Lord of the Flies by William Golding

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Table of Contents 1. Lord of the Flies: Introduction 2. Overview 3. William Golding Biography 4. One−Page Summary 5. Summary and Analysis 6. Quizzes 7. Characters 8. Themes 9. Style 10. Historical Context 11. Critical Overview 12. Character Analysis 13. Essays and Criticism 14. Suggested Essay Topics 15. Sample Essay Outlines 16. Compare and Contrast 17. Topics for Further Study 18. Media Adaptations 19. What Do I Read Next? 20. Bibliography and Further Reading 21. Copyright

Lord of the Flies

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Introduction Despite its later popularity, William Golding's Lord of the Flies was only a modest success when it was first published in England in 1954, and it sold only 2,383 copies in the United States in 1955 before going out of print. Critical reviews and British word of mouth were positive enough, however, that by the time a paperback edition was published in 1959, Lord of the Flies began to challenge The Catcher in the Rye as the most popular book on American college campuses. By mid−1962 it had sold more than 65,000 copies and was required reading on more than one hundred campuses. The book seemed to appeal to adolescents' natural skepticism about the allegedly humane values of adult society. It also captured the keen interest of their instructors in debating the merits and defects of different characters and the hunting down of literary sources and deeper symbolic or allegorical meanings in the story—all of which were in no short supply. Did the ending of the story—a modern retelling of a Victorian story of children stranded on a deserted island—represent the victory of civilization over savagery, or vice versa? Was the tragic hero of the tale Piggy, Simon, or Ralph? Was Golding's biggest literary debt owed to R. M. Ballantyne's children's adventure story, The Coral Island, or to Euripides's classic Greek tragedy, The Bacchae? Though the popularity of Golding's works as a whole has ebbed and grown through the years, Lord of the Flies has remained his most read book. The questions raised above, and many more like them, have continued to fascinate readers. It is for this reason, more than any other, that many critics consider Lord of the Flies a classic of our times. » Back to Table of Contents

Overview As a child and adolescent, William Golding, like others in the innocent years before the War, had a fundamentally simple conception of the world. In a generic mode of thinking, during the years before the massive cruelty, devastation, and destruction wrought by World War II, the prevailing concept of man and society included two basic viewpoints: man was essentially good and society was inherently evil. Golding's belief in this concept can be seen in his childhood reading choices, which included adventure stories like Tarzan of the Apes, Coral Island, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. These stories featured good and pure men in their struggle against the evils of society. Golding's opinions toward mankind and society changed with the course of the war. He fought during World War II as a member of the Royal Navy. His experience included clashes with enemy naval vessels as well as participation in the Walcheren and D−Day operations. He witnessed firsthand the terrible destructive power of man operating during war, essentially outside the restrictive limits of society. With war as his tutor, he began to view man, instead, as a creature with a very dark and evil side to his nature. Lord of the Flies, as well as Golding's other works, essentially explores the dark side of what Golding felt was the true nature of man: evil. Background The critical notes by E.L. Epstein, following the text in the edition of the book used for this study guide, contain an informative interpretation of the story’s central image, integral to understanding the allegorical implications of the novel: The central symbol itself, the “lord of the flies” [physically represented in the novel by the pig’s head Jack’s tribe mounts on a sharpened stick, and abstractly represented by the boy’s Introduction

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gradual descent into anarchy and violence] . . . is a translation of the Hebrew Ba’alzevuv (Beelzebub in Greek). It has been suggested that it was a mistranslation of a mistransliterated word which gave us the pungent and suggestive name for the Devil, a devil whose name suggests that he is devoted to decay, destruction, demoralization, hysteria, and panic and who therefore fits very well in Golding’s theme. In a historical sense, Lord of the Flies has been present in literature, literally and figuratively, since Loki, the god of mischief in Norse mythology, and in works as diverse as Dante’s “Inferno” and the modern works of Stephen King and other contemporary horror authors. Chaos and destruction have even reigned supreme at times in the modern world. Consider Adolph Hitler and the nightmare reign of the Third Reich, forces that Golding himself fought against, as a prime example of this. But since the embodiment of evil in literature has largely been reduced to an amusing conceit, Golding had to approach his presentation of Beelzebub on a more figurative level. Having witnessed himself the evil that man is capable of, he took a more symbolic approach to presenting what author Anthony Burgess called, “[The] most stinking and depraved of all the devils.” In Lord of the Flies: The Devil is not presented in any traditional religious sense; Golding’s Beelzebub is the modern equivalent, the anarchic, amoral, driving force that Freudians call the Id, whose only function seems to be to insure the survival of the host in which it is embedded or embodied, which function it performs with tremendous and single−minded tenacity. On speaking of the same central image in the novel, Stephen Medcalf writes, “The book dares to name the beast, the evil in man’s heart, as the beast.” Shaped by brute experience, and his dashed conceptions of the good world, Golding’s Lord of the Flies is, therefore, a study of man’s willing (and inevitable) descent into the heart of darkness, fueled by his own fear, and guided by his own inwardly twisted nature. Considering Golding’s own experiences with chaos, fear, death, and destruction on a massive scale during World War II, and his own altered moral philosophy and loss of innocence, it is no surprise that he has chosen to examine their origins in Lord of the Flies. Golding claims to have written Lord of the Flies as a response to the novel Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean, by R.M. Ballantyne. According to Major 20th Century Writers: These two books share the same basic plot line and even some of the same character names (two of the lead characters are named Ralph and Jack in both books). The similarity, however, ends there. Ballantyne’s story, about a trio of boys stranded on an otherwise uninhabited island, shows how, by pluck and resourcefulness, the young castaways survive with their morals strengthened and their wits sharpened. Lord of the Flies, on the other hand, is “an allegory on human society today, the novel’s primary implication being that what we have come to call civilization is, at best, not more than skin−deep,” as James Stern explains in a New York Times Book Review article. Golding’s view of civilization and the pure innocence of youth, however, was quite different from Ballantyne’s. Having witnessed the grand scale of death and destruction in World War II, Golding described the theme of his own highly allegorical novel Lord of the Flies as “an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature.” He no longer agreed with Ballantyne’s hypothesis that the proper English civilized way of life was good and Christian, and that evil was its antithesis: un−Christian and savage. According to author Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange), Golding’s characters, unlike Ballantyne’s, are inherently evil. Without the restraints of civilization they, “will choose chaos rather than order. The good intentions of the few are overborne by the innate evil of the many. Instead of a boy−scout camp, we get young savages—painted, naked, gorging on pigflesh, given to torture, murder, human sacrifice to false gods.” Introduction

