Ralph

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• He is twelve years and a few months old.
• He has an attractive appearance, which suggests that he has an attractive character too. "You could see he might make a boxer, as far as width and heaviness in the shoulders went, but there was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil."
• He is sensible: it was Ralph's idea to have a chief, establish rules and build a signal fire so they can be rescued. He speaks wisely.
• He is a good leader. He knows that it's important to keep Jack on his side and speaks to Piggy with the directness of genuine leadership. "There was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size and attractive appearance." Later on he feels the weight of being chief as a personal hell - but he doesn't give up.
• He wants to hang on to civilised values. When he realises that their lives are full of dirt and decay, he feels a "convulsion of the mind". In the discussions about the beast, he feels "the understandable and lawful world... slipping away".
• He uses civilised language. Even when he is pleading with Jack for the return of Piggy's glasses, he speaks like a school boy: "You aren't playing the game".
• He is brave. He led the search for the beast at the fort alone: "I'm chief. I'll go. Don't argue." It is Ralph who approaches the dead airman at the top of the mountain, with leaden steps, while Jack and Roger stay back.
• Yet even Ralph sometimes gets carried away with the hunt. Ralph starts the game where they pretend Robert is a pig: "The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering". Later on, he becomes part of the 'dance' that kills Simon. Near the end, he breaks the pig's skull on the stick with a sick fear and rage.
• Ralph finally becomes an outcast. He tells himself this is "Cos I had some sense".
• When he meets the naval officer, he is seen as a little scarecrow, but Ralph is still able to assert himself as the leader. Then he cries, for the first time on the island.