Lord of the Flies: Politics and Government
por Samantha Myxter
1. This quote is an example of the politics and government because Jack laughs as thhe weaker boys share their ideas because he believes he is the most powerful, or should be, and he believes that the most powerful should only make the decisions, wile Piggy and Ralph believe the decisions should be made by the entire group and in the better interest of the group.
2. The conch symbolizes the equality that each person deserves and it leaves the boys in wonder because they rely on it so much at the beginning of the book.
2.1. http://haroldgibbons.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/282414-loft_2_super.jpg
3. Quote 2:"'All this I meant to say. Now I've said it. You voted me for chief. Now you do what I say!'" (Golding 81).
3.1. In the beginning of the story the boys haven't realized how serious the situation is. The government system is to lay back and relax, they will soon realize the issue with doing this.
3.2. ,j
4. quote 1 "the small boy held out his hands for the conch & the assembly shouted with laughter; at once he snatched back his hands &started to cry. Let him have the conch! shouted piggy Let him have it." (Golding 35).
4.1. Analysis This quote represents politics and government by showing how the boys establish who get to speak. At their meetings the peron who holds the conch is the designated speaker. The way the boys go about their meetings resembles a democarctic style of government.
4.2. "For Piggy, the conch is an instrument of order and democracy. The conch symbolises the right to speak, the same rights for all and the right of life and intactness, but only if the powerful people on the island (Jack) believe in such values" -cdernet knowledge home
5. Quote 2 "So remember. the rocks for a laavoratory. Keep the fire going and smoke showing a signal. Don't take fire from the mountain, take your food up there."(Golding 81).
5.1. Analysis 2 I picked this quote because it shows how Ralph is really starting to take up resonsibility as leader. This quote shows that Ralph sets the rules on the island and the other boys have to obey him.
5.1.1. Fire: In Ralph's eyes the fire is the most important aspect of living on the island. In the end the fire sets the island on fire, creating a huge signal, saving them.
6. quote 3 "Jack spoke, "Give me a drink"Henry brought him a drink." (Golding 150).
6.1. analysis This quote shows how Jack runs the hunters. The hunters blindly obey Jack because he is the leader. Jack's government style resembles a dictator.
6.2. "Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space." -Wole Soyinka
7. Quote 1: "His voice was loud and savage, and struck them into silence. 'There was a ship.'" (Golding 70).
7.1. The system of the island is to find enough people to listen to you. When Ralph steps up as the leader and tells the boys whats wrong, he shows that by speaking so angrily he can gain power.
7.2. Jack further utilizes this ability through his savage, angry actions and orders to gain power over Ralph. Using this tactic, after he has politically beaten Ralph to be the new chief, is able to control his tribe with ease. The boys in his tribe respect him and don't question him.
8. quote 4 " even for this island, Ralph had planned his toilet. He would like to have a pair of scissors and cut his hair...he would like to have a bath, a proper wallow with soap. He passed his tongue experimentally over his teeth and decided a tooth brush would come in handy too."
8.1. This quote reveals how Ralph is finally exepting the leadership role. He is now evaluating his situation and deciding on what would be essential for himself and the boys.
8.2. http://img.thrfun.com/img/017/485/toiletries_s.jpg
8.2.1. This picture connects to this quote because Ralph is maturing and seeing the situation in a bigger picture, as well as realizing the things they are missing, such as toiletries.
9. Quote 4: "We don't need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It's time some people knew they've got to keep quiet and leave deciding to the rest of us.
9.1. The boys symbol of respect has been destroyed. Causing parts of government to fall apart.
9.2. Government is falling apart. As soon as one person from the bottom of the government pyramid steps out, the whole form of government begins to fall apart until it is completely gone.
10. "Immediately, Ralph and the crowd of boys were united and relieved by a storm of laughter. Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheeful and normal." (Golding 149)
10.1. When there is similarity there is comfort within the tension of the grovernment. Everyone on the island has a similar viewing of Piggy, and that is one of the things that they all agree on. This creates a feeling of unity and togetherness.
