foreshadowsJack and his choir's arrival. On the same page, it is clear that Jack is "the boy who controlled them," and his description on page 27 says that he is "tall, thin and bony" with red hair. He apparently has a short temper, his "light blue eyes" revealing his anger. When the boys vote for Ralph as chief, Jack's "freckles ... disappeared" (pg 30). Simon is introduced on page 29 as he "smiled pallidly" - (he is very pale) and on page 32, Simon is revealed as a "skinny, vivid little boy" with straight black hair. 

The page numbers vary from edition to edition and from publisher to publisher.  I can only give you approximate page numbers.  Ralph is described right away in the story so his description is on the first page or two of your book.  Piggy's description follows immediately.  After Piggy's description, Golding spends a few pages describing the boys' actions, especially Ralph's as he plays in the water.  About 12-13 pages into the chapter, after Ralph blew on the conch shell, Jack and the other choir boys enter and slowly Jack and Simon are described.  The first description of Simon doesn't name him; he is the boy who, "...flopped on his face in the sand,...".

I don't believe the littlun with the birthmark comes into the story until chapter two - but all three of these characters are singled out and made fun of by the rest of the boys.  Simon is laughed at for his fainting, Piggy for being fat, and the Littlun for crying and being scared of a snake.

Ralph and Piggy are the first characters we meet as they bump into each other emerging from the jungle and the wreckage of the crash. Piggy is eager to make Ralph's acquaintance and asks him quite a few questions while also volunteering a good deal of information about himself, including his nickname, "Piggy." The reader learns that Piggy has asthma, that he is pretty smart and knows quite a lot, and that Ralph is quietly handsome and strong. The reader also learns that Ralph's father is in the navy and Ralph expects him to come rescue them once he has leave.

Once they blow the conch, Jack and his choir (including Simon) show up marching down the beach. Jack is described as tall, skinny, and ugly, and we learn that the boys are afraid of him. Simon passes out after marching across the hot beach in his choir togs and the boys dismiss him as a bit off and someone who is always doing that.

Jack and Ralph and Simon decide that they will go and explore the island and that Piggy isn't really physically capable of those sorts of tasks. The reader sees Jack hesitate when it comes to killing a pig and then resolve to get it next time.

Jack, Roger, Maurice, Henry, and Johnny begin to gradually develop into savages by the beginning of chapter 5 and are less concerned about establishing a civil society. They have already started to paint their faces, neglect their duties in favor of hunting, and display violent behaviors toward each other. Roger and Maurice take pleasure in destroying the littluns' sandcastles and show more respect for Jack than they do for Ralph. Jack becomes openly antagonistic toward Ralph and Piggy and leads the boys on hunting expeditions instead of completely necessary tasks in order to increase their chances of survival and rescue. At the beginning of chapter 5, conditions on the island have deteriorated to the extent that Ralph is forced to call an assembly to chastise the boys for not following his directives. However, Jack takes over the assembly by interrupting and arguing with Piggy before leading his group of hunters away. As Jack leaves the assembly, he says,

"Bollocks to the rules! We're strong—we hunt! If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down! We'll close in and beat and beat and beat—!" (Golding, 70).

Overall, the majority of the boys have followed in Jack's footsteps and have begun to act more savage in nature by the start of chapter 5. Their lack of concern for civility, affinity for hunting, and propensity to bully and fight with others is dangerous. As the novel progresses, the boys become more bloodthirsty and violent until they eventually turn into complete savages.

Sensible is a good start.

I would also call Ralph genuine. He has a sincere concern for all the boys that Jack would do well to emulate or copy. He previous ability as a leader of the crew demonstrates this concern, however unfortunately the savagery of the island means this civilized approach won't be as effective.

Another adjective that might clearly describe him might be imperfect. Although he might have the intellect to put together a great idea, he struggles to articulate or clearly express his ideas to the group. Thus, he can't really be the leader that he could have been.

That's a great question. If you add his cumulative list of descriptors together, Ralph doesn't make an excellent leader on paper. And perhaps he isn't an excellent leader at all, and that is one of the reasons the boys' society crumbles near the end. But he is one of the best choices among the group. Here are some words I'd use to describe Ralph:

Advisable: Unlike Jack, who is fairly impossible to reason with, Ralph is willing to consider wise counsel, especially from Piggy and Simon.

Insulting: Especially at the beginning of the book, Ralph arrogantly insults the boy who tries to help him most (Piggy), calling him "fatty" and ridiculing him in front of the group.