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List of Characters Jack Merridew—Tall, bony, “ugly without silliness,” red−haired, freckled. He is the leader of the choir who turns into a savage hunter. He rivals Ralph’s leadership. His name is from the Hebrew word meaning “one who supplants.” His character believes in authoritarian rule through fear, manipulation, and intimidation. Piggy—He is asthmatic and obese. He wears thick eyeglasses or is otherwise mostly blind. He stays near Ralph and constantly but ineffectually tries to maintain order and follow rules. His name implies a relationship between himself, pigs the boys hunt, and slaughter on the island. Ralph—The novel’s protagonist. His name comes from the Anglo−Saxon word meaning “counsel.” Twelve years old. Fair−haired and athletic in build. Naturally charismatic, he is initially elected chief of the island by popular majority vote and attempts to run the island democratically. He rivals Jack for leadership. Roger—A member of the choir. Slight and furtive, keeps to himself, intense and secretive. Referred to as “the dark boy.” His name comes from the German word for “spear.” As the story progresses he becomes very sadistic. Allied to Jack. Sam and Eric (Samneric)—Identical twins. “Tow−haired,” “bullet−headed,” “chunky and vital.” They are initially allied to Ralph but Roger tortures them into submission to Jack. Simon—A boy of about nine years of age. His name is Hebrew for “listener.” Initially described as pallid, he is quiet, introspective, and prone to epileptic seizures. A member of Jack’s choir. He has black hair and a low, broad forehead, and is later described as deeply tanned. Allied to Ralph. Other boys mentioned briefly are identified as Biguns and Littluns, except for Willard, a character only referred to sketchily. Biguns are the older children, and Littluns the younger. Bill, Robert, Harold, Walter—Biguns. Choir members. Henry—Littlun. Distant relative of the birthmarked boy. Johnny—Littlun. Six years old. Sturdy and fair, “naturally belligerent.” The first to respond to the conch’s call. Maurice—Bigun. A choir member. Broad and grinning. Second in size to Jack. Naval officer—First person from the rescue ship to encounter the boys. Parachutist—Killed in an airfight over the island, his dead body parachutes onto the mountain and is mistaken for “the beast.” Percival Wemys Madison—Littlun. Mouse−colored and unattractive. Very small. Cries at the mention of “the beast.” Phil—Littlun. Confident. Tells others of his dream of “the beast.” Small boy with a mulberry−colored birthmark on one side of his face—Six years old. He is the first to mention “the beast.” It is suggested that he perished in the first mishandled signal fire. Stanley—A vaguely described member of Jack’s tribe.

Introduction

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Willard—Member of Jack’s tribe. Beaten for some unknown offense. Summary of the Novel Lord of the Flies is set at a vague point in the future during an atomic war. A planeload of British schoolchildren is shot down and marooned on a deserted island. There are no adults present. As the story opens, the jungle on the island is severely scarred from the wreckage of the plane. Two boys, the fair−haired, charismatic Ralph, and the fat, asthmatic, thickly bespectacled Piggy, emerge from the jungle. While they are swimming in a shallow pool inside a lagoon, Ralph discovers a beautiful conch shell. Piggy, slightly smarter, suggests he blow it as a signal for other survivors. One by one, boys of varying ages from six to twelve appear from the jungle. Among them are several older boys, identical twins Sam and Eric (sometimes referred to as Samneric due to their lack of individual identity), the quiet but strange Roger, thoughtful Simon, and charismatic Jack Merridew, leader of the choir. While absorbing the view, the boys come upon a wild piglet caught in some creeper vines. Jack takes out a large knife and prepares to kill the pig. He hesitates, and the pig escapes. Jack is upset by what he perceives to be Ralph’s condemnation of his hesitation. He silently vows to himself, “Next time there would be no mercy.” Later, Ralph uses the conch to call another meeting. It is decided that whoever holds the conch shell will have the right to speak at the meetings. A small boy with a mulberry−colored birthmark obscuring half of his face receives the conch. He tells the others of a “beastie” that comes in the dark and wants to eat him. Some deny its existence, but Jack vows to hunt it when he and his hunters hunt pig for meat. Next, the boys decide that they must make a signal fire on the mountain to attract ships to rescue them. They gather wood and use Piggy’s glasses to start the fire. In their exuberance and inexperience, they allow the fire to rage out of control and it consumes a large portion of the jungle. The small boy with the mulberry−colored birthmark disappears and is never seen again. It is implied he was killed in the fire. Jack quickly learns the art of hunting, but still hasn’t gotten a pig. While he hunts, Ralph and Simon build poorly constructed shelters on the beach from palm trunks and fronds. Jack returns from his unsuccessful hunt, and he and Ralph clash over the decision to hunt or build the shelters. Simon discovers a secret place in the jungle. It is a hollow completely obscured by creeper vines. He sits here, away from the others, and contemplates the beauty of the jungle. As time passes, the boys begin to resemble less and less the civilized British schoolchildren they used to be. Their uniforms deteriorate and their hair grows long and ragged. A marked boundary begins to grow between the younger children (littluns) who play all day, and the older children (biguns) who seem to be growing divided as to their responsibilities. Ralph, Piggy, Simon, Sam and Eric see the need for order and civilization, while Jack and his hunters become obsessed with the ideas of finding meat and protecting the littluns from the beast. Jack introduces his hunters to the notion of camouflaging their features with red and white clay and black charcoal for hunting. This gradual masking of their identities allows them to become more ruthless and effective hunters. Presently, the smoke from a ship passing the island is discovered, but Jack and the hunters, preoccupied with hunting, have let the signal fire they were tending go out. Jack returns from the hunt, triumphant over killing a Introduction

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pig and slitting its throat himself, only to be rebuffed by Ralph for neglecting the fire. The boys clash on the matter, but eventually all share in consuming the meat. Ralph calls another meeting to deal with the situation involving the signal fire. Another littlun, Phil, speaks of his dreams of the beast. This again inspires Jack to lobby for the necessity of his hunters. He and Ralph argue again over the importance of the signal fire versus the meat. Jack declares his disgust and he and his hunters leave the meeting. Ralph considers giving up being chief. Piggy, who fears Jack, tries to convince him not to. That night, unseen by the castaways, there is a fight between aircraft ten miles in the sky over the island. A dead parachutist lands on the side of the mountain in a sitting position. The wind, catching in the parachute, makes the figure rock back and forth. The boys, thinking it is the beast, argue over whether or not to approach it. The boys, led by Ralph with an angry Jack in tow, travel to the mountainside to see the beast. Jack sees the natural bridge to the island’s outcropping. He decides that the separate island, joined to the main island by a rock ledge, would make a great fort. It contains many rocks that could be rolled onto the approach path to kill enemies. He and Ralph argue again, and Jack verbally denies any further loyalty to the conch and its power. The boys’ continued expedition to the figure on the mountain is interrupted when the boys flush a boar. Ralph wounds it when it charges him. The boar escapes, but they celebrate the encounter with another primitive blood lust dance in which Robert, pretending to be the pig, is beaten by the hunters who are overly excited by the dance. Ralph’s bravery in the face of the boar’s charge is forgotten. As the day wanes, most of the boys have returned to the shelters, but Ralph, Jack, and Roger have pressed on and apprehensively approach the figure. The wind causes it to move and the boys see its decaying face in the darkness. They all flee. At the next meeting, Jack and Ralph question each other’s bravery on the mountain. Jack convinces his hunters to separate themselves from the rest. Following Piggy’s suggestion Ralph, Simon, and Samneric try to maintain a signal fire down off the mountain, away from Jack and his hunters. Jack orders his hunters to kill a pig for a feast, hoping that the roasting meat will draw the others’ loyalty away from Ralph. They kill a pig and he orders them to mount its head on a stick as a sacrifice for the beast. Simon, who had been in his hiding place, contemplates the head of the boar that the hunters had unknowingly impaled near him. He imagines a conversation with the head, and begins to see in it the source of evil on the island. He has an epileptic seizure. He awakens, and the head again reveals itself to him as the symbol of anarchy on the island. Simon has a second seizure. Simon awakens again and climbs the mountain to view the figure of the dead parachutist that the boys believe is the beast. He discovers that it is harmless, and that the true nature of what the boys should fear, the real beast, is symbolized by the pig’s head. He returns to tell the others. Meanwhile, Jack and his hunters roast the pig, and the others, including Ralph and Piggy, join the feast. Ralph and Jack argue again and most of the boys side with Jack this time. Ralph tries to convince them that they need shelters, but Jack distracts them by commanding another blood lust dance. The boys become so swept up in the dance that Simon, emerging from the forest, is mistaken for the beast. All the boys, marginally including Ralph and Piggy, beat him to death. The tide sweeps his body out to sea.

