Hahaha: William Golding and Ralph Essay

Submitted By sophisticated_weirdo
Words: 617
Pages: 3

Hanief Dykes

From the First Chapter of William Golding’s novel, the characters have voted for Ralph to be chief but have not acted like he were chief. Ralph is clever, fair, and try’s to listen to everyone’s ideas. While the reaction of the characters in the book seemed to be well thought out and effective, it seems to not be. Although arguments can be made on both sides, the reader should definitely feel that the speech was ineffective. Ralph is a human being. He try’s his hardest to get off this island although the other boys may not help him. On page 22 the boys vote on whom to be chief. Ralph is chosen over jack not meaning that jack could be a better leader but because it was everyone’s choice and not just one person. Ralph being leader and all is not very respectful to every party on this deserted island which doesn’t really show the qualities of a leader. Going back to page 9 when Ralph and Piggy were supposed to get “acquainted”, piggy said “what’s your name” as Ralph gave a positive response to the question. But as piggy waits to be asked the same question, he does not get asked rather being disrespectful on Ralph’s part. Ralph shows respect to everyone but piggy which leads to Chapter 5 page 78 which is another assembly which Ralph thought was well thought out as he spoke of the problems on the island. Ralph talks about the rules, the fire, and jack and his hunters but doesn’t really talk about the outcome of all this, like going home to their families safe in their bed and in their homes. As Ralph addresses these issues he fails to talk about the lack of respect everyone and himself has for piggy. Being that he did that the speech seems to be useless because he doesn’t have everyone’s attention. For example on page 79, Ralph said “we need an assembly. Not for fun. Not for laughing and falling off the log-the group littluns on the twister giggled and looked at each other”. He’s obviously not being taken seriously which is a failure of communication to everyone there which is a waste of time. The argument can be made that Ralph did have a very effective speech. Why not acknowledge the fact that Ralph took his time to