Ralph's External Conflict

There are several conflicts within the characters of Lord of the Flies. They all face internal and external conflicts. When they boys very first land on the island they are faced with an external conflict between themselves and nature. They are placed in an environment that is new and scary to them. They have to learn how to survive in the wild without any grownups. They also don’t have easy access to clean water, food, shelter, or clothing while faced with the hardships of the weather.
I think one of the major external conflicts in this book is between Ralph and Jack. They clashed from day one. Ralph was selected leader of the group and Jack did not like that and he wanted to be chief. Ralph tells everyone throughout the book that fire and signal smoke is the most important thing and that they need to maintain a fire in order to be rescued. Jack disagrees with Ralph. He believes that hunting is most important. Jack and the hunters focused on killing a pig and never helped with the fire or shelter. When it’s Jack’s and the hunters’ turn to maintain the fire they go hunting instead and let the fire go out. Ralph becomes furious with them and yells at them. He accuses Jack
of only wanting to hunt and play. He saw a ship on the horizon and they weren’t there to keep the fire going because of Jack. Ralph constantly struggled with Jack because he kept hunting for pigs.
Another external conflict we see is between Ralph and civilization. He realizes the importance and tries to keep it by having all the boys do what they would normally do at home. He has the boys maintain their hygiene and keep clean. He also tries to keep order and keep rules by acting peacefully. He tries to keep the boys from acting violently but it soon becomes inevitable.
Between Ralph and Jack there is a power struggle that goes on between them. Ralph is the chief, but Jack wants all the power and wants to control everyone. They both try to lead. They both have their own ideas about what the group should be doing and it eventually tears the group apart. Ralph has been trying to keep society and order and Jack has no respect for him or what he says. Jack says that his group is going to focus on hunting pigs and getting meat. Ralph and his group try to maintain the fire and get rescued. When Jacks group gets a pig he invites Ralph’s group because he wants them to join his group so that he can control everyone. Jack’s group represents chaos, while Ralph’s group represents order and civilization.
When Jack creates his own tribe, it is the start of complete chaos. He tries to force Ralph and his group to join his group. When they refuse Sam and Eric are captured and Piggy ends up getting murdered by a rock. When Piggy dies the conch is broken, leaving Ralph powerless, without allies, or civilization.
I think out of all the conflicts in this book, internal conflicts are the most damaging to the characters. Ralph struggles with one of the most striking internal conflicts out of everyone. He tries to maintain order on the island but questions himself as a leader a lot. As Jack is becoming more savage, Ralph tries to figure out what the best actions to take should be. In one situation Ralph can tell that the majority of the boys are with Jack and he is afraid to blow the conch because he is unsure if they will return. He has struggles to maintain his leadership over Jack and knows that if he blows it and no one comes then he is completely powerless.
Jacks internal conflict has to do with how fixated he is on killing a pig. He had a chance once and couldn’t. After that it is all he wants to do. He thinks that killing pigs will get him power. He also becomes extremely power hungry. He is so mad that Ralph has power that he actually splits off into his own group.
Simon has internal conflict within himself when he sees the pig head, The Lord of the Flies, that Jack and the hunters leave for the beast. Simon is mesmerized by the pig head and can’t get it out of his head even when he shuts his eyes. The floating head begins to talk to Simon. Simon is scared of the head. The pig head claims that he is the beast and that no one can save him from the beast. He tells him that he is part of him and that he wasn’t something the boys could hunt and kill. The beast is inside of all the boys and helps leads to the destruction of their group. The Lord of the Flies was trying to get Simon to embrace his evil side.
When Jack’s tribe is having the feast where he invited Jack and his group, Simon is coming down the mountain to tell everyone that the beast isn’t actually real.
When he gets down to where the boys were he was mistaken as the beast and is killed. Jack and his group were there and took part in this killing frenzy. The next morning Jack knows what they had done and can’t believe it. He is ashamed of himself. Piggy, Sam, and Eric all say that they did not take place in what had happened like Jack and his group. Jack realized the weight of their actions. They did kill Simon. But the rest of the group denies the truth. Throughout the book we see that Ralph has tried to stay away from becoming savage. He has always tried to keep order, but we see when Simon dies that Ralph has the ability to be
savage.
At the end of the book, when all the boys are saved, all they have left is the weight of their actions. They must internally face the fact that everything that has happened was because of them. They killed people and now they have to deal with that forever. Their innocence was gone.
In this book all the conflicts that were described were a result of human nature. Selfishness, fear, greed, violence, and evil things are all things we cannot escape because they are a part of us. Inherent evil within the characters is ultimately the reason for everything that happened.