Introduction

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Back at the shelters, Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric contemplate their roles in Simon’s death. That night, Jack and his hunters attack them and steal Piggy’s glasses for a fire. The next day, Ralph, Samneric, and Piggy approach Castle Rock, where Jack’s tribe has gathered, to demand the return of Piggy’s glasses. Ralph wants to reestablish the power of the conch. He and Samneric approach the hunters while Piggy and the conch stay on the stone bridge. Jack and Ralph argue again while the hunters take Samneric prisoner. Roger releases a rock they had rigged to guard the bridge. It falls on Piggy, smashes the conch, and plunges Piggy over the edge to his death. Ralph escapes and the hunters hunt him. He hides near Castle Rock but only manages to learn that Roger has tortured Samneric into joining the hunt. Samneric now fear Roger, the sadist, more than Jack. Eventually, the hunters corner Ralph in Simon’s old hiding place. They flush him from concealment with a fire. Ralph manages to escape to the beach with the hunters right behind. He comes face to face with a shocked naval officer. A battle cruiser has docked in the lagoon, drawn by the smoke from Jack’s fire. The officer is appalled at the savage condition of the children. Ralph assumes responsibility for what appears to be poor leadership. Ralph begins to weep for the three dead children and the castaways’ loss of innocence. Jack emerges onto the beach without his hunting camouflage or weapons. Only Piggy’s broken glasses on his belt give any indication of his previous savagery. One of the littluns cannot remember his own name. The officer, embarrassed by what he mistakenly perceives to be Ralph’s undignified relief at rescue, turns away and stares at his warship in the lagoon. Estimated Reading Time Lord of the Flies contains 12 chapters ranging in length from nine to 23 pages, with an average length of 15 pages. Each chapter can probably be read in 45 to 60 minutes. A range of 10 to 15 hours should be allowed for reading time of the novel. » Back to Table of Contents

Author Biography From an unknown schoolmaster in 1954, when Lord of the Flies was first published, William Golding became a major novelist over the next ten years, only to fall again into relative obscurity after the publication of the generally well−received The Spire in 1964. This second period of obscurity lasted until the end of the 1970s. The years 1979 to 1982 were suddenly fruitful for Golding, and in 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. How does one account for a life filled with such ups and downs? There can be no one answer to that question, except perhaps to note that Golding's motto, "Nothing Twice," suggests a man with an inquiring mind who was not afraid to try many different approaches to his craft. He knew that while some of his efforts might fail, others would be all the stronger for the attempt. Born in Cornwall, England, in 1911, Golding was the son of an English schoolmaster, a many−talented man who believed strongly in science and rational thought, Golding often described his father's overwhelming influence on his life. The author graduated from Oxford University in 1935 and spent four years (later described by Golding as having been "wasted") writing, acting, and producing for a small London theater. Author Biography

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Golding himself became a schoolmaster for a year, after marrying Ann Brookfield in 1939 and before entering the British Royal Navy in 1940. Golding had switched his major from Science to English Literature after two years in college—a crucial change that marked the beginning of Golding's disillusion with the rationalism of his father. The single event in Golding's life that most affected his writing of Lord of the Flies, however, was probably his service in World War II. Raised in the sheltered environment of a private English school, Golding was unprepared for the violence unleashed by the war. Joining the Navy, he was injured in an accident involving detonators early in the war, but later was given command of a small rocket−launching craft. Golding was present at the sinking of the Bismarck—the crown ship of the German Navy—and also took part in the D−Day landings in France in June 1944. He later described his experience in the war as one in which "one had one's nose rubbed in the human condition." After the war, Golding returned to teaching English and philosophy at the same school where he had begun his teaching career. During the next nine years, from 1945 until 1954, he wrote three novels rejected for their derivative nature before finally getting the idea for Lord of the Flies. After reading a bedtime boys adventure story to his small children, Golding wondered out loud to his wife whether it would be a good idea to write such a story but to let the characters "behave as they really would." His wife thought that would be a "first class idea." With that encouragement, Golding found that writing the story, the ideas for which had been germinating in his mind for some time, was simply a matter of getting it down on paper. Golding went on to write ten other novels plus shorter fiction, plays, essays, and a travel book. His writings include the novels Lord of the Flies (1954), The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956), Free Fall (1959), The Spire (1964), Darkness Visible (1979), Rites of Passage (1981), Close Quarters (1987), Fire Down Below (1989), the play The Brass Butterfly (1958), a book of verse called Poems (1934), and two essay collections: The Hot Gates (1965) and A Moving Target (1982). Yet it is his first novel, Lord of the Flies, that made him famous, and for which he will probably remain best known. Golding died of a heart attack on June 28, 1993. » Back to Table of Contents

One−Page Summary On the Island: Chapters 1−2 William Golding sets his novel Lord of the Flies at a time when Europe is in the midst of nuclear destruction. A group of boys, being evacuated from England to Australia, crash lands on a tropical island. No adults survive the crash, and the novel is the story of the boys' descent into chaos, disorder, and evil. As the story opens, two boys emerge from the wreckage of a plane. The boys, Ralph and Piggy, begin exploring the island in hopes of finding other survivors. They find a conch shell, and Piggy instructs Ralph how to blow on it. When the other boys hear the conch, they gather. The last boys to appear are the choirboys, led by Jack Merridew. Once assembled, the boys decide they need a chief and elect Ralph. Ralph decides that the choir will remain intact under the leadership of Jack, who says they will be hunters. Jack, Ralph, and Simon go to explore the island and find a pig trapped in vines. Jack draws his knife, but is unable to actually kill the pig. They vow, however, to kill the pig the next time. When the three return, they hold a meeting. The conch becomes a symbol of authority: whoever has the conch has the right to speak. Jack and Ralph explain to the others what they have found. Jack continues his preoccupation with his knife. The boy with the clearest understanding of their situation is Piggy. He tells them they are on an island, that no one knows where they are, and that they are likely to be on the island for a very long time without adults. Ralph One−Page Summary

