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.