One of the main themes present throughout Lord of the Flies is the nature of power and how humans acquire and use it. Stranded on the island, the boys quickly respond to the problems of gaining, exerting, and balancing power. Free of adult supervision and faced with the mechanics of surviving as a society within the island environment, they devise both a system of social order and a means of asserting control over the landscape. In the social sphere, two methods of distributing power come to the forefront: a democracy, led by Ralph, advised by Piggy, and mediated by the conch shell; and an autocracy, constructed by the tyrannical Jack, supported by Roger, and governed by fear. As the novel unfolds, political power seeps from democracy to autocracy as Jack begins his own tribe and lures more and more boys away from Ralph’s reasoned rule. 

The relationship between autocracy and democracy is further explored through the conflict between civilization and savagery, order and chaos, which plays out most evidently in the conflict between Ralph and Jack: Ralph represents civilization and order; Jack, savagery and chaos. When the boys arrive on the island, they assert the importance of rescue and unanimously desire to return to the civilized world, electing Ralph as chief and maintaining a signal fire. However, Golding’s thesis while writing Lord of the Flies was that humans are naturally inclined towards chaos, hedonism, and savagery. Ralph and Piggy’s democratic society is quickly overwhelmed by the fear and inherent savagery in the boys, who prefer the immediate gratification of hunting and playing over building shelters or maintaining a fire. 

Ralph and Jack also respond to the threats of the landscape in different ways, offering different political solutions to their collective situation. Ralph’s power comes from democratic ideals and shared purposes, such as the signal fire. Jack manipulates the boys’ negative feelings and offers them a chance to fight back against their fears through hunting. Unlike Ralph, who attempts to rationalize the beast, Jack recognizes the potential of fear as a tool for controlling the other boys, and he takes full advantage. This recognition establishes the relationship between emotions and power, which Jack uses to turn himself into a successful demagogue. As the novel progresses, Jack’s fear-based rhetoric gains more and more influence. Whereas power was originally derived from cooperation and democracy, fear becomes the primary source of power on the island. 

There is the power struggle, too, between the boys and their environment. They discover early on that they can alter the landscape, accidentally sending the jungle up in flames. The hunting of pigs offers another arena in which the boys, particularly Jack, can exert dominance. The subjugation of nature becomes an outlet through which the boys express their frustrations and feelings of powerlessness. Even the littluns savor their newfound dominion over the natural world, highlighting the universal desire for power and control. 

Throughout Lord of the Flies, Golding aligns civilization and order with good and savagery and chaos with evil, portraying Ralph and Piggy as reasonable and sympathetic and Jack and his tribe as violent and destructive. However, even Ralph and Piggy, the allegorical representatives of democracy and reason, succumb to their more savage instincts when they take part in the murder of Simon, the allegorical representative of morality and goodness. The implication is that civilization and order are merely façades behind which savagery and chaos reign supreme. The atomic war happening in the “world of grown-ups” further emphasizes this idea, as the longed-for civilization is plagued by the same violence and brutality that overtakes the boys on the island. Even though the boys are rescued by grown-ups, the question remains as to whether “civilization” is truly civilized.