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replies, "This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun." One of the "littluns," the group of youngest boys, says that he is afraid of the "beastie." The "biguns" try to dissuade him, saying there are no beasties on the island. However, it is at this moment that Jack asserts himself against Ralph, saying that if there were a beastie, he would kill it. Discussion returns to the possibility of rescue. Ralph says that rescue depends on making a fire so that ships at sea could see the smoke. The boys get overly excited, with Jack as the ringleader, and all but Piggy and Ralph rush off to the top of the mountain to build a fire. They forget about the conch and the system of rules they have just made. At the top of the mountain, Ralph uses Piggy's glasses to light the fire. They are careless and set fire to the mountain. Piggy accuses them of "acting like kids." He reminds the older boys of their responsibility to the younger boys. At this moment they realize that one of the littluns is missing. The Beast: Chapters 3−11 The story resumes days later with Simon and Ralph trying to build shelters on the shore. Jack is away hunting. When he returns, there is antagonism between Ralph and Jack. Jack is beginning to forget about rescue and is growing tired of the responsibility of keeping the fire going, a task for which he has volunteered his choir. The growing separation between the boys is marked by Ralph's insistence on the importance of shelter and Jack's on the hunting of meat. In the next chapter, Golding describes the rhythm of life on the island. By this point, Jack has begun to paint his face with mud and charcoal when he hunts. At a crucial moment, the fire goes out, just as Ralph spots a ship in the distance. In the midst of Ralph's distress, the hunters return with a dead pig. In the ensuing melee, one of the lenses in Piggy's glasses gets broken. Ralph calls an assembly in order to reassert the rules. The littluns bring up their fear of the beastie yet again, saying that it comes from the sea. Simon tries to suggest that the only beast on the island is in themselves; however, no one listens. Ralph once again calls for the rules. Jack, however, plays to the fear of the boys, and says, "Bollocks to the rules! We're strong—we hunt! If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down! We close in and beat and beat and beat—!" The meeting ends in chaos. Ralph, discouraged, talks with Piggy and Simon about their need for adults. "If only they could get a message to us. . . . If only they could send us something grownup . . . a sign or something." The sign that appears, however, comes when all the boys are asleep. High overhead rages an air battle and a dead parachutist falls to the island. When the boys hear the sound of the parachute, they are sure it is the beast. Jack, Ralph, and Simon go in search. Climbing to the top of the mountain, they see "a creature that bulged." They do not recognize the figure as a dead parachutist, tangled in his ropes, and swaying in the wind. When the boys return to the littluns and Piggy at the shelters, Jack calls an assembly. He calls Ralph a coward and urges the boys to vote against Ralph. They will not, and Jack leaves. Ralph tries to reorganize the group, but notices that gradually most of the biguns sneak off after Jack. The scene shifts to Jack, talking to his hunters. They go off on a hunt in which they kill a sow, gruesomely and cruelly. They cut off the pig's head and mount it on a stick in sacrifice to the beast. Meanwhile, Simon wanders into the woods in search of the beast. He finds the head, now called in the text "The Lord of the Flies." Simon feels a seizure coming on as he hallucinates a conversation with the head: Simon's head was tilted slightly up. His eyes could not break away and the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him. "What are you doing out here all alone? Aren't you afraid of me?" Simon shook. One−Page Summary

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"There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast." Simon's mouth labored, brought forth audible words. "Pig's head on a stick." "Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!" said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. "You knew didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?" Simon falls into unconsciousness. When he awakens, he finds the decomposed body of the parachutist, and realizes that this is what the boys think is the beast. He gently frees the dead man from his ropes. Back at the shelters, Ralph and Piggy are the only ones left. The two go to see Jack and the hunters, and they find a big party. At the height of the party, a storm breaks and Simon arrives to tell them that there is no beast. In a frenzy, they kill Simon. Later, Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric are alone on the beach. All the boys agree that they left the dance early and that they did not see anything. The four boys try to keep the fire going, but they cannot. Jack's hunters attack the boys and steal Piggy's glasses so that they have the power of fire. Enraged, Ralph and Piggy go to retrieve the glasses. There is a fight, and Roger, the most vicious of the hunters, launches a rock at Piggy, knocking the conch from his hands, and sending him some forty feet to the rocks in the sea below. The Rescue: Chapter 12 The scene shifts to Ralph, alone, hiding from the rest of the boys who are hunting him. The language used to describe the boys has shifted: they are now "savages," and "the tribe." Ralph is utterly alone, trying to plan his own survival. He finds the Lord of the Flies, and hits the skull off the stick. Ralph sees Sam and Eric serving as lookouts for the tribe and approaches them carefully. They warn him off, saying that they've been forced to participate with the hunters. When Ralph asks what the tribe plans on doing when they capture him, the twins will only talk about Roger's ferocity. They state obliquely, "Roger sharpened a stick at both ends." Ralph tells the twins where he will hide; but soon the twins are forced to reveal this location and Ralph is cornered. However, the tribe has once again set the island on fire, and Ralph is able to creep away under the cover of smoke. Back on the beach, Ralph finds himself once again pursued. At the moment that the savages are about to capture him, an adult naval officer appears. Suddenly, with rescue at hand, the savages once again become little boys and they begin to cry. The officer cannot seem to understand what has happened on the island. "Fun and games," he says, unconsciously echoing Ralph's words from the opening chapter. Ralph breaks down and sobs, mourning Simon and mourning Piggy. In the final line of the book, Golding reminds the reader that although adults have arrived, the rescue is a faulty one. The officer looks out to sea at his "trim cruiser in the distance." The world, after all, is still at war. » Back to Table of Contents

Summary and Analysis 1. Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis 2. Chapter 2 Summary and Analysis 3. Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis 4. Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis Summary and Analysis

