Power In Lord Of The Flies

William Gaddis said, “Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.” In the novel, The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, we see power become corrupt by men, or in this case, young children. When a plane full of young British boys crashes on an island, the plane not only leaves a scar, but the plane leaves innocent, vulnerable young boys alone to survive on their own. The young boys had nobody to go to for comfort, to the boys it was a utopia, that is until their mind took over. David Cuschieri says, “The mind is a powerful force. It can enslave us or empower us. It can plunge us into the depths of misery or take us to the heights of ecstasy.” The young boys had everything they could ever ask for, they had an island, a hunt, friends and food, but they never asked for a war and that is what they got.
In the novel, we see the need for power slowly develop.
Right away everyone is getting along; nonetheless, in a blink of an eye everything changes. Ralph and Piggy are two of the main protagonists in the novel, at the beginning of the novel Ralph discovers a conch. Piggy, having heard stories about conchs encouraged Ralph to blow the conch in order to call a meeting. Piggy is known for his smarts and not his wits, but could he really have known what he just did? Can anyone really predict how someone will act in times of trouble? Ralph and Piggy could not and that is where the trouble began. Boys began to come forth and sit around Ralph, for he held the conch which called the meeting. Jack, another main protagonist came forth to the meeting with a group of boys behind him. Jack was a leader for the group of choir boys, he was known for his talent in singing, but not his curse for leading. Right off the bat Ralph and Jack had problems with authority and each other. By the end of the meeting Ralph was elected leader of everyone except the choir boys, who later became known as the hunters, Jack was the leader of
them. The conch held authority and with authority came responsibility, was Ralph ready to accept that responsibility? He would soon find out. One of first items that Ralph addressed when elected was make a signal fire, Ralph had his mind set on being rescued by his father, who was a commanding officer in the Navy. On the island there was a mountain on which they built the signal fire. Once the signal fire was built, it created a sense of hope and accomplishment. The only problem was that the boys had not started the signal fire, nobody knew how. Jack having been on the mountain with the boys saw Piggy and proclaimed, “His specs - use them as burning glasses!” (Page 40, paragraph 17) Piggy struggled to fight them off and keep them from using his specs, but he lost. The boys used his specs to start the signal fire and then returned the specs to their rightful place, upon Piggy’s face. Max Lucado says, “Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional.” As the readers, we can see conflict start to occur among the boys, but to them there can only be one leader and the idea of authority and survival will lead to a war. The mind sets traps and obstacles for the human body, as we continue to read, we see how the mindsets the biggest trap of all, a nightmare. The beast is merely a thought among the boys, until the little ones begin to believe in the beast. The little ones are shaken and frightened about the thought of the beast. Ralph being the leader took it upon himself to find the beast; however, Jack the leader of the hunters, objects to the idea of Ralph looking for the beast. Jack thought that he and his hunters should be in charge of finding the beast, this conflict between Ralph and Jack cause a problem and the boys go their separate ways. This was the beginning of a war between right and wrong, good and evil, weak and strong. This was where our mind begins to play tricks on you to see if you are strong enough to make the right decisions. War, that is what happened next in our novel. Conflict broke out and quickly turned to war. The boys were hunted by each other like animals, like pigs on a pig hunt. If you were strong enough to survive, then there might have been a chance to survive. In the novel, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, the character, Effie Trinket said, “May the odds be ever in your favor.” This quote is ironic, as it explains how fighting and life is not always in your favor. You can not win everything, and sometimes that cost of failure may be your life. The boys in The Lord of the Flies had to fight each other to survive and if you were fortunate to win then you survived, if not you died. It was a game of life, and life is not always fair. In the movie saga, Star Wars, by George Lucas, Yoda a very wise character quoted, “Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.” The mind is a gift and a curse, the mind can be used for right or wrong. The way we see and act in a situation is up to each of us individually, we may not be able to predict or change the past, present or future, but we can always choose what we do at that time. The boys in the novel chose to fight and kill, instead of live in peace and harmony. Everyone could have been alive and rescued, but that is not the way the story was written, that is not the way the human conscious works. The boys were put in a situation that caused their conscious to take action, unfortunately so did their mind. Their mind took their thoughts and emotions and changed them into a weapon, a weapon that was used in war. Authority and power are both something Ralph and Jack wanted, they just wanted it differently. Ralph’s mind was set on doing what was right in order to keep everyone together and alive, he was trying to do right. Jack’s mind was set on doing whatever it took in order to have power and authority over everyone on the island, even if that meant killing people. Piggy’s mind was set to do what was right, but in the end that got him killed. Why is it in times of trouble and need that our minds try to fix our wrongs, but our conscious tries to wrong our rights? Ralph and Piggy had the right mindset in order to survive in a humane way, but their conscious told them that in order to survive they were going to have to fight and be put into circumstance that they never imagined they would ever be in. For example, when Jack and the hunters had food, Ralph and Piggy came over to feast, but that night they watched from the sidelines as their friend was murdered. Simon was killed and murdered, and although Ralph and Piggy’s minds told them that this was not right, their conscious stopped them from jumping in to help. In conclusion we saw how power was corrupted by men, or children. We saw how the mind twists and turns to play with our weaknesses and strengths. Also, how the mind leaves scars of thoughts behind, whether good or bad. We saw how quickly a utopia can turn to a dystopia, in the blink of an eye. Conflicts always lead to war, and our minds are always ready, but when the time comes can we trust ourselves to do what we know is right? We tell ourselves that we can handle anything, but when put into those situations, we turn to weak, fragile creatures that long for power and authority. Our conscious and mind betray us, and we turn against each other. We turn into savage animals.