Ralph

Ralph represents leadership, the properly socialized and civilized young man.
He is attractive, charismatic, and decently intelligent. He demonstrates
obvious common sense. Ralph is the one who conceives the meeting place,
the fire, and the huts. He synthesizes and applies Piggy's intellectualism, and
he recognizes the false fears and superstitions as barriers to their survival. He
is a diplomat and a natural leader.
Ralph's capacity for leadership is evident from the very beginning (he is the
only elected leader of the boys). During the crisis caused by the sight of the
dead paratrooper on the mountain, Ralph is able to proceed with both sense
and caution. He works vigilantly to keep the group's focus on the hope for
rescue. When the time comes to investigate the castle rock, Ralph takes the
lead alone, despite his fear of the so-called beast. Even in this tense moment,
politeness is his default. When Simon mumbles that he doesn't believe in the
beast, Ralph "answered him politely, as if agreeing about the weather." British
culture is famed for civilized reserve in emotional times. By the standards of
the society he's left behind, Ralph is a gentleman.
Having started with a schoolboy's romantic attitude toward anticipated
"adventures" on the island, Ralph eventually loses his excitement about their
independence and longs for the comfort of the familiar. He indulges in images
of home, recollections of the peaceful life of cereal and cream and children's
books he had once known. He fantasizes about bathing and grooming.
Ralph's earlier life had been civilized, and he brought to the island innocent
expectations and confidence until certain experiences informed his naivet
and destroyed his innocence. As he gains experience with the assemblies, the
forum for civilized discourse, he loses faith in them. "Don't we love meetings?"
Ralph says bitterly, frustrated that only a few of the boys actually follow
through on their plans.
Over time, Ralph starts to lose his power of organized thought, such as when
he struggles to develop an agenda for the meeting but finds himself lost in an
inarticulate maze of vague thoughts. Ralph's loss of verbal ability bodes ill for
the group because his authority lies in the platform, the symbol of collective
governance and problem solving where verbal communication is the primary
tool. Ralph's mental workings are subject to the same decay as his clothing;
both are frayed by the rigors of the primitive life. Yet in response to the crisis of
the lost rescue opportunity, Ralph demonstrates his capacities as a
conceptual thinker.

When "[w]ith a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay," he is
symbolically discovering humankind's dark side. At the same time, he has
learned that intellect, reason, sensitivity, and empathy are the tools for holding
the evil at bay. Ralph's awareness is evident when, realizing the difficulty of
this lifestyle in contrast to his initial impression of its glamour, he "smiled
jeeringly," as an adult might look back with cynicism on the ideals held as a
youth.
Although he becomes worn down by the hardships and fears of primitive life
and is gradually infected by the savagery of the other boys, Ralph is the only
character who identifies Simon's death as murder and has a realistic,
unvarnished view of his participation. He feels both loathing and excitement
over the kill he witnessed. Once Ralph becomes prey, he realizes that he is an
outcast "Cos I had some sense" not just common sense but a sense of his
identity as a civilized person, a sense of the particular morality that had
governed the boys' culture back home.
When Ralph encounters the officer on the beach at the end of the book, he is
not relieved at being rescued from a certain grisly death but discomforted over
"his filthy appearance," an indication that his civility had endured his ordeal. In
exchange for his innocence, he has gained an understanding of humankind's
natural character, an understanding not heretofore available to him: that evil is
universally present in all people and requires a constant resistance by the
intellect that was Piggy, by the mysticism and spiritualism that was Simon, and
by the hopes and dreams that are his.