There are different types of power as I learned through my course on group dynamics. Most of them are trivial to understand by looking at their name. For instance, information power is ability to control or influence others by possessing necessary information where the alternative couldn’t provide or perhaps, get credit enough.
In this text, I would like to introduce two simple power strategies: reward and coercive power, between the famous Ralph and Jack in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954/2011). They are simple, yet very common in our everyday life.
The book of Golding starts with a plane crash to an unhabituated island, with many children surviving. Although Jack seemed like a natural leader with his observable aggression, Ralph was selected as the leader as he was tall, strong, and being the first person to do suggest anything. In parallel with Forsyth (2015)’s power theories, Ralph had all the necessities to lead as he had both reward power and coercive power in the first couple days. His initial reward power comes from his promise of rescue with the smoke from a fire. He had also the credibility to back this power because his father was in the Navy, and they would eventually find them with the help of the Queen of England (as she knew the map of the world). Implicitly, Ralph also had the coercive power given by the conch and his strong physicality as almost none of the kids can out-power him physically.
With the time passing, the importance of rescue started to be replaced by the urgent needs of children: hunger, thirst, and play. The power of Ralph, coming from promises of rewards, slowly declined since nobody came to the island. In the meantime, this shift allowed Jack to slowly gain reward power. First, he made promises of rewards like hunting or play, then tried to hunt with this team of hunters. Then, he gained credibility by hunting a pig and providing meat and fun (as they danced around the hunt and sang together). Finally, he was the only person who could provide meat as he had a hunting team, had knowledge of the island (which he gained trying to find pigs) and expertise in tracking pig traces. On the other hand, Ralph lost his credibility by failing to accomplish his promise of rescue but still had the power of the fire via Piggy’s intact lens, which could make a focused light beam to create a fire for cooking meats.
After Jack created his own group and stole Piggy’s lens, Ralph’s coercive power, which was the threat of not being rescued, declined immediately. Without Jack and his team, nobody could hunt or start a fire. Thus, coercive power shifted to Jack from Ralph. Now, Jack has the power to take away meat, fire, or even lives because they killed one of their friends in an evening of raging ritual. He also gained credibility by tying up and hurting one of the children because he didn’t obey him. When Ralph and his team confronted Jack, the resulting fight killed Piggy. Then, Ralph’s team was outnumbered and switched to Jack’s team out of fear. At this point, Ralph lost all his coercive power and Jack gained the ultimate dependency since his group was the only group that had the capacity for violence to harm anyone who disobeys.
