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Power In Lord Of The Flies Essay

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Power’s Eden- Rough Draft
Golding applies the theme of power to his novel, Lord of the Flies. Power can take form in many different ways. In this particular novel, power takes form in symbolic objects which are used to emphasize the main theme of power in the novel. These objects include: the conch shell, the boys’ spears, Piggy’s spectacles and the fire.
At the beginning of the novel, Ralph and Piggy discovered a conch shell lying on the beach. To Ralph it seemed like an ordinary shell, but its purpose in the novel was far more significant. Piggy on the other hand, saw it as a valuable object that could be used to communicate with the other boys.–“A conch he called it. He used to blow it and then his mom would come. It’s ever so valuable (pg.14).” After many futile attempts, Ralph was finally able to use the …show more content…
The desire for power corrupted him as the novel progresses and when he finally took power he used it to implement fear into the minds’ of the boys. He believed in a totalitarian society where all that the boys did was hunting. -As Jack gained power throughout the novel, he used fear to terrorize the boys and mistreated anyone who was not compliant to his orders. –“We’ll have rules! Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks em’ (pg.33). At this point in the novel, Jack contemplated the punishment for disobeying a rule, but it did not have the power to punish anyone yet. Jack abused his power by using fear to terrorize the boys. It was evident when Wilfred, a boy that was not previously mentioned in the book, was tied up to a tree and beaten by Jack.-“The newly beaten and untied Wilfred was sniffing noisily in the background (Ch. 8). Jack does this to implant fear into the minds’ of the boys. Jack also did not hear out the perspectives of all the boys and disregarded their ideas.–“A savage raised his hand and the chief turned a bleak, painted face toward him

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