Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel that
represents society and it’s components in a tale about a
children stranded on an island. Of the group there are two
who want to lead the boys for the duration of their stay, one
of which is Jack Merridew. Although he doesn’t have any
power at the beginning of the novel, he took every chance
he had to try to take the position of chief which he eventually
got. He ruled with an iron fist, allowing no one to question
him or his leadership. Jack represented the wanting for a
single, all powerful leader to guide the followers of society
using any means he feels necessary.



Golding grew up during a time when he was taught to
believe that man was good at heart. Books like Tarzan, and
Coral island showed him that it was indeed society that was
evil and that man was good at heart. These views were
demonstrated in some of his earlier writing, but that changed
after his experiences in the war. After Golding returned from
WWII, he had a different view on man. He saw a lot of
action and destruction during his time with the navy, and this
influenced his beliefs on man quite drastically. The mass
destruction and killing pushed him to think that man can be
evil, selfish and power hungry. Jack spawned out of these
beliefs.



Jack was a very power hungry young boy. He liked to be in
command of things and when he wasn’t, he tried to put
himself into that position. This desire for power was shown
throughout the novel, as was the fact that he loved attention
that accompanied it. He loved to be the centre of attention
and would do anything to boost himself above other people.
To make him more evil, he was not able to conceal any of
these characteristics, he had to let them loose.



Upon the arrival of the boys to the island Jack was put in the
middle of a power struggle. Although the conflict was brief,
there was still a very obvious confrontation between Jack
and Ralph. Once the boys had assembled themselves there
was an election to see who was to be chief. Dispite the fact
that Ralph was voted leader, the wanting to be in command
never left Jack, not for a minute. He already had some
leadership skills, being head choir boy at his old school, and
felt that he should be leader and continuously challenged
Ralph. Among several things they argued about, the most
common was the debate over the fire. Ralph felt that it was
necessary to keep it burning at all times while Jack believed
that hunting pigs and getting meat was much more essential.
He disagreed with many things that Ralph did.



Jack’s view on how things should be run in the group didn’t
completely show through until he actually became leader
later on in the novel, but there were hints before that as well.
His wanting for a strict leader was evident ever since he and
his choir boys were introduced as characters. He kept them
very much in line.



‘The group of cloaked boys began to scatter from close line.
The tall boy shouted at them.

"Choir stand still!"

Wearily obedient, the choir huddled into line and stood there
swaying in the sun.’



He allowed them little room to manoeuvre, made them listen
and follow orders without question. He was a dictator.



Jack’s dictatorial style of leadership contrasted very directly
with the more democratic and passive style of Ralph. As
mentioned before, Ralph was elected shortly after their
arrival to the island, but his time in power came to end quite
gradually. He tried to run his group through a democratic
type system in which all major decision were first discussed
at an assembly before they were put into action. At these
assemblies his views were questioned not only by Jack, but
by the other boys as well. Even the ideas that the assembly
could agree on usually weren’t put into action due to the fact
that Ralph would not enforce them. They had decided to
build huts to live and sleep in, but after only a few hours
most of the boys had gotten bored and left. Their
punishment for slacking off was nothing, and so they got
away with accomplishing nothing. Jack saw this along with
many other flaws in how Ralph ran things and continually
tried to force him and his style of governing over the boys.



When Jack first became chief of his tribe, he immediately
started taking things through force. He stole what was the
essence of fire to the boys from Ralph and he took it through
brutal force. He sent a small group of boys to ambush
Ralph’s group. They jumped them in the night, beat them,
hurt them, and left with Piggy’s glasses. He showed no
remorse for the fact that because of him Piggy would no
longer be able to see. He did what had to be done for his
tribe at the expense of all else. He ran his tribe like a dictator
and he had complete control over everything. Jack was
ruthless in keeping boys in line. He beat one child for pretty
much no reason, and convinced Samneric to join his tribe by
threatening to hurt them. Due to the fact that he was feared,
things ran smoothly and the tribe was working more as a
team.



What Golding was showing by contrasting Jack with Ralph
was in fact contrasting a dictatorship vs a democracy. Ralph
attempted to run the group of boys through a non-violent,
everyone-has-a-say type of governing. This had little effect
over the group because he had nothing to enforce what he
was saying and he allowed everyone to directly question his
commands. He was weak, un-controlling and ineffective.
Jack knew that the tribe needed someone to take charge
and give orders without allowing them to be questioned, and
he quickly became that leader. Ruthlessly he ruled, allowing
no one to question him, and because of this the tribe was a
better team. Through this, Golding gave an example of a
situation in which a dictatorial style leadership was needed.
The boys were out of control and they weren’t organised in
the slightest, and Golding showed that in this situation a
democracy would fail but a dictatorship would hold strong.
Perhaps he believes that democracy’s work better after
organisation has been established over a period of several
years, but the tribe never got to that point.



Jack was a very good leader. He may have wanted to
become leader because he was jealous of Ralph moreso
than he thought he was needed, but once he got into power
he did a good job. Through brute force and fear he ruled,
allowing no one to question him. He was a dictator.