Power In Lord Of The Flies

Swoosh! Pop! Crackle! The sounds of fire lighting up and burning. All that power for a substantial leader to possess. The novel Lord of the Flies is a powerful one, written by William Golding. Some of the main characters are Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon and Samneric. The theme power, is shown in many ways in the novel. One of the many ways power is shown in this novel is how the boys use Piggy's glasses to start a fire showing how powerful Piggy’s glasses really are. Some of the other ones are the power of hunting or being able to hunt something and the power of common sense or being able to make sense of the problem at hand and being able to do the right thing about it. Power is a major theme and a major role in the key to success in this
You can kill people with fire, cook meat, send out signals, you can even hunt with fire. In this novel, fire becomes a really big deal to these boys. It is even stolen through the power of Piggy's glasses. The boys' ability to possess fire is a sign of leadership. A leadership of fire. In the beginning of the novel the boys quickly encounter a conflict. They realize they have nothing to start a fire with. After a little bit of thinking the boys come up with a solution. They figure out how to use Piggy’s glasses as a lighter. This quote from the novel shows how they came up with this idea of using the glasses as a fire starter, “His specs- use them as burning glasses”(40). This power of fire is a constant challenge to keep. It keeps on changing based on who needs it and who wants it. Later in the novel, Jack decides to steal this power right from Piggy. After the groups split up from different opinions the group without Piggy is without fire, and without fire, they can’t cook their meat which is a predicament. So Jack is forced to find a way to make a fire so he steals a branch that is on fire from the other group so he can have his own fire. This fire doesn't last long so he needs to find another way to get fire. So he decides to just go straight to the source of the fire. He steals Piggy’s glasses. He raids the other group’s camp early in the morning right when they get up. They make a huge commotion confusing them and
This form of power is shown by how some of the boys can develop the problem at hand in their head and come up with a sensible solution to it that benefits everybody. This power is used mostly by the two major characters of Ralph and Piggy. Piggy is more of the person in the background that is evaluating the situation and constantly trying to come up with a solution for it. Where Ralph is more of the leader type that comes up with solutions on a split decision based on his experience and knowledge. Jack on the other hand does not show this trait, because he does not come up with sensible solutions but more of risky and dumb solutions. This shows how Ralph is the more sensible leader with Piggy as his vice leader. One quote in the novel that helps prove this point is this one that states how Piggy says that the boys should be more like Ralph and less like Jack “Which is better- to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is”(180). Common sense is the line between civilization and savagery. Most of the boys have crossed this line because of their lack of common sense. In the lack of common sense the leaders use primal forms of leadership, like how some torture others just to show how powerful they are. In this next quote Jack shows how he has a little bit of common sense by saying how Piggy wouldn’t have the will or the drive to make it to the top of the mountain “Your (Piggy)