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. At the beginning of the story, after the plane crashed on the island and the boys are accounted for, Ralph feels very free and absent. He finds a lagoon with warm water, and just like any other twelve year old boy, he goes for recreational swimming. Whizzoh!
Dillon, Michele. Introduction to Sociological Theory: Theorists, Concepts, and Their Applicability to the Twenty-first Century. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.
Ralph shows that he has a better understanding of the boys than Jack. He knows that the boys need some sort of order on the island in order for them to survive. He starts a simple form of government and sets a few rules for them. 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 to keep 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 of an authority figure. He keeps the boys in pretty good order at the meeting by making a rule that they can only speak if they have the conch. Ralph knows that the littleuns are afraid and they need shelter to feel more secure. They work together for a while, but as the time goes on the smaller boys want to go play. They slowly lose all their help until Simon and Ralph are the only ones left to work on them. Ralph knows that this is a necessity and keeps bringing it up at the meetings. Jack, on the other hand, is doing nothing but causing chaos.
Jack shouted “Who cares?” Ralph exclaims “Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!” ( pg 91) Ralph was the one who tried to keep everyone together and Jack did every thing to turn the other boys away from Ralph. There were times when Ralph almost when to the dark side.
Kendall, D. (2012). Sociology in Our Times, 9th Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781285309682
One of the main characters, Ralph, was very likeable to everyone and was almost immediately elected as the leader of the tribe, with the only competition being the leader of the choir boys, Jack. Even though Ralph just wants to get home, he remains to look strong and tough to the other boys, to try and keep things as civilized as possible. So, Ralph decides that; "We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best a...
The first two kids are considered leaders but only to the littluns who really do not matter in the big picture. To the bigguns, Simon is just a silent and, 'batty'; kid who is called odd the entire story. Until he thinks he sees the beast everyone ignored him and when this happens he's running to tell all the boys that he had seen the beast and when they see him coming they mistake him for the beast and stab him repeatedly until he is dead. Simon is really just misunderstood because Ralph thinks he is a big help. As he says in the story, 'Simon, he helps.'; Ralph is referring in this quote to the building of the shelters. The only people who work to get shelters from the rain are Ralph, Piggy, and Simon. Now Piggy did not stand a chance from the beginning. When they first get on the island all everyone does is make fun of him and that does not stop until his death in the end of the story. The thing that the others do not notice is that Piggy is a smart kid who knows what he is doing.
Ralph first takes on the position as leader at the beginning of the story, when the rest of the boys vote him in as chief. He carries this position until Jack and his fellow hunters break away from the group. Ralph makes it his job to set out the rules to organize a society. Ralph always thinks of what is best for everyone and how they will all benefit from his decisions. Rules and standards are set when Ralph is the chief. He orders the group to build the basic necessities of civilization, shelters, and most importantly to keep the fire going, in hope that they will be rescued and return to humanity. "But I tell you that smoke is more important than the pig, however often you kill one" (Golding 75). Jack, on the other hand, takes on the idea of every man for himself. He does not care about making homes, only about hunting. When Jack is the leader, evil takes over and all good is destroyed. Under Jack's power both Simon and Piggy are killed.
& nbsp; When children are given the opportunity, they would rather envelop themselves in pleasure and play than in the stresses of work. The boys show enmity towards building the shelters, even though this work is important, to engage in trivial activities. After one of the shelters. collapses while only Simon and Ralph are building it, Ralph clamours, "All day I've been working with Simon. No one else. They're off bathing or eating, or playing with." (55). Ralph and Simon, though only children, are more mature and adult like and stray to work on the shelters, while the other children aimlessly run off and play. The other boys avidly choose. to play, eat, etc. than to continue to work with Ralph which is very boring and uninteresting. The boys typically act like most children.
Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P. Applebaum and Deborah Carr. Introduction to Sociology. New York: Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
When Ralph acknowledges that there are no grownups on the island, “the delight of a realized ambition [overcomes] him” (8). By using the word “ambition,” Golding shows that Ralph has always longed for a life without the weight of civilization, and attempts to prove that this characteristic of Ralph is reflected in all people. Ralph then takes off his clothes, freeing himself further from the confines of society. His clothes symbolize the pressure placed upon him by parents and other adult figures, which is mirrored in the pressure placed upon all humans by the rules of civilization. While Ralph’s initial actions seem like the natural steps to be taken by any child in a world without authority, the actions of some of the other boys quickly escalate out of the realm of what many readers would like to think that they are capable of, which goes to prove Golding’s point that humans do not know what they are capable