Strong-willed: Ralph isn't afraid of a challenge and doesn't mind reminding Jack who is in charge. Both physically and verbally, Ralph doesn't back down easily.

Focused: Whether it's the signal fire, building shelters, organizing duties, or keeping up with "littluns," Ralph is fairly focused on the important tasks that need to be done and reminds the group about their need for rescue--not merely continued survival on the island.

Most of the boys begin to gravitate toward Jack near the end of the book, and Ralph himself gets caught up in the blood thirst, so he's not a perfect leader by any means. However, without any adults around and in the absence of any sort of order, he does better than most in trying to keep the group focused on the most worthwhile efforts.

I believe that Ralph changes drastically during his stay on the island. He does not start out as mature--in fact, every time he becomes excited about being alone on a "good island" without adult supervision, he can't even find the words to express himself, so he stands on his head to express his enthusiasm, which is quite immature.

He is certainly not accepting and tolerant at the beginning, either, as he appears to be quite prejudicial against the fat boy with thick specs named "Piggy." He tries to sneak away from Piggy at first, but then, realizing that Piggy will not be left behind, Ralph grudgingly puts up with his company. After Piggy asks Ralph not to tell the others of his humiliating nickname, Ralph goes right ahead and tells them anyway (again displaying the immaturity he arrives with on the island). Noble at this point is out of the question.

Ralph tries to be somewhat responsible up to a point, but he's not that interested in responsibility--that is Piggy's forte. A list is supposed to be made of all the kids on the island, but it does not come to fruition. Then there is the fire on the mountain, and the boy with the mulberry birthmark is killed--and they can only account for his death because of the noticeable birthmark. This is when Ralph takes a more serious turn.

As the other kids lose their sense of civilization, Ralph tries more and more to be responsible and noble, even though he, too, at times, lapses, such as in the killing of Simon.

The traitorous and violent turn that Jack takes makes Ralph very fearful for the boys who are still on his side and for himself, especially at the end when he is being hunted. As they are rescued, this fear has its catharsis in the weeping that Ralph is finally able to give in to.

Golding specifically chose to have the adolescent British boys crash land on a deserted island in order to illustrate that humans are inherently wicked and will revert back to their primitive nature in certain circumstances. Similar to their adult counterparts who are engaged in a world war, the British boys fail to establish a civil society on the uninhabited island. Plans go awry as the boys gradually descend into savagery, and Jack establishes his tribe of savages at the opposite end of the island. Despite their civilized upbringing, the children struggle to maintain their civility in an environment without structure, regulations, or laws.

When Ralph and Piggy wish for adult intervention, a paratrooper is shot out of the sky and lands on the island, which only makes the situation worse. At the end of the novel, Ralph is being chased by Jack's band of savages and runs out of the forest to discover a British naval officer standing on the beach. The naval officer comments,

"I should have thought that a pack of British boys—you're all British, aren't you?—would have been able to put up a better show than that—I mean—" (Golding, 157).

The adult officer's comment is ironic because he is a participant in a world war, which mirrors the brutal, savage environment the boys have created on the island. Golding shows that both the boys and adults share an affinity for violence and savagery despite their age difference, which suggests that all humans, particularly males, are inherently evil.

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is set on a tropical island; its characters are all young (five or so to thirteen or so) boys who were stranded here without any adult supervision after a plane crash. One of the four main characters in the novel is Ralph.

The first thing we learn about Ralph, unfortunately, is not a good thing. He is not particularly interested in anyone else. The first person he meets on the island is Piggy, and the first thing Ralph does is try to distance himself from him. It is true that Piggy is not a particularly appealing young man. He is fat, wears thick glasses, suffers from asthma, cannot swim, and is suffering some diarrhea from eating too much fruit. Nevertheless, when Piggy introduces himself, Ralph does not even do the courteous thing (which he certainly knows, as a proper English schoolboy) and respond in kind.  Piggy "waited to be asked his name in turn but this proffer of acquaintance was not made; the fair boy called Ralph smiled vaguely, stood up, and began to make his way once more toward the lagoon."  Ralph is not interested in learning any of the other boys' names, either, and he continues to disrespect Piggy until he realizes he needs Piggy's help later in the novel.

Ralph is also an ineffectual leader. It is clear that he looks like he has all the necessary attributes of a leader, because the boys want him to be their leader within minutes of seeing him for the first time. In reality, though he has the physical characteristics and ideas of a leader, Ralph is not able to motivate the boys to follow him. They attend his meetings, but they will not help him build shelter or keep the fire going, the two best ideas Ralph has. Jack does not have Ralph's pure motives and heart but is a more effective leader.