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5. Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis 6. Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis 7. Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis 8. Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis 9. Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis 10. Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis 11. Chapter 11 Summary and Analysis 12. Chapter 12 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis New Characters Bill, Robert, Harold, Henry: Generic members of Jack’s choir. Jack Merridew: Leader of the choir. Tall, thin, red−haired, charismatic. He rivals Ralph’s leadership qualities. Johnny: The first boy to respond to the conch. Maurice: Member of Jack’s choir. Second in height to Jack. Piggy: Fat, thickly bespectacled, intelligent. Ralph: Twelve years old. Tall, athletic, fair−haired. A natural leader. He first meets Piggy, but likes Jack. Roger: A strange, secretive boy. Member of Jack’s choir. Sam and Eric (Samneric): Identical twins. Bullet−headed and robust. They do everything together. Simon: A pallid boy, prone to epileptic seizures. Also a member of Jack’s choir. Summary The novel is set in an unspecified time in the future during an apocalyptic atomic war. A planeload of British schoolchildren has been shot down and has crash−landed on a deserted island. One of the survivors, Ralph, emerges from the jungle. Ralph is making his way through the portion of jungle scarred by the wreckage of their crashed plane when he encounters Piggy. They determine that they have crash−landed on an island and some other boys may have made it out of the wreckage. The rest, along with the wreckage, have been dragged out to sea by the tide. Piggy asks Ralph his name and Ralph tells him. Ralph, however, is not very interested in Piggy’s name. As they look around, Piggy rattles on proudly about his asthma and his need for thick glasses. He frequently mentions his Auntie lovingly, but she sounds very overprotective. He has diarrhea from eating the fruit on the island, and must frequently dash into the jungle when he is “taken short.” Ralph works his way down to the beach, inspecting the island. He is initially delighted that it is an island. Piggy follows, and suggests a meeting to learn the names of the other survivors. He tells Ralph his nickname is Piggy and requests Ralph keep it a secret. Ralph cruelly teases him. Piggy is upset at first, but is reluctantly pleased at the attention. Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

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The two boys come upon a small natural lagoon on the beach separated from the island’s lagoon by a wall of naturally banked sand. Ralph strips and dives in. Piggy watches Ralph do this, then daintily strips and sits in the water up to his neck. He tells Ralph he cannot swim because his Auntie wouldn’t let him on account of his asthma. Ralph, in return, tells Piggy his father, a commander in the Navy, taught him to swim when he was five. He says he is sure his father will rescue them. Piggy tells Ralph that his own father is dead but stops short of talking about his mother’s fate. Ralph insists they will be rescued, but Piggy is more pessimistic. He remembers the pilot telling them of the atom bomb killing everyone. Crying, he concludes that, “We may stay here till we die.” They sit around for a bit, discussing the island, when Ralph spies something nestled in the weeds in their lagoon. They fish it out and see it is a conch shell, “deep cream, touched here and there with fading pink. Between the point, worn away into a little hole, and the pink lips of the mouth, lay eighteen inches of shell with a slight spiral twist and covered with a delicate embossed pattern.” Piggy suggests that Ralph blow it to summon the others. Ralph’s first attempt is unsuccessful, and he and Piggy laugh at the attempt. Ralph’s next attempt is successful, and he trumpets a resounding blast. Soon, Johnny, a small boy about six years old, is the first of many to emerge from the jungle. Ralph continues to blow short blasts and presently others arrive: “some were naked and carrying their clothes; others half−naked, or more or less dressed, in school uniforms, gray, blue, fawn, jacketed or jerseyed. There were badges, mottoes even, stripes of color in stockings and pullovers.” The boys gather and sit in a clearing on fallen palm trunks. They naturally gravitate toward Ralph as the instigator of action. Sam and Eric, the twins, come as well. Piggy goes amongst the boys trying to learn names. Then, in the haze from the sun on the sand, down the beach and into the clearing march the choir “approximately in step in two parallel lines. Each boy wore a square black cap with a silver badge on it. Their bodies, from throat to ankle, were hidden by black cloaks which bore a long silver cross on the left breast and each neck was finished off with a hambone frill.” Their leader is Jack Merridew, “tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger.” Jack forms his choir into a line. They stand unsteadily in formation under the hot sun until a boy, later identified as Simon, breaks the illusion of order by fainting. Jack orders them to sit and leave the fainting boy alone. He asks Ralph if there are any grownups around and Ralph tells him there are none. Jack then declares that since there are no adults on the island, they must take care of themselves. Piggy is intimidated by both the uniforms’ illusion of authority and Jack Merridew’s presence. He rambles on about having a meeting to get names, and Jack tells him he’s talking too much. He scorns Piggy’s suggestion of taking names, and calls him “Fatty.” The others laugh. Then Ralph tells Jack that his real name is “Piggy” and they all laugh harder. Piggy stands, head bowed, isolated and alone. After the laughter dies, the name−taking continues, and Maurice, Roger (described as a slight, furtive boy whom no one knew and who kept to himself), Bill, Robert, Harold, Henry, and Simon are identified from Jack’s choir. Jack suggests that their attention be turned to getting rescued, and that they should elect him leader because he is the leader of the choir and he can sing a C sharp. Roger, “the dark boy,” suggests a vote. The boys have an election. The choir reluctantly votes for Jack. The others, including a hesitant Piggy, vote for Ralph. The boys appear naturally drawn to Ralph’s stillness, attractiveness, and the fact that he possesses the conch that summoned them. Ralph, the new chief, magnanimously appoints Jack as leader of the choir, and it is suggested they could be the army or the hunters. Jack decides they will be hunters. Then Ralph decides the first thing they need to do Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

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is see if it is actually an island they are on. He chooses Jack and Simon to help him explore. Jack displays a “sizable sheath−knife” by jamming it into a tree trunk. When Piggy also volunteers to go, Ralph tries to diplomatically suggest that Piggy would not be any help, but Jack tells him outright, “We don’t want you.” Piggy protests, but all the boys ignore him. The boys set out to explore and Piggy tries to follow them. He tells Ralph that he is hurt because Ralph revealed his nickname as Piggy, which he had promised not to tell. Ralph, for the first time, appears to understand the boy’s humiliation and pain, but he does not really wish to apologize. He mollifies Piggy by telling him that “Piggy” is better than “Fatty.” He tells him to go back and complete the job of getting all the names. Ralph, Jack, and Simon explore and determine that it is truly an island on which they are stranded. There is a pink coral mountain on it, and a separate island sitting in the lagoon attached to the main island by a natural land bridge. While climbing the pink coral mountain they discover animal tracks that they cannot identify. They continue their exploration and ascend the mountain through thick tangles of creeper vines. At the top of the granite cliff their further exploration is interrupted by their childish desire to roll several teetering boulders down the mountain. They roll one and it smashes into the jungle below. After admiring the boulder, they continue on and soon attain the mountaintop and survey what they decree as “their” island. It is described as: roughly boat−shaped: humped near this end with behind them the jumbled descent to the shore. On either side rocks, cliffs, treetops and a steep slope: forward there, the length of the boat, a tamer descent, tree−clad, with hints of pink: then the jungly flat of the island, dense green, but drawn at the end to a pink tail. There, where the island petered out in water, was another island; a rock, almost detached, standing like a fort, facing them across the green with one bold, pink bastion. They also see a coral reef and the scar in the jungle left by their wreckage. The island appears uninhabited. Simon mentions that he is hungry and the others agree. They decide to return to the others. On their way back, they encounter a piglet trapped in a tangle of creepers. Jack takes out his knife and holds it over the pig, preparing to slaughter it but hesitates “only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be.” The pig escapes, and in the ensuing discussion of how, exactly, to slaughter a pig, Jack mistakenly thinks Ralph is berating him for his hesitation. He slams his knife into a tree again and vows to himself, “Next time there would be no mercy.” The three boys return to the others. Discussion and Analysis The first chapter serves to establish the boys’ situation on the island, their pecking order, and the introduction of the book’s themes. The boys are essentially stranded on the island and no one from the outside world really knows where they are. They are fairly immature, ranging in age from six to twelve, and they possess only a rudimentary grasp of organizational skills. Piggy, the smartest, sees the need for a census but is ineffectual at carrying it out. Jack wishes to be a hunter but does not really know how to hunt or what he will hunt. Ralph is elected leader, but with the voters possessing only a vague understanding of the criteria under which he is elected. Only Ralph seems remotely suited for his position. He seems to have at least some leadership ability. He understates Jack’s election defeat with an appointment to leader of the hunters, and he compensates for his betrayal of Piggy by pointing out to him a worse scenario and appointing him with menial responsibility. He does not appear to know how or why he understands this, but he does. In this manner, Golding highlights Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

