Lord of the Flies Project
Joey Dancsecs
Types of Government
Ralph's Government: Democracy
In the real world, democracy is the type of government where peoples' rights are protected and the citizens have free election. It works by having leaders in the government carry out the rules and laws while citizens get to vote on who becomes the leaders. A democracy can be run in different ways, such as Lenin's form which was called Democratic Centralism, with him as the dictator of a democracy. Another way is Representative Democracy which is how America's government is ran today (What is Democracy).
In Lord of the Flies, Ralph's type of government is democracy. Throughout the story, Ralph illustrates his want for a democracy styled government by wanting an elected leader and using the conch so that everyone has a say in what the group should do. When the kids first meet up on the island, Ralph says "Let's vote for chief." (Golding). By saying this, Ralph wants everyone in the group to have a say on who is the leader. This is the same as in a democracy where citizens vote for a certain leader.
Jack's type of government: Dictatorship
A Dictatorship is a type of government where there is one absolute leader over the rest of the group. The leader of the government is called the dictator. The dictator typically uses power over citizens and makes all the rules for them. Dictators can run different types of governments, but they all revolve around what the Dictator wants, not the citizens (Different Forms).
In the Lord of the Flies, Jack wants to run his government in this way. Golding describes Jack's position of his group by saying "Power lay in the brown shell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape" (Golding). This quote explains how Jack feels about being the leader of his group. It is easy to tell that he has control over his group throughout the story and when any of them go against them, he punishes them with force.
My Island Society
My constitution would be:
- The group will vote on who will become the leader of the group.
- The leader will remain the leader unless a majority of the group votes him or her out of the spot.
- The group will stay as one group that will not separate so that the group can be as efficient as possible.
- No one is allowed to kill anyone unless it is self defense.
- The group votes on every decision that needs to be made, majority wins the decision.
- No one can try to overthrow the leader and they must abide by the rules he or she must enforce.
- The group members have the right to hunt, communicate, and vote on whatever they think is right.
- No weapons are allowed unless it is for hunting.
- Everyone has equal rights in the group: voting, access to food, freedom of speech.
- Once a decision is made, no matter what side the person is on, he or she must participate in doing whatever it is that was passed through the majority of votes.
The leader of the group and depending on group size a few others (who would also be elected to their position) would be the one who is in charge of enforcing the rules. They can do this by physical punishment or any method needed that isn't against the rights of the group. Depending on how harsh the breaking in rules is, that will determine the type of punishment the person will receive.
Real life example of In-Fighting
In Lord of the Flies, a different kind of in-fighting happens. Jack eventually feels that he needs to split away from his leader Ralph and the rest of the group because he believes he is stronger and a better leader. When Jack leaves, he says "And my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?" (Golding). This quote marks that Jack is leaving for sure and that he is trying to persuade others to come to his group so he becomes more powerful. His plan is to defeat Ralph's group. This is like how in the Korean war the North and South split because they have different interests and one side thinks they are better off without the other.
War against different parties
America has strength in size of military and authority over ISIS, having the ability to overpower them. Their weakness is that some Americans are being recruited to ISIS and that they cannot stop everything that is going on in the Middle East. ISIS's strength is that they are very violent and sneaky, so they can overthrow towns and cities to expand their territory. Their weakness is that they are not as large in number as some of the other countries and not as large as the United States. They also have to deal with more than one nation going after them (Thomson).
Because of these reasons, I believe that the U.S. will win the feud because they are much bigger and have a much stronger and trained military. I don't think that ISIS will be able to overthrow all of the countries they want to because they will have too many countries trying to defeat them.
Video link to ISIS: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/14/world/isis-everything-you-need-to-know/
Work Cited
"Different Forms of Government Defined." AmericanBuilt.us. AmericanBuilt.us, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. Print.
History.com. "Korean War." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
Thomson, Nick. "ISIS: Everything You Need to Know about the Group - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network, 10 Feb. 2015. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
"What Is a Democracy?" Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.