The Importance of Leadership in Lord of the Flies
There are always people who, in a group, come out with better qualities to be a leader than others. The strongest people however, become the greater influences which the others decide to follow. However, sometimes the strongest person is not the best choice. Authors often show how humans select this stronger person to give an understanding of the different powers that people can posses over others.
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.
Under Jack's rule, the boys become uncivilized savages. They have no discipline. Ralph, however, keeps the boys under order through the meetings which he holds. At these meetings a sense of order is instilled because the boys have to wait until they hold the conch to speak. When Ralph says, "I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." (Golding 36) he enforces his role of leader by making rules and gives the boys the stability of an authority figure, mainly himself. By doing this he wins the boys respect and confidence in his leadership abilities. Ralph uses his authority to try to improve the boys' society. By building shelters he demonstrates his knowledge of the boys' needs. When he says to Jack, "They talk and scream. The littluns.
“Whales provide us with the food for our bodies, bones for our tools and implements and spirits for our souls.” “We haven’t hunted the whale for 70 years but have hunted them in our hearts and in our minds.” “Whales are a central focus of our culture today as they have been from the beginning of time.”
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.
Although, Piggy and Jack have some leadership qualities, Ralph is the best leader. This is shown all throughout the novel, Lord of the Flies, by Williams Golding. Piggy is portrayed as the wisest of them all and understands priorities; however he lacks confidence from time to time. This makes him a good leader but not the best. Jack on the other hand, is egotistic but has his good qualities as well, such as knowledge and courage. This makes him a potential leader like Piggy, but not the best. Ralph however shows the most positive qualities of being a leader. He is optimistic, committed and knows his priorities, thus making him the best leader on the island. From the day we were born, we were governed by a set of rules that influenced our behaviour. Would the story have been different if civilization was maintained on the island?
In William Golding’s novel, the Lord of the Flies, even though Ralph became chief of the stranded boys, Jack eventually rose to power through scare tactics, confidence, determination, and control. When Jack demonstrated his leadership skills, it was evident that he was superior to Ralph and would use his sense of Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) and his oratory skills to surpass and isolate Ralph completely. Regardless of Ralph’s strengths, such as his conch, democratic maneuvers, firm motives, and kind demeanor, Jack’s mere presence ousted Ralph’s chances of taking effective leadership. By using propaganda against Ralph, gaining support from his partisan tribe members, and overpowering Ralph through his persuasive techniques and appearance, Jack clearly demonstrated how his leadership of the island was inevitable.
The boys are drawn away from a civilized way of living. Comments made by Ralph and Jack show the boys that Jack is resorting to savagery. Ralph and Jack both agree in the beginning while they are reasoning in a civil manner. Throughout the novel the two leaders stray from one another because of differences in motivation. Jack told the boys "We've got to decide about being rescued" (Golding 20). This statement illustrates Jack's civilized concern for the whole group. Jack seems to put the group before him. This unselfish concern soon dissolves as the internal beast prevails over the civil Jack. "I ought to be chief because I'm chapter chorister and I can sing C sharp" (Golding, 21), displays Jacks own arrogance. However, the narrator has more insight into this power struggle, "This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch" (Golding 21). The narrator sees this act of voting through the boy's eyes. The narrator implies the boy's failure to understand the importance of a leader.
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.
The North had nearly 21 million people living in 23 of the Northern states giving the Union the advantage of a larger army (“Strengths and Weaknesses: North vs. South"). Not only would this mean they would have more people to join the army, but they would have enough people to stay and work in the factories. The people of the North not fighting in the war could grow crops and produce weapons and/or clothing for those in the war. The population in the South was much lower than that in the North. The South had a population of 9 million people in 11 Confederate states, 3.5 million of those people being slaves (“Strengths and Weaknesses: North vs. South"). Due to this small population, there were fewer people to participate in the war and not many people to work to make supplies for the Confederates fighting in the war. The less people to make these supplies, the less supplies made and the longer it takes to make those supplies. This is again a strength to the Union because they are able to have the advantage of having more supplies for those fighting in the war and having more people to fight for them, while the Confederacy has another
The Civil War. One of the bloodiest times in the history of the United States.During the Civil War, the Union and the Confederate had many differences in the way they directed their armies. They incorporated many strengths and advantages as well as disadvantages. One benefit that the north had was their strong leadership. Their main leader was the president, Abraham Lincoln, which gave them the help of a strong and dedicated leader on their side. The North also had more industrial power. The Union was supplied with way more factories and machines that they could use to their advantage. Then, they also had a wide range of transportation. The north had a plethora of railroads which helped them be able to travel throughout the Union side of the
Northern factories turned out 96 percent of all railroad locomotives and 93 percent of pig iron, for instance. Even in textiles, the Northern advantage over the South, which produced the raw material cotton, was pronounced as Northern textile mills produced 94 percent of the nation's cloth and 90 percent of the United States-made boots and shoes. The destruction wrought by the war, by Union generals who specifically targeted Southern manufacturing reduced the already slim Southern manufacturing
During the Civil war, the South had many disadvantages over the North. A large portion of their population were uneducated slaves. They had no factories to produce goods and to become self sufficient when they separated from the North. Because the South had not built up a good transportation system, they were not able to move men and supplies easily across the country, as the North was able to
ㄴIn war, this meant more and better weapons, like cannons. In fact, in 1860, Northern factories made 97% of the nation's firearms. The combined factors of manpower and weaponry made it seem that the Union's infantry would dominate the battlefield.
The north had twice the population the south did and had more advantage in industrial capacity. They produced majority of the nation’s firearms, and had the resources to transport them to the troops. The south had economic issues that lead to inflation and caused damage to morale and
I believe that for countries in which whaling is required to sustain the livelihood of the local markets, exceptions should be made for minimally adequate commercial whaling, supporting any efforts toward the goal of identifying, designing and implementing an alternate source of revenue. That is to say: for those communities which are widely dependent upon this enterprise and for whom their cultures would drastically suffer economically, an exception should be made for a specified number of non-endangered whales per year and efforts should be made to identify ways to significantly reduce or even eliminate the practice.
The Makah tribe wants to hunt gray whales, which is a significant part of their culture, as evidenced by most, if not all, of their traditional dances, songs, and arts reference gray whales and the ritual hunt of them. The Makah, for about seventy years, agreed to temporarily stop hunting gray whales due to how close they were to becoming extinct, but now that they have officially been taken off of the endangered species list, the Makah wish to once again take up their yearly hunt. Many on the anti-whaling side oppose the hunt, because of concerns that the hunt will either push the gray whales back into the endangered or vulnerable species list or that the Makah hunter won't have any way to tell if the whale they kill comes from a year round
Riley, M. J., A. Harman., and R. G. Rees. 2009. Evidence of continued hunting of whale sharks Rhincodon typus in the Maldives. Environ. Biol. Fish. 86:371-374. (DOI:10.1007/s10641-009-9541-0).