10.2. Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it. -Bill Cosby
10.2.1. I find this quote interesting because as the boys begin to quit laughing as a group... bad things begin to happen.
11. "...the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist." (Golding 181)
11.1. this picture is what i thought the conch would look like when it was shattered by Roger
11.2. The conch represents grovernment and power and when the conch becomes destoryed, so does the form of government that the boys were trying to maintain on the island. The conch especially represented democracy and when the conch shattered, so did democracy. The democracy of Ralph's group fades into the totalitarianism of Jack's tribe when the conch shatters.
11.2.1. " The government is truly broken... {we} will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable." -John Dean's anonymous friend
12. Quote 3: "'I called it.' 'If you hadn't called it I should have. You just blew the conch.' 'Well, isn't that calling it'" (Golding 125)
12.1. Here the conch is a huge symbol of trust and leadership. It shows how every single boy bows down to it.
13. Quote 5: "'I voted for you for chief. He's the only one who ever got anything done. So now you speak Ralph, and tell us what. Or else--'" (Golding 170)
13.1. When Piggy says this, it represents peoples 'hard" heads when it comes to government and politics. Every single boy has this idea in his head that is telling themselves to either follow Jack or follow Ralph. Each boy would never let them both be leaders.
14. quote 5 "we cant leave the littleuns alone with Piggy" (Golding 117).
14.1. This quote is also a take on Ralph's growing leadership qualities. Instead of leaving the littleuns with Piggy he makes a call to go back and get him. He is looking out for the littleuns and also for Piggy.
14.2. "Good leaders are made not born. If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a never ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience" (Jago, 1982).
15. The Lord of the Flies on the stick symbolizes the anarchy of Jack and his group and their killing of living things. It is compared to the conch to show that it represents the new government on the island just as the conch did for democracy. It is smiling at Ralph because anarchy has settled on the island and triumphed over the conch and democracy.
16. The pig on a stick is a symbol of totalitarianism and the conch shows democracy. This pig's head is also the beast coming out in the boy and overtaking everyone on the island.
17. =Ben
17.1. =Sam
17.1.1. = B.T.
17.1.1.1. = Grace
17.1.1.1.1. =Chloe
18. "Because the rules are the only thing we've got" (Golding 91)
18.1. Laws and rules are supposed to keep things functioning properly and keep everyone safe, but without them the boys will revert to savagery.
19. "They obeyed the summons of the conch, partly because Ralph blew it, and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority..." (Golding 50)
19.1. Conch: The conch represents leadership and democracy. In the beginning of the story every single boy respects its "power". As the end of the story nears, the Jack's tribe begin to hate it because they hate Ralph making them disrespect them both.
19.2. The little kids respect and obey Ralph because he is a symbol and reminder of authority and the world they left behind.
20. "So Ralph asserted his chieftanship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought for days. Against his weapon, so indefinable and so effective. Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built, they were on different sidess of a high barrier." (Golding 73)
20.1. Ralph is excersing his power in the government and is being respected and obeyed for it, therefore acheiving his goal.
21. "Round the squatting child was protection of parents and policemen and the law" (Golding 62)
21.1. The boys take the idea of society and government with them to the island without realizing it because of how long they have lived in their society. The world of adults still live within them and they feel the guilt of doing something bad because of what they learned and when they were punished before they were stranded on the island.
21.2. Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. -Plato
22. "The Chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him. The newly beaten and untied Wilfred was sniffing noisily in the background. Roger squatted with the rest. 'Tomorrow,' went the chief, 'we shall hunt again.' He pointed at this savage and that with his spear.'"
22.1. This picture displays savagery and the battle between Jack and Ralph.
22.1.1. The battle between Jack and Ralph to be the leader of the boys has finalized. Jack has succeeded in his mission to take Ralph down as he is now recognized as "Chief". His actions are similar to a dictator's because he mysteriously ties up Wilfred and beats him for unknown reasons. The fact that his group members are called savages suggests that he is running an anarchy.
