Both texts explore the concept of justice and corrupt power.

Discuss HOW the plot and characters highlight such themes in the text.
Shakespeares Macbeth and William Goldings Lord of the Flies, two very successful texts, explore the concepts of justice and corrupt power. This is highlighted through the plot and characters from both texts. The essay will discuss how the themes of justice and corrupt power are presented through the plot and characters of Macbeth and Lord of the Flies. Justice is righteousness, a sense of law and reason. It is linked with fairness where justice is served when one has been rewarded or punished. Throughout the text Macbeth, Shakespeare reveals the concept of justice using the different decisions made by the characters in the plot. There were a number of decisions made by the main characters in the play. The first decision chosen by Lady Macbeth and her husband Macbeth was to kill King Duncan. This decision was provoked by Lady Macbeth and Macbeths ambition and pursuit for power in Act 2 Scene 2. The second decision chosen by Macbeth was to have Banquo and his son Fleance killed. In Act 1 Scene 3, three witches had come to meet with Macbeth after his victory with the army of Scotland against an army of Norwegian invaders and Scottish rebels. They predict that Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland. They tell Banquo that he will be the father of many kings and then vanish. After Duncan was killed, Macbeth becomes more power-hungry. He remembers the prophecy and fears that Banquos son will become king. He sends three murderers to assassinate Banquo and Fleance while they are riding in the afternoon. Banquo is then killed in Act 3 Scene 3, but Fleance escapes. The third decision chosen again by Macbeth was to kill every family member of Macduff. After Macbeth broods on the murder of Banquo, he vows to visit the witches to know his future. When Macbeth visits the witches in Act 4 Scene 1, they give him three prophecies. The first prophecy was an armed head warning Macbeth to beware Macduff. The second prophecy was a bloody child telling Macbeth no one born of woman will kill him. In the third prophecy, a crowned child holding a tree tells Macbeth that he will not be defeated until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane. When Macbeths urges the witches to tell him more about the future, they present to him eight kings and Banquo. In Act 4 Scene 2, Macbeth sends murderers to Lady Macduffs abode to kill her and her son.
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Towards the end of the play, Macduff vows vengeance on Macbeth and approaches with an English army to Scotland. Macbeth is mindful from the witches prophecies that the coming battle will make or break him. Macduff, revealing his Caesarean birth, kills Macbeth. Macduff represents good justice in slaughtering Macbeth and crowing Malcolm, the rightful owner, as King of Scotland. Shakespeare draws upon the theme of justice using the language technique of dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows more than certain characters on the stage. He uses this technique to heighten tension in crucial scenes. Shakespeare also metaphorically symbolises certain opinions that were vastly held during the Elizabethan era. They were deeply grinded with the belief of witches and magical powers, with witches acting as agents of Satan. The text Lord of the Flies deduces justice through the characters of Ralph and Jack. Ralph is the first on the island. He is introduced to a young lad named Piggy. Piggy and Ralph wander on the island until they come across a shell, known as a conch. Piggy tells Ralph to blow into the conch as it makes a loud horn-like noise when blown into. When Ralph blows into the conch, young boys start to come around from each corner of the island looking for where the sound had come from. When all the boys gather around, they decide to choose a chief to keep a sense of order on the island. Ralph is then chosen as chief because he was the one who blew into the conch. The conch is significant in the text because it symbolises the intellect of justice. Ralph uses the conch as a representational figure that needs to be held in order for everyone to give their opinions and thoughts. Although Ralph had been chosen as chief, one of the boys named Jack was the leader of a group of choir boys. Jack wanted to be the chief, but a vote was held, crowning Ralph as chief. This frustrates Jack as the little power he had over the choir boys made him crave for more power. Throughout the text, Jack becomes over ambitious and takes control over the boys. He represents injustice in that he misleads the boys to follow him and created them into savages. On the other hand, Ralph is an example of good justice in the text. He is the one who generates the rules and regulations in order to keep the group from falling apart and to get them off the island as soon as possible, although at the end, Jack takes authority over the boys and the only person that stood by Ralphs side till the end was Piggy. The quote Which is better-to be a pack of painted niggers like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? represents Piggy standing by good justice with Ralph. Piggy is murdered during the end of
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the text, and the quote Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy denotes the end of justice, in relation to the end of innocence as Piggy, along with the littleuns, were oppressed greatly by Jack and Ralph. Power is good, but too much power can lead to corruption. Power can make one so greedy that one will do anything for it and wont let anyone, or thing stand in ones way. Shakespeare displays the corruption of power in Macbeth through the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth becomes corrupted by the greed for power due to his fatal flaw of ambition and misguided decisions. His ambition is led by a number of factors including the witches prophecies and his wife Lady Macbeth. As mentioned before, the witches give Macbeth a number of prophecies. The prophecy of Macbeth becoming the future King of Scotland led to his ambition for power. He believes this prophecy which causes his downfall and triggers a series of deaths in the play. Macbeths ambition soon spirals out of control and forces him to murder again and again to cover up his previous wrongdoings. Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth because she is also ambitious and famished for power, status and control. She is the driving force that encourages Macbeth to overcome his strong sense of guilt and take action on the prophesies. She was skilful in persuading Macbeth to murder the king. Lady Macbeth is very loyal to her husband, though she is avaricious for power because she is aware her reward will be equal to her husband. She was able to influence the others on turning a blind eye to committing the murder. Lady Macbeth even attempts to unsex herself in Act 1 Scene 5, to banish her womanly softness and replace it with a masculine spirit of aggression. This remark demonstrates Lady Macbeths belief that manhood is defined by murder. She questions Macbeths manhood, indicating she is a manipulator. The text illustrates that every act of sin comes with consequences. In the play, Macbeth is massacred as an oppressor and Lady Macbeth commits suicide. Shakespeare does not give either character the opportunity to enjoy what they have achieved. At the end of the play, Malcolm is the victorious King and Macbeths burning ambition has been extinguished.

