Ralph's Way of Life

Ralph is living on the island with many other young boys.  Ralph is one of the older boys in the group so he feels like he needs to lead them and help them.  Ralph does a good job at this until Jack decides that could be a better leader.  Toward the middle to end of the book, there are two groups beginning to form.  One with Jack as a leader, boys are mainly going with him because he is the "fun" leader and they do fun things. In the other group, Ralph is the leader.  Ralph's main goal is to be rescued, but it is hard to keep the fire going for long because there are not enough people to carry wood.  The purpose of the fire is to send a smoke signal to any passing plane or ship.  Ralph makes a good leader because he is able to keep his mind clear and focus, but he doesn't like a lot of input from others, such as Jack's ideas.