23. "Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hunt was over-mastering." (Golding 115)
23.1. The government and power on the island has eroded to the point that even Ralph, as calm as he usually is, became overwhlemed with the power of hunting and savagery.
23.2. “There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
23.3. i chose this picture because i think it represents what the boys were like on the island.
23.4. "The savage in man is never quite eradicated." -Henry David Thoreau
24. "...in his contribution to the good of society..."
24.1. The boys are referred to as a society and in society contribution is vital so that it can survive and thrive.
24.2. A good example proving the need of contribution from individuals to be a successful community is the failure of the boys to complete this on the island. Normally the only people who work throughout the day for the good of the children on the island are Ralph and Simon. Therefore, it is one reason why their community failed.
25. "Now it was a pool of shadows and Ralph nearly flung himself behind a tree when he saw something standing in the center; but then he saw that the white face was bone and that the pig's skull grinned at him from the top of a stick. He walked slowly into the middle of the clearing and looked steadily at the skull that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer at him cynically. An inquisitive ant was busy in one of the eye sockets but otherwise the thing was lifeless. Or was it?"
26. "That's where they've gone. Jack's party." (Golding 148)
26.1. The boys have split into parties because of disagreements on how to run everything and because of the desire for power.
26.2. This picture shows how the boys have made 2 different groups. The cake as a whole was the boys originally but now the cake is sliced down the middle and the boys have formed 2 parties.
27. "The place of assembly in which he stood was roughly a triangle, but irregular and sketchy, like everything they made.... Assembly after assembly had broken up in laughter when someone had leaned too far back and the log had whipped and thrown half a dozen boys backwards into the grass. Yet now, he saw no one had had the wit-not him-self nor Jack, nor Piggy-to bring a stone and wedge the thing. So they would continue enduring the ill-balanced twister."
27.1. Ralph explains that, like the place of assembly, everything they make is "irregular and sketchy". Included in that same "everything" is the organization or government they created. So far, their government has failed to keep order and maintain the form and structure it was originally established as. The unstable log represents the unstable structure of their government that keeps failing to support the children on the island. Just as no one fixes the log, no one is fixing the government.
27.2. “Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise-- the age-old dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another. Andre Breton, too, dreamed of this paradise when he talked about the glass house in which he longed to live. If totalitarianism did not exploit these archetypes, which are deep inside us all and rooted deep in all religions, it could never attract so many people, especially during the early phases of its existence. Once the dream of paradise starts to turn into reality, however, here and there people begin to crop up who stand in its way. and so the rulers of paradise must build a little gulag on the side of Eden. In the course of time this gulag grows ever bigger and more perfect, while the adjoining paradise gets even smaller and poorer.” ― Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting This quote explains the pros and cons and reasons for totalitarianism.
28. "Which is better-to have rules and agree or to hunt and kill?" (Golding 180)
28.1. In society rules are important because otherwise chaos and danger occurs and humanity is replaced with savagery.
28.2. This picture represents the boys on the island. Ralph and Jack are always butting heads and can never agree on anything.
28.3. "Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own." -William E. Gladstone
29. "Then he was licking his bruised knuckles and looking at the bare stick, while the skull lay in two pieces, its grin now six feet across. He wrenched the quivering stick from the crack and held it as a spear between him and the white pieces."
29.1. The stick between Ralph and the Lord of the Flies shows magnitudes of civilization and savagery. Ralph's side represents order while the pigs side represents anarchy. All of the kids other than Ralph have transferred along the stick to be closer to the barbaric end. (B.T.)
29.2. "This system is based on force and violence. It demands complete obedience. No opposition, no disagreement is allowed, if there is any such opposition, it is crushed." -Umar Farooq, Study Lecture Notes (Chloe)
29.2.1. This quote connects because it explains a disadvantage of totalitarianism and although it outlived democracy on the island it is also very fragile.