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Similar to the representation of corrupt power in Macbeth, the text Lord of the Flies expresses the theme of corrupt power through once again the characters Ralph and Jack. Golding uses the main protagonists to support and allow corrupt power to flourish. The personalities on the island can be separated into the dominant (Ralph, Jack, biguns) and the dominated (Piggy, littleuns). A segregation of leaders and followers is swiftly orchestrated after the plane wreck. All of Jacks' power is through corruption. Jack uses his power to take control of the other kids. He threatens them, bribes them, he does anything to get them to join him. Hunting in the book becomes a symbol for barbarity and corruption. Ralph, representing democracy and justice, is never interested in hunting. When Jack loses the vote of being chief, Ralph still gives him power over the choir. He immediately decides that they should be hunters and makes hunting a priority even though there are more priorities like building shelters. Jack is not interested in building shelters. When he accomplishes killing the pig, he and the other hunters change to a different mentality. This is a significant point in the book because when they kill the pig, they cross the line from civilization to savagery. This is also when Jack really starts craving for power. Throughout the rest of the novel Jack and the boys become obsessed with hunting. Jack uses hunting as a way to trap in other kids to gain power over the people that he has lured in. Hunting for pigs eventually turns into hunting for humans which divides Jack from Ralph. Towards the end of the book, when Jack gains power over the majority of the children on the island through temptation, Ralph loses all of his power and is left alone. Jack took away every member from Ralphs tribe and even killed two of the members, Piggy and Simon. The modern context of Macbeth signifies how the leaders of our current world are very similar to that of the past. For example, Macbeth and Hitler are very similar. They both gained absolute power unfairly, used persuasive strategies to convince people to do their dirty work and they were both defeated. Both authors have felt the need to include the themes of justice and corrupt power in their texts because these themes impact the lives of many great people in the world today. Lord of the Flies effectively shows how society may collapse due to the lack of civilisation. This shows the importance of forming a hierarchy and law in society. One can also learn from the theme of justice presented through the texts that good justice must prevail at the end, whether the bad justice is killed off or the bad justice deteriorates due to pain of guilt.
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Because Macbeth craves so much power, he is eaten away at the thought of becoming King of Scotland. Thus, when he becomes King, he allows himself to deteriorate even more. Macbeth does suffer from his power, guilt, and ambition until he has died. In Lord of the Flies, the main reason that society disintegrates is because of the greed for power by Jack and Ralph. Both characters want power so badly that it leads to the corruption of one of them. Overall, both authors convey through the main protagonists and the plot of the texts that power cannot be attained unfairly otherwise it is corrupt, and that good justice has many more rewards over bad justice.

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