The Relationship of Jack and Ralph in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies
The relationship ship between Ralph and Jack is essential to whathappens in Lord of the flies. Things start off well at the firstmeeting when Jack and the choir first arrive and are greeted by Ralphand the other boys. The group of boys vote for a chief who turns outto be Ralph as “The circle of boys broke into applause. Even the choirapplauded; and the freckles on Jack’s face disappear under a blush ofmortification” making him feel embarrassed that he has not been chosenchief and that his choir are not supporting him.
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Then Ralph says “the choir belongs to you of, course” and “Thesuffusion drained away from Jack’s face” making Jack feel importantand that he has power and is no longer ashamed. Jack decides that thechoir will be used for hunting and he and Ralph “smiled at each otherwith shy liking” This is where friendship is beginning between the twoboys though it does not take too long to begin to brake down.
The breakdown is caused by the boy’s different obsessions. Jack whohad let the pig escape in plain sight of Ralph and Simon wants to killa pig to prove he’s not weak and is haunted by this so he is obsessedwith killing a pig to prove himself. On the other hand Ralph does notcare about the pigs and he sees what really needs to be done firstwhich are the construction of the shelters and the maintaining of thefire. When they decide to construct shelters that’s when the driftbetween Ralph and Jack starts as Ralph wants the shelters built andJack only wants to hunt a pig.
When Jack first arrives at one of the shelters and asks for some …
…ght the fireagain” not really caring as he is so happy that he has finally killeda pig. Again Ralph says “You let the fire out” causing Jack to feeluneasy and he looks at the twins and says “We had to have them in thehunt” though he was “conscious of a fault” Jack realises he is wrongbut tries to dismiss it saying “The fire’s only been out for an houror two. We can light up again-” but stops after seeing Ralph’s”scarred nakedness, and the sombre silence of all four of them” Ralphpoints to the horizon and says “There was a ship” These few strikingwords force Jack to back away back to the pig. From this point on thefriendship between Jack and Ralph completely breaks down and this iswhere the real problems begin on the island with each disagreeing moreand more until Jack begins his own group where he is chief.
