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In the novels Kindred by Octavia Butler and Lord of the Flies by William Golding, one of the main points portrayed by both authors is how to exert and maintain power over others. Rufus from Kindred and Jack from Lord of the Flies both use similar tactics to maintain their power over their peers. Both boys attempt at hiding their insecurities by hurting others and abusing the power they are given, leading them both to fail at retaining their given power.
Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, is about British schoolboys whose plane was shot down over the Pacific Ocean during a time of war. The planes pilot is killed, but many of the schoolboys survive the crash and find themselves on a deserted island without adult supervision. The boys elect Ralph as leader; since he is the oldest, the boys assume he is also the wisest. However, Jack, a born leader and competitive individual, wishes to be chief as well, which leads him to gradually seize power and authority from Ralph. Jack quickly takes advantage of his power over the choirboys appointed to him by Ralph himself. He gradually begins to attempt at diminishing Ralph’s authority by giving the hunters permission to neglect their duties. Also, Jack constantly rejects Piggys ideas, argues with both Ralph and Piggy, and continuously disobeys the set rules of the conch.
Right in the beginning of the novel, the author portrays Jack as a born leader and competitive individual who in reality, is actually insecure and is affected easily by others opinions and actions. For example, when the boys decide to have a vote to choose their leader, Jack states, with simple arrogance, I ought to be chief , … because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp (Golding, 15). However, the only boys who vote for him were the choirboys, and they did so with dreary obedience (15), since they feel obligated to stay loyal to Jack. The rest of the boys vote for Ralph instead, and when this happens, Jacks face disappears under a blush of mortification (15), so Ralph offers Jack the role to be in charge of the hunters, which is made up of a group of choirboys. Clearly Jack is insecure and believes that the power should belong to him. Due to this belief, he attempts to seize power and authority from Ralph by badmouthing him to the rest of the boys when stating, He [Ralph] is not a hunter. He’d never have got us meat. He isn’t perfect and we don’t know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing. All this talk (126). Jack constantly tries to make Ralph look like a bad chief in order to take the power away from Ralph and claim it for himself. Another way Jack attempts to diminish Ralphs authority is by abusing his power over the choir boys. In Chapter 10, Jack makes himself the chief of his own tribe, which consists of all the biguns except for Ralph, Samneric, and Piggy, and most of the littluns. Jack abuses his newly given power by using violence against his own tribe members as well as against Ralphs group. He also continuously steals other peoples property for his own selfish needs. For example, when Jack is angry at Wilfred for an unspecified offense, he keeps Wilfred tied up for hours as he beats him, and when Jack determines his crew needs to start their own fires by using Piggys specs, he plans a midnight raid on Ralph’s camp to obtain them. During that raid, Jack, Roger, and Maurice use violence: hitting, biting, scratching (149). The boys do not question Jack’s decisions, and Jack uses the boys’ fear against them.
Even though Jack might be considered an effective leader because he maintains leadership, he is still not a good, successful one. A successful leader would take care of his followers, but Jack only has feelings for himself and his needs. He is not interested in trying to get his tribe rescued, nor does he care about anything besides his obsession with hunting and accumulating power. Due to Jacks greed and obsession with obtaining more power, he allows his tribe to commit savage doings, such as stealing Piggy’s glasses to start a fire, participating in Simon’s murder and feeling no remorse for what had just occured, and allowing Roger to drop a boulder that crushes Piggy, causing him to fall forty feet off a cliff, and the conch Piggy was holding. Jack maintains obedience using violence and fear, which is not how a good, successful leader would act, and he even attacks Ralph directly with his spear. If the boys had not been rescued, Jack would most likely have gained complete control of the island – or what was left of it, considering he nearly burned it all down; if Jack was leader, it is inevitable that more deaths would have occurred. At the end of the novel, when the boys luckily get rescued before Jack can take over the island, the author portrays Jack for who he really is: The officers ask, Whos boss here?. I am, said Ralph loudly. A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still (182). So, even though Jack is an intimidating, violent person who maintains leadership by force, he is also portrayed as just a little red-haired boy who is intimidated by others.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is about a modern black woman named Dana who is abruptly taken from her home in California and is transported to a slave plantation in the South. Rufus, the son of plantation owner Mr. Weylin as well as Danas ancestor, keeps getting himself into trouble. Dana has been summoned to save his life; she is drawn back in time repeatedly to help Rufus, even though all he does is treat others of different colors with disrespect and violence. Throughout the novel Rufus, just like his father, uses cruelty, threats, violence, his race, and the slaves fear of him to hide his insecurities and to maintain his power and authority. Once he inherited his fathers position as slave owner, Rufus begins to believe that he has been given the right to control the lives of others which leads him to become a tyrant.
In the beginning of the novel, Rufus Weylin is first perceived by the author as a curious and innocent young boy with slight insecurities. However, as the book progresses, Rufus turns into an over-obsessive and abusive tyrant, and the author portrays him as a stereotypical Southern slave owner. With every trip that Dana makes back in time to save Rufus, there is a clear change in the way he acts. As he grows older, instead of getting more mature, he becomes more evil and childish: he feels as though he is entitled to anything he wants and gets frustrated when things do not go his way. Rufus also does not take personal responsibility for his actions, but instead he blames everybody else for his problems and failures: Rufe, did you manage to rape that girl?. He looked away guiltily. Why would you do such a thing? She used to be your friend. When we were little, we were friends, he said softly. We grew up. She got so shed rather have a buck nigger than me! (122). He basically blames Alice for forcing him to rape her; he says it wouldnt have been rape if she would have just let him. Throughout the novel, Rufus constantly misuses his power that he maintains through violence, and causes physical and emotional pain to those around him. However, even though Rufus is main perceived by the author as a cruel, abusive slave owner, there are some points in the book where he is portrayed as an insecure child: Say something! Talk to me!. Or what?, I asked. Are you going to have me beaten for not talking to you? (215). The author shows Rufus as a harsh person who beats and punished others for wrong doing, as well as a person who is insecure and always wants someone beside him to lean on and talk with. This is also shown before Dana decides to kill him: Abandonment. The one weapon Alice hadnt had. Rufus didnt seem to be afraid of dying& But he was afraid of dying alone, afraid of being deserted by the person he had depended on for so long (257).
Rufus is not considered as a successful ruler, and that is shown when Dana ends up killing him at the end of the novel after she is fed up with his abusive ways: I could feel the knife in my hand, still slippery with perspiration. A slave was a slave. Anything could be done to her. And Rufus was Rufuserratic, alternately generous and vicious. I could accept him as my ancestors, my younger brother, my friend, but not as my master, and not as my lover (260). Since Rufus is such an erratic individual who has a tendency to make wrong choices when things do not happen in the way his wants them to, Dana believes the best idea is to end things with him before he can get worse and cause more harm to her and the others. Therefore, she twisted sharply, broke away from him& raised the knife& sank it into his side (260).
In conclusion, the authors of both novels portray the different ways to exert and maintain power over others. The authors have a common technique: they show their character in power as an insecure individual who attempts to hide their insecurity and maintain authority by hurting others and abusing the power they are given, which leads to an unsuccessful ending.
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