Despite these faults, Ralph is able to get along with everyone on the island. The little boys love him, despite their unwillingness to help him, and the older boys treat him with some sense of respect. He even gets along, most of the time, with Jack, the boy who eventually sets himself up in direct opposition to Ralph's leadership. It is obvious to Ralph that Jack does not like him, and he even asks Jack why he hates him; however, until the last chapter or so of the novel, Ralph does not appear to actively dislike Jack. 

Ralph is the first boy the leaders meet, and he is the boy who, while running for his life, is the first to meet the naval commander who will save them. Despite his shortcomings, Ralph is the central character of this novel because he is the kind of person everyone knows or has met. 

Sensible.  In Chapter 11, Ralph tries desperately to start the fire that has gone out.  When he approaches Jack to ask him to return Piggy's glasses, he tries to be reasonable, but Jack goads him and Ralph attacks Jack.  However, Piggy grabs the conch and the others quiet down.  Piggy asks,

Which is better--to be a pack of Indians like you or to be sensible like Ralph?...Which is better--to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?

At one point Ralph has reflected that Piggy is the thinker and the most rational of all, and he admires Piggy's devotion to the rules of society because he knows these are what hold together the fabric of civilization.  Even though Ralph loses control of the hunters, it is he always who insists upon the smoke of the fire being essential to the boys' rescue.

In the final chapter, when the naval officer arrives and saves Ralph from the harm intenede him by Jack and the others  "Cos I had some sense," it is Ralph who identifies himself as the one in charge, and he tries to explain that the boys cooperated well at first. Then, he thinks of the loss of the beauty of the island and the innocence of the boys,

Ralph wept for the loss of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

Sensibly, Ralph realizes what has been lost by all the boys.  Reflecting as none of the others have, Ralph sees that the rationality of Piggy is the only way for the boys to have survived.

For the last part of the trip up the mountain there are only three boys who go on.  Jack is the leader here.  He taunts Ralph into going by indirectly calling him a coward.  He even says to Ralph, "Why don't you go?  Are you frightened?"  The other boy who follows up with them is Roger.  It is never really explained why he goes with them.  When Ralph didn't just want the two of them to go in case they found the beast, Roger appeared at their sides without a word.  Jack asked him to join them.  He simply replied "yes."

There isn't really a personality trait, physical appearance, or function in the plot that these three boys share. What they do share is the fact that all three of them die, and they are the only ones whose deaths we can be certain of. Through their deaths, they may also represent the "loss of innocence" theme that runs throughout the story.

The boy with the birthmark is a "littlun," and is the first to speak of the Beast. We don't see his death or have it confirmed, but he is never seen again after the fire in Chapter 2, and it can be assumed that he died in it. In his case, his innocence lies in his age and his inability to think rationally; he is responsible for conjuring the idea of the Beast, and the fact that he is the first to die almost seems like the fulfillment of a curse for bringing this supernatural fear to the group. There may also be a more far-reaching connection to the power and danger of prophecy, as all three boys are, in their own ways, responsible for bringing knowledge and portents to the group.

Simon dies mostly due to bad luck; he comes out of the forest at the climax of a thunderstorm and a ritualistic "pig hunt" initiated by the near-savage hunters of Jack's group, and they supposedly mistake him for the Beast. Simon is also the most obviously prophetic character, due to his conversation with the Lord of the Flies, his statement that Ralph will get off the island someday, and his "fits."

Piggy dies horribly and intentionally, at Roger's hand amid the jeering of the Castle Rock tribe. His death, being the most intentional, may have been "saved" for last by Golding in order to demonstrate the boys' diminishing restraint. It is telling that the conch perishes with Piggy, simultaneously destroying both his superior mind and the semblance of order on the island.  

Throughout the book the reader gets glimpses of the roles that adults played in the boys' lives back home. Piggy and Ralph are the ones who share most of these insights. In the first chapter, Piggy refers to his "auntie," whom he has lived with since the death of his parents. His auntie gave him candy, told him how to manage his asthma, and provided Piggy with an education, both formal and practical. Piggy has book knowledge and knowledge of how to blow the conch; a variety of experiences that adults introduced him to have helped him develop his mind. 

The boys have experience listening to and obeying adults who organize them and tell them what to do and how to behave. The boys respond to the conch because it reminds them of "the man with the megaphone" who instructed them during the evacuation. Jack's leading the choir boys in line and ordering them when to stop or take their "togs" off mimics what the boys have seen adults do. Ralph is convinced his father, a Navy commander, will find the boys and rescue them because his father has told him that "the Queen has a big room full of maps and all the islands in the world are drawn there." This shows the adults, at least in Ralph's life, instill knowledge as well as national pride in the boys.

