In the book The Lord of The Flies there is a great amount of contrast throughout the whole book. The contrast for the most part was between Ralph and Jack having two different camps, and who was on each side. Starting off all of the boys were together and Ralph was the elected leader. However as the book goes on Jack sets off on his own to form his own group and slowly gets more and more followers until the only left on Ralph’s side is Piggy.Both Ralph and Jack had there own campsites in this book however, each had there differences on how they went about things and how decisions were handled. Ralph’s campsite not only was more ideal, it represented common knowledge that was torn away once piggy was killed. Ralph had emphasized heavily the importance of keeping the fire going and was his main focus so maybe even a ship could see the smoke. Just like he says on page 47 “We need to make sure the fire is always going” One of the most important things to emphasize is the symbolism that Ralph’s camp represents civilization, how simple it is to have, and how easy a normal boy can turn savage.
On the other side of the island was Jacks campsite. With the focus heavily being on hunting, Jacks group were turned almost savage wearing face paint and even accidentally killing Simon by stabbing him to death. Just like Ralph’s camp, Jacks campsite represented much more than just Ralph’s rival. Jack’s camp represented the savage people can become when faced with diversity. With a hunt or die mentality as listed on page 146 where Jack emphasizes “Our main focus is going to be on hunting”When comparing the differences in the two campsites, it boils down to much more than just two young British boys having two different hideouts. It in many ways represents much more such as the war going on between two of the countries at the time where one may be fighting for what’s right and one is fighting just because they enjoy fighting with somebody. It also shows how the biggest fear we encounter can be our imagination such as when Simon thinks he is talking to the pigs head on a stick and names him “The Lord Of The Flies” In the bigger picture these small boys show how the world is in today’s society and how so oblivious we can be to the solution to our problems.