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Ralph’s inherent leadership ability. The island itself will provide them enough material to survive. There is fruit to eat, trees, leaves, and vines for shelter, and pigs to hunt for food. The coral mountaintop provides a vantage point on the island from which they can look out over the island or the sea. Several references to the small attached island hint at its later importance. The availability of food and the absence of adults is clearly and quickly established so the story can focus on the changes that occur to the boys. An early indicator of the boys’ connection to civilization, rules, and authority is their seemingly natural attraction to the conch. In a realistic sense, they are drawn to it because it is what first summons them in their new and frightening situation. It leads them to their “tribe.” But the image of the conch becomes more allegorical as the novel progresses. It is possessed by Ralph, the attractive being who will, through his natural charisma, become their leader. In itself, it is beautiful and graceful and is a natural symbol for beauty and grace; in other words, the polite restraints of civilization. As its role in the boys’ meetings grows, it will also come to symbolize the nexus of power around which the novel’s central conflict revolves. The boys quickly fall into the positions for which their personalities suit them. Ralph, charismatic and attractive, is clearly the leader. He is not above using his subordinates for his own advantage. He possesses the conch, which is used to assemble the boys and becomes their focus as a symbol for order, but it was only on Piggy’s suggestion that he even knew how to blow it. Ralph does not quite grasp the motivations for what he does, but he does seem to understand the need for his actions. He is a natural leader, a doer, and, unlike Piggy, not a thinker. Jack’s leadership qualities are immediately obvious. He has organized his choir to march in uniform, and he has possession of a knife. Yet, his physical unattractiveness and harsh ways prevent him from being elected. His treatment of the choir (one boy faints from marching), his contempt of Piggy, and his temper (displayed as he repeatedly slams his knife into tree trunks) strongly indicate his tendency toward savagery. His initial hesitation at killing the pig would make him seem at least a little vulnerable, were it not for his chilling vow to show no mercy the next time. Piggy is the smartest of the boys. He first tells Ralph to blow the conch to assemble others. He has knowledge of the war that defines their stranded situation and chances for rescue, and he sees the need to organize. Unfortunately, his socially unacceptable physical appearance, his glasses, his asthma, and his weak social skills alienate him from acceptance. He is afraid of Jack and tries to stay close to Ralph for this reason, despite Ralph’s callous disregard for his sensitivity to his nickname. Simon is not yet drawn as an integral character, but the fact that he is chosen by Ralph for the island exploration indicates that he stands out in some manner. His vision of the island seems more poetic than that of the others. During the exploration, when they encounter strange buds on a bush, he declares them candle−buds. The boys’ observation of the plant reveal much about their nature. Ralph doesn’t see their practical nature because they cannot be lighted, and Jack cuts one open and is disgusted because they cannot be eaten. Simon, however, had named them candle−buds only because of their delicate beauty and their familiar shape. Roger is mentioned briefly only to establish that he is different somehow, a “dark boy.” His personality will chillingly emerge later. The twins, Sam and Eric (later known as Samneric because their identical personalities, looks, and actions blur their individuality) are introduced as robust and friendly boys. The others, at this point, play minor roles and are not fully drawn. Golding’s assertion that the book is an attempt to “trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature” is the basis for the universal truths he explores. Golding maintains that all that is wrong with humanity Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

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lies not in society, but within the beings that create society. With the premise of the novel, he creates a situation in which this can be explored. The schoolchildren are young enough and grow in the directions their individual personalities lead them, undisciplined by social or moral restraints, yet they are also civilized enough to act like proper British schoolchildren if they are so inclined. In this situation, Golding can portray their deterioration pursuant to his thesis. Therefore, the gradual shedding of humanity the boys experience is illustrated through their own defective characters. The boys, especially Piggy, bring to the island their dim childhood perceptions of society, in particular, the need for organization. Piggy tries to organize the boys by finding out their names in order to keep track of everyone. His failure to do this is due both to his ineffectiveness as a leader, and the boys’ general immaturity and unwillingness to cooperate. Ralph perfunctorily sees the need for the names but does not really understand why. Jack does not see its necessity at all. In lessening degrees, with Piggy being the most civilized and Jack being the least, the boys distance from order brings them closer to savagery. The boys’ ability to clearly perceive places and events around them also speaks toward their civilized nature. Loss of this ability is another of Golding’s proposed defects. Piggy sees civilization clearly at first. But it is only through his glasses (man−made contrivances) that he can see at all. Ralph understands leadership naturally, but is unable to perceive why. He does not, for instance, know why they should take names, but he knows they should. He does not know why he should not apologize to Piggy for the name incident, but he knows he should placate him. Like a true leader, Ralph naturally and instinctively maintains both a closeness to and distance from his subordinates. Simon views things poetically; he is established as an abstract thinker able to conceptualize and interpret reality. His declaration of the bush’s buds as candle−buds illustrates this. Jack sees things in terms of black and white; he should be leader, he should be a hunter, he should find food, he should kill the pig. To him, there is no grey area; his hedonistic needs must be fulfilled. It is the boys’ individual perceptions of objects and events that eventually define their positions closer to or farther away from savagery or civility. Initially, the conch is the central symbol of power on the island. Around it, the boys will loosely form a council in which ideas are communicated democratically. However, as the novel progresses, these forms of communication will break down and reemerge, depending upon the nature of whoever is in power. For example, at this juncture in the novel, there is no set organization the boys are following. This is shown in Piggy’s inability to organize the children for a census. And no one is firmly in power. There is no form of communication at all between an authority figure and the way things are carried out on the island. Later, as the balance of power revolves around the conch, the method in which the leaders communicate their desires to the others will be a telling factor in how they evolve. Finally, Golding will portray the boys’ gradual degeneration into savages as parallel to their loss of identity. In Chapter 1, they are thrust into a situation and a world very different from what they have known all their short lives. This is the first step in distancing them from their identities. Still, at this point, they most resemble their civilized selves. Most still possess their clothes; the choir has full uniforms, robes, badges, and caps (although they quickly discard their robes). They are naturally drawn to Ralph (an authority figure) and to symbols of authority (the conch, with its power to summon). The characters are forced by this new situation to change from their old selves into new roles, but are still, at least, clearly defined within their identities. Ralph makes an easy lateral move from being the son of a Navy commander to being a leader. Piggy remains an outsider despite of and because of his intelligence. For all his knowledge, he lacks a background in social skills that would allow him to assimilate easily with the others. In addition, he is very pompous with his knowledge, using it to attempt to assert his superiority over others. As a result, they resent and ridicule him. Jack gradually changes from a choir leader into a hunter. These are roles that are changing, but are not very different from what they were back in the society from which they came. Only Simon, slightly different from Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

