Saad Siddiq

Essential Question :Why does the pursuit of authority causes conflicts?
Critical Response/ Answer
The self esteem of a person stave off an individual to follow the edict of a person with lower status than him. A person feels ashamed when he is forced to act under such situation. From the start he makes plans to overthrow his authority and rule all by himself. But the authority also shows resistance, so such circumstances engages that person and authority into a fight that can only end if one of them surrenders or dies. One of the hallmarks of the finite perspective of authority is that differences are used to determine who wins and who loses. In fact, we have been deeply socialized regarding which side of a sizable set of differences wins and which loses. Generically, we understand that "more" wins against "less," "high" wins against "low," "fast" wins against "slow," "big" wins against "little," "first" wins against anything else. We understand these distinctions without needing a context of what is more or faster.The high self esteem of a person makes him think this way. Rationally, we even know that fast and more aren't always better than slow and less.
In the novel the groundwork for such rivalry is laid between Jack and Ralph. Ralph who is elected the leader because he had gathered all the boys on the island with a conch and Jack is the leader of the choir and the later formed hunting group. He felt ashamed when he is not elected the leader and the fire of hatred starts burning inside him. Jack is strong and is bestowed with natural skills of hunting so he then decides to overthrow the authority of Ralph because his high self esteem does not allows him to accept Ralph as his chief.
The pursuit of authority is one of the basic trait of mankind. But not all are able to achieve it. This causes frustration among human beings. The person with power and physical strength flourish in this race leaving weak and fragile people behind even though they are wise and true leaders. Same is the case with Piggy.