Have you ever wondered what makes people change how they can go from nice to mean, mean to nice? In ‘Lord of the Flies’, William Golding is trying to teach us that people change when put under server circumstances like how in the book the boys are stranded on an island with no adults. While Piggy and Simon are not major characters in the book, they reveal very important information to us about Ralph; they show us that Ralph is childish, scared, and a good leader. Golding wants us to see this to show how people change when put under bad circumstances.
At the beginning of the book, Ralph is very childish and doesn’t care about anything but having fun, while Piggy wants to find the other boys on the island. Piggy actually caring about what is going on just shows us how childish Ralph is because it shows us that boys their age are more mature than Ralph. In Chapter 1, Ralph finds a beach pool. 'Ralph did a surface dive and swam under the water with his eyes open…. [Piggy said]: 'We got to find the others. We got to do something'. Ralph said nothing”. This shows that Ralph does not care about the other boys on the island and just wants to be left alone and have fun. While Ralph is swimming in the beach pool, he is having fun and enjoying life, Piggy brings up the other kids and wants to act responsibly. Ralph ignores him because he wants to continue having fun with no worries. This shows that he is acting childish because he is refusing to be responsible, he is only caring about himself. Just like children do. The author's purpose in showing Ralph as childish is to show that when put in a position where all responsibility is taken away people, will return to their childish ways.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
As the book goes on Ralph is elected chief, which gives him responsibility again. He surprisingly took this responsibility really well and he became a good leader. Piggy and the other characters start to respect and listen to Ralph, which shows that he has earned respect as a leader. In most cases, when a leader is given respect, it is either because he forces them to respect him or, like in Ralph’s case, he is a good leader. This is shown when Ralph takes the conch from the boys looked around the circle and says: “'We’ve got to have special people for looking after the fire. Any day there may be a ship out there' – he waved his arm at the taut wire of the horizon – 'and if we have a signal going on they will come and take us off'... 'I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak'”. This quote shows that Jack went from being really childish to being a good leader whom the boys respect. In the first paragraph, we talked about how all Ralph wanted to do was swim and play. This quote shows that he has matured because he wants to make rules, set meetings, and look after the fire so they can be rescued.
At the beginning of the book, Ralph wasn’t scared, he believed that his dad would come and rescue him, so there was nothing to worry about. But as the book goes on, Ralph starts to become more and more scared that they will not be rescued. Simon finds Ralph staring over the rock out at the sea and says: “You will make it back from where you came from”. Ralph snaps at Simon, saying that he won’t make it back. He yells at one of the people he is closest to because he has lost hope in being rescued. He starts to believe that they will never leave this island.
Ralph goes from being childish to a good responsible leader who is also scared of being stuck on the island. Golding does this because he wants us to realize that people change when put under bad circumstances. Ralph goes from being a childish little boy to a responsible young man. This happens because Ralph goes from having no responsibility to having a lot of responsibility. This is represented in our world today: a person can be one way, one day something can happen during that day, and they can act differently the very next day. The circumstances in our lives shift and change who we are, some in a good way and some in a bad way.
Stuck on your essay?