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the others (as can be seen from his fainting spells, which later turn out to be epileptic seizures) remains essentially the same. He is a self−contained thinker, able to perceive things clearly inside his own mind. As the book progresses, these themes build upon themselves to illustrate the boys’ disintegration due to the inherent defects of human nature. Quid pro quo, as Golding intends to show, his island of lost boys is a microcosm for all mankind, and therefore, indicative of humanity’s decline as well. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 2 Summary and Analysis New Character The boy with the mulberry−colored birthmark—He is not identified by name because, at the time, Piggy had failed to get the names of all the boys. His birthmark is a strikingly noticeable feature, however. That is why the boys notice he is missing after the fire. Summary Having returned from the mountain with Jack and Simon, Ralph blows the conch and calls another meeting. The boys assemble on the tree trunks around the clearing, which they now refer to as “the platform.” Ralph informs them that the expedition has determined they are on an uninhabited island. Jack quickly interjects that, because of this and the presence of pigs, there is now a need for an army for hunting instead of protection. They tell of the piglet’s escape and Jack, angry at the memory, slams his knife into a tree again. Ralph tells them that there are no grownups on the island, and they will have to take care of themselves. To maintain order at the meetings, he decrees that only a person holding the conch shell may speak, similar to a process they knew as “Hands up” at school. Jack becomes excited at the prospect of having lots of rules, but more so because he will be charged with enforcing them. Piggy takes the conch to speak and Jack looks to Ralph for permission not to allow it. Ralph allows Piggy to speak. Piggy informs the group that no one on the outside has any idea where they are and that they may be here a long time. The others consider this silently. Ralph quickly intercedes and tries to rationalize that the island will provide them with everything they need, including adventure. The others get caught up in the excitement of this and mention several books of island adventures they have read, The Coral Island among them. Jack is excited about the prospect of hunting pigs and asks the others if they have found anything else. A small group of young boys urges a small boy with a mulberry−colored birthmark to step forward. He tells the others of a big “beastie,” a “snake−thing” that he saw in the woods. He tells them it comes in the dark and wants to eat him. The older boys scoff, but the possibility that it could exist remains. Jack declares he will hunt it and kill it along with pigs. He declares he will hunt the beast. Ralph challenges him by announcing that there is no beast. Fearing that the boys will become distracted by Jack and the beast, he tells them not to forget that they are here to have fun and get rescued. That all islands are charted and sooner or later a ship will come, maybe even his own father’s ship. Their fears allayed, the crowd spontaneously cheers and applauds. Piggy openly admires Ralph’s ability to charge the crowd positively, while Jack smirks.

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Then Ralph suggests building a fire to signal ships. This idea inspires them, and all the boys, including Jack, run off, excited about the opportunity to have fun building a fire. Ralph, holding the conch, and Piggy are left behind. Piggy dismisses them as a bunch of kids, but Ralph runs off to join them. Piggy, acting like a weary parent, picks up the conch and awkwardly follows. The boys arrive on a platform on the mountain and Jack organizes the choir to the task. Working together the boys enthusiastically pile up dead and rotted wood for the fire. They amass a huge pile and pour on dead leaves for kindling. Piggy arrives too late to help. Against his wishes, Jack takes his glasses to use to light the fire. The fire is lighted by Ralph as Piggy sits nearby grumbling that he cannot see. The fire excites the boys, but they see it is burning too quickly. They begin a mad scramble through the jungle for more wood, which they continue to dump on the fire. Some of the younger boys stay in the jungle and look for fruit to eat. The fire grows, then falls in on itself. Ralph declares it unsuccessful because it produced no smoke for the signal. Piggy informs them that they would not be able to maintain a fire that large anyway, and Jack spurns him contemptuously for not even helping. Simon defends Piggy, saying that he let them use his glasses. Piggy, who has the conch, is upset because people are speaking out of turn. Jack tells him the conch doesn’t count on the mountaintop, but Piggy defiantly insists that it does. Maurice suggests green branches for the fire for smoke, and Piggy again complains he is speaking out of turn. Jack tells him to shut up. Ralph takes the conch and reminds them of the need to constantly maintain the fire, and the need to maintain order and respect for the conch. Jack agrees with Ralph, saying “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are the best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things.” Jack offers to split the choir into groups to maintain the fire constantly and to act as lookouts. Roger suggests that he has been watching the ocean since they crashed without seeing a ship. He tells them all that they will never get rescued. Ralph says they will and Piggy takes the conch again. He whines that they don’t listen to him and that his suggestions are ignored until someone else says the same thing. They shout him down, but during the melee Piggy notices that a large portion of the jungle on the mountainside has caught fire from the fallout of their big fire. The fire quickly spreads and sends huge columns of smoke over the ocean. Piggy is contemptuous of what he calls their “small fire.” The boys watch and contemplate the power that they were able to unleash. Ralph, made savage by his contemplation of the fire’s power, tells Piggy to shut up. Piggy insists that he holds the conch and the right to speak. Ignoring Piggy, the boys begin to giggle at the column of smoke their fire has created. Finally Piggy loses his temper and berates them all for neglecting the building of shelters, for building a bad fire, and for not accounting for the younger children he calls “little 'uns.” Ralph tells him that was his job, and Piggy defends himself by blaming the others for lack of cooperation. Ralph takes the conch, but Piggy continues to complain about his glasses. Then Piggy notices that the boy with the mulberry−colored birthmark seems to be missing. The boys let the fact that the child probably perished in the fire sink in as the “drum−roll” sound of trees exploding in the jungle resounds below them. Discussion and Analysis This short chapter briefly highlights the beginnings of the breakdown in the boys’ belief in organization. As the chapter begins, the meeting is progressing smoothly with plans being made and carried out. The anticipation of an adventure like The Coral Island excites the boys. However, by the end of the chapter, their well−intentioned plan has resulted in a horrible disaster. Chapter 2 Summary and Analysis