Ralph and Piggy, as well as the littluns, seem to miss the adults the most. Several times the issue of who is watching or not watching the littluns comes up; the role of caring for young children was obviously performed by adults back home, and although Piggy tries to fill in, he is inadequate. Piggy laments multiple times, "What's grownups going to think?" This shows that the adults provide moral guidance and approval of proper behavior and disapproval of improper behavior. One of the most poignant discussions about grownups is this conversation between Piggy, Ralph, and Simon:

"Grownups know things," said Piggy. "They ain't afraid of the dark. They'd meet and have tea and discuss. Then things 'ud be all right—"
"They wouldn't set fire to the island. Or lose—"
"They'd build a ship—"
The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life.

This shows that adults, in the boys' experience, have superior intellectual and social skills, allowing them to be effective problem solvers.

When the boys realize there are no adults on the island, they attempt to form a civilization, electing Ralph as chief. He starts out saying that they have two goals—to have fun and to be rescued. Although Ralph, Piggy, and Simon attempt to fill the roles of adults, the other boys don't, and that leads to the downfall of their civilization.

In chapter eight, Simon looks at the Lord of the Flies, the pig's head on a stick (covered with flies) that Jack and his "tribe" left as an offering for the beast. The narrator says that its

half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.

Simon responds that he knows, yet he stands there, alone, conversing with the disembodied pig's head in his own mind. It taunts him, saying,

Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . . You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?

Inside Simon's head, then, the head claims that the beast is actually within Simon, within all of the boys; it isn't something they can hunt and kill because it isn't one thing. Simon imagines himself falling into blackness and passes out. In chapter nine, he comes to and begins to hike up the hill toward the "humped" thing. Perhaps he wants to believe that there is a beast without and that the Lord of the Flies was wrong. When he reaches the top, he realizes that what the boys thought was a beast is just a dead and decaying man attached to a parachute, and

he turned to the poor broken thing that sat stinking by his side. The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.

When Simon came down the hill, however, Jack's "tribe" was engaged in their horrifying "kill the beast" chant and ritual dance, and they became so caught up in pretending violence—attacking Roger who acted the part of the pig—that when Simon unexpectedly entered the circle, they attacked him. "Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill," but no one heard him.

The adults are the ones who created the problem; they are the ones who bicker and can't get along to the point that a cataclysmic war is started that is the reason the boys are on the plane in the first place.  The dead pilot and later, the dead parachutist, represent the fact that those people let the inner evil beast out and that brought about their deaths as well as the deaths of others.  When Simon sees the pig's head on the stick and he has his "conversation" with it in chapter 8, the description of the head (which becomes, to Simon, the Lord of the Flies), is that it had "...the infinite cynicism of adult life."  This means that it believed that all people are evil and self-serving; that all adults are skeptical and even cynical, about any deeds one does because they know that people don't act out of goodness, but out of evilness.  Golding is implying that as one ages, the evilness inside of each person, comes out more and more.  The boys on the island, though children still, have grown up very quickly because there are no adults living with them.  They have become adults while still boys.  The only living adult that appears in the story is the naval officer who finds the boys at the end of the story.  He, at first, thinks the boys are just playing and then when Ralph cries, he is embarrassed. He is portrayed as being unaware of the evilness but his lack of awareness is due to his desire to be unaware.  He doesn't want to know the truth about what happened on the island because the truth would be ugly and might make him evaluate his own life.  Instead, he looks away.  Golding is showing that adults are the biggest source of evil through both their actions and their inactions.

Three non-physical traits of Ralph:

Practical--

Ralph shows his practicality when he off-handedly tells Piggy "better Piggy than Fatty," when Piggy is very upset about the fact that Ralph revealed his old nickname.  Rather than getting caught up in Piggy's emotional drama, Ralph deals with the situation by looking at it from a practical standpoint and moves on. 

Kind-hearted--

Ralph continually worries about the well-being of the littluns throughout the novel.  When everyone else except Simon had given up on building the shelters in chapter three, Ralph still works tirelessly to finish them, because he is worried about the safety of the younger children and the fact that they keep having nightmares.

Confident--

Ralph shows his confidence on the very first day when he and Piggy conclude that there are no adults on the island.  Instead of being afraid or extremely worried like Piggy is, Ralph is over-joyed at this "realized ambition," his new found freedom (8).  He shows his confidence and ability to handle himself again later in the assembly with the other boys as he discusses the idea of getting rescued.