Within chapters 4-6 of Lord of the Flies, the plot development slows down in order to make room for a lot of character development. The children find themselves having to struggle with living on an island and dealing with such issues as who can exert authority, survival, and the emphasis put on attempting to be rescued. Within these conflicts between characters, Ralph emerges as a leader more than ever and his character is developed to a point where he begins to see himself as a leader and begins to take initiative.
Right at the inception of chapter 4, a physical description of Ralph’s size and a description of him as a “bigun” (Golding 61) illustrates an image of superiority over the other boys. When a ship passes on the horizon, Ralph is portrayed as a strong leader and displays a great deal of determination toward setting the fire. Although he fails, he takes it upon himself to make sure that no one ever “let[s] the fire out” (73). While Jack is more worried the present situation and survival on the island, Ralph displays a maturity in working towards a better life for himself and all the others. As such, Ralph is more concerned with being rescued and keeping the fire burning in order to do this. In a way, this displays Ralph’s kindness and sense of responsibility as he works toward more long term solutions and sees his moderation of the boys on the island as only a short term duty. Ralph feels a need to keep a civilized and organized society of sorts and tries to keep this “understandable and lawful world” (98) from “slipping away” (98). Even when all seems hopeless and everything is in disarray and full of conflict, Ralph feels a strong need to hold on to his beliefs and ideas of how the world should work. A lot is revealed about his character when he yells at Jack passionately saying “the rules are the only thing we’ve got!” (99). Ralph is smart and knows that there is more to surviving, but there is thriving. As such, he employs ideas such as rules to appease conflict and create a functioning and civil sense of humanity.
