How Did Ralph Fail In Lord Of The Flies

In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of boys attempt to work together to increase their chance of survival on the island on which they have been stranded. During this collaboration they form a political system. The real question is, what caused the failure of the system that was formed? You could say that Controlling a group of boys is like the weather, you never know what’s going to happen. Ralph got to experience this first hand when he was on the island trying to form and control a political system. How does Ralph overcome this obstacle? Or does he accomplish anything at all?

Controlling a group of boys is like the weather, you never know what’s going to happen. Ralph got to experience this first hand when he was
Jack’s main focus on the island is to hunt and harvest a pig for it’s meat since the only other main food sources on the island is fruit. Jack and his hunters are also assigned to help build the shelters for the boys. Ralph finds out that Jack had gone off hunting by himself and the hunters went off to play instead of helping with the shelter : “ “Well, we haven’t got any yet. And we want shelters. Besides, the rest of your hunters came back hours ago. They’ve been swimming”(51). Jack tries to defend the fact that he had to let the boys go so he could focus on the hunt by saying “I went on,” said Jack. “I let them go. I had to go on. I-”(51). This shows that when Ralph comes up with and idea Jack always thinks of something contradictory to it or does something that contradicts the point Ralph has made. Jack represents Locke’s ideas on the state of nature which is “Men exist in the state of nature in perfect freedom to do whatever they want.” These ideals is what leads to Jack creating his own tribe and breaking up the system they had
These boys are terrified by a beast that they think lurks on the island. Piggy makes an observation and says “That little ‘un-” gasped Piggy-” him with the mark on his face, I don’t see him. Where is he now?”(46). After this the boy's fears increase. With this the boys represent Hobbes idea’s on fear which is that “Everyone lives in constant fear. Because of this fear, no one is really free..”. With the constant fear the boys have they don’t know what to do on the island so they do the opposite of what they are told. There is no adult figure there to tell them that there is no beast and there is nothing to fear. This shows how the political system that Ralph had formed was not being supported or followed through by the other boys on the island. Another way the boys didn’t help Ralph was when they would go off and hunt with Jack or when they decided to join Jack’s tribe because he said it would be more fun than staying with Ralph, who they initially deemed chief of the island. The littluns don’t understand that Ralph is the right person to listen to since they don’t understand the consequences of not having shelter, smoke, and water.

As you can see some things are uncontrollable, the fact is that it’s easier to control those who listen and or agree with what you have to say. From this you can see that there once was on orderly system on the island but it ended in failure because the boys did whatever