"Lord of the Flies," by William Golding, is a novel about a group of English children who land on an island due to a plane crash. The boys are forced to fend for their survival. At the beginning they set civilized standards that seem to work, but eventually the kids end up breaking them. Soon clashes arise between two boys, Ralph and Jack, and one of them decides to form his own group. From that moment savagery and violence increase which over time causes two tragic deaths. Golding's main theme is that even though civilization is present, savagery is sometimes inevitable because evil is in every man. .
The main character, Ralph, is elected by all of the boys to be the leader of the group. Despite the fact that Jack wanted that position for power, Ralph reassures him and leaves him in charge of the group of hunters. "We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything"" (42). The boys set up civilized rules and try to work together to survive until they get rescued. The boys are very different to one another, but they are all well educated people and have learned to be civilized but their attitude change throughout time. Ralph seems to be a great leader, but Jack wants to be in power. Not because he is a good leader or because he knows how to control the group, but because he wants respect from the others and wants to show leadership. Golding shows how people like to be respected and be in power, even if it ends up not being a civilized idea. .
At the point where Jack makes his own tribe everything starts to change. Their civilization is destroyed little by little and he makes all of his followers savage. "If you hadn't called it I should have. You just blew the conch"" (125). The conch represents power to the boys, it symbolizes the order and a civilized society. But ones the boys separate, the conch loses its value. At the beginning, everyone respected whoever who had the conch, but now nobody cares and everyone except Ralph, Piggy and Simon have fun and do whatever they want.