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The first meeting the boys have after the Chapter 1 expedition appears to be showing signs of success. The boys have determined a system for organized speaking; whoever holds the conch shall speak. The system seems to work well. At this point, a democratic order is established around the conch. Choices and decisions are shared by all. Together, they determine their situation, they realize they must fend for themselves, and the island looks capable of providing them with what they need. Slowly, however, cracks begin to appear in the surface. First, a boy introduces them to fear by speaking of the presence of a “beastie” on the island that resembles a snake. Then, Jack’s growing obsession with killing pigs seems to be dominating his thoughts and dictating his actions. He even perpetuates the myth of the “beastie,” when he knows it doesn’t exist, because it will give him an excuse to hunt. Finally, the good plan of the signal fire is derailed by its hasty and sloppy execution. Once the firewood is gathered, the boys’ fragile system of order breaks down rather quickly. Piggy’s glasses are taken against his will, the fire becomes uncontrollable, and the power of the conch becomes increasingly ignored. Finally, a brief scene of chaos ensues following Piggy’s condemnation of their efforts. Even Piggy, the conch system’s most ardent supporter, speaks out of turn. This rapid breakdown of organization is directly parallel to the introduction of the concept of “the beast.” Whatever it is the boys begin to fear, it is the fear that begins their disintegration. They do not really believe in the beast, but they do not dismiss its existence either, and the result is the beginning of chaos. The chapter ends on a far grimmer note than it began. One of the small boys is missing and has probably perished in the fire. The boys slowly realize that the power they possess can have dire consequences. Their actions can result in destruction rather than salvation. The fire that they so hastily built closely mirrored their uncontrolled passions, and it quickly became destructive. Symbolic of their natures, the fire is power. How it is used, wielded, or controlled is an important symbol for the destruction that occurs later in the novel. The situation illustrates that once order breaks down, the result is chaos and death. Through their inability to concentrate on carrying out their own plans, the boys quickly learn failure. Despite the fact that they are British and therefore supposed to be “the best at everything,” they cannot maintain even the slightest resemblance to The Coral Island experiences. Even more powerful than the possibility of salvation is the reality of destruction the boys unleash on the island. In this instance, as well, the fire becomes a symbol of the indiscriminate power of brute force. Unleashed, uncontrolled, its destructive potential is deadly and indifferent, consuming all who get too close. The explosions from the fire that claim the boy’s life cause creeper vines to fly into the air looking like snakes. Ironically, they appear to be like the “snake−thing” the small boy feared would eat him. It would seem the beast he feared was real, only it was not quite what he expected it to be. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis Summary The chapter opens with Jack hunting a pig with a five−foot sharpened stick. He moves stealthily through the jungle on all fours following tell−tale signs left by the animals: cracked twigs, tendrils of creeper vines polished smooth by the bristles of passing pigs, and hoofprints. He sniffs the air for information and examines some fresh droppings. He spots some tracks that lead to a pig−run behind some vines and hears a pig moving in the vines. Jack hurls his weapon, but the spear misses and “the promise of meat” runs maddeningly away.

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He returns to the beach where he finds Ralph standing by a marginally successful attempt at building a hut. He asks Ralph for something to drink, and Ralph directs him to a coconut shell filled with water. Jack drinks and comments on how much he needed that. Ralph hardly notices him because his attention is focused on building the hut with Simon. Inside the hut, Simon makes a mistake and the portion they are constructing falls apart. He sheepishly apologizes. Ralph and Simon are frustrated because several days’ worth of hard work has only produced two shaky shelters. Ralph chides Jack for running off hunting and neglecting the building of huts. Jack says his job is hunting. Ralph says he is frustrated because the littluns are not much help. Simon tells him to set them straight, and Ralph complains that they only listen to him for short periods of time, and then run off distracted. Jack claims to be doing his share by working to satisfy the others’ desire for meat. Ralph informs him that his hunters follow the same pattern as the littluns and had returned to camp long before Jack did. Jack explains that he was hot on the trail of a pig, and Ralph points out that he was still unsuccessful. They argue harshly over responsibilities for the first time. Eventually the argument dissolves into a discussion of “the beastie.” Simon joins them, and Jack reveals that the littluns are dreaming of it. Simon solemnly suggests that the littluns’ terrors are severe enough to lend credence to the presence of “the beastie.” Jack claims to feel its presence when he hunts: “You can feel as if you’re not hunting, but being hunted, as if something’s behind you all the time in the jungle.” Ralph is uncertain. He suggests that the best way to deal with the problem is to maintain the fire and get rescued. Jack, tiring of the responsibility of the fire, speaks again of his longing to kill a pig. Ralph and Jack leave Simon and walk down the beach. Each is absorbed in his own thoughts. Ralph contemplates the fire, and Jack thinks about hunting pigs. Finally Jack speaks again of pigs and Ralph is disgusted. Bad feelings lay unexpressed between them. Ralph complains again of the lack of help with the shelters, and that only Simon is helping him. Jack declares Simon to be strange and Ralph defends him as being the only one who helps and the only one who looks after the littluns. They return to the shelters and find that Simon has gone. Jack invites Ralph to join him for the hunt later but Ralph’s thoughts are still on the shelters. Their unresolved differences lay between them like a wedge. “They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate. All the warm salt water of the bathing pool and the shouting and splashing and laughing were only just sufficient to bring them together again.” Simon, meanwhile, has ventured off into the jungle alone. He finds a secret place where he can be alone, a small clearing tightly covered all around by creeper vines and a fallen log. “The whole space was walled with dark aromatic bushes, and was a bowl of heat and light. A great tree, fallen across one corner, leaned against the trees that still stood and a rapid climber flaunted red and yellow sprays right to the top.” Simon enters this place and drops a screen of leaves behind him and is completely concealed here. From within this new place, Simon’s view of the island changes and he now sees the island’s poetic, surreal beauty: Simon dropped the screen of leaves back into place. The slope of the bars of honey−colored sunlight decreased; they slid up the bushes, passed over the green candle−like buds, moved up toward the canopy, and darkness thickened under the trees. With the fading of the light the riotous colors died and the heat and urgency cooled away. The candle−buds stirred, their green sepals drew back a little and the white tips of the flowers rose delicately to meet the open air. Now the sunlight had lifted clear of the open space and withdrawn from the sky. Darkness poured out, submerging the ways between the trees till they were dim and strange as the bottom of the sea. The candle−buds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that pricked down from the first stars. Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island. Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis

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Discussion and Analysis The themes involving the need for organization and perception are strongly supported in Chapter 3. Ralph clearly sees the need for shelters on the island, but is frustrated with the lack of participation in building them. Even more frustrating is the fact that Jack’s hunters seem to have abandoned their tending of the fire for the pleasures of hunting. Even hunting seems to hold their attentions only briefly. Jack seems unconcerned as long as he himself can hunt. He no longer requires others to follow rules around him as long as he is occupied. He and Ralph argue over priorities. Ralph is further frustrated because even the quest for meat that has become Jack’s priority is not successful. He appears to be measuring success in terms of what can be accomplished by an organized group, while Jack seems more preoccupied with the hedonistic pleasures of the individual. Neither is successful at this point; Ralph’s shelters are poorly made, and Jack has gotten no meat. That a problem exists at all is only perceived by Ralph. He clearly sees the lack of organization as detrimental. It is only against the backdrop of his perception that the deterioration can be seen at all. Through Jack’s eyes, there is no problem beyond his inability to get meat. While Ralph’s belief in the need for group cooperation is not enough to make it succeed, Jack’s belief in the power of the hunt seems to be moving toward success, as can be seen in the result of his hunt. He has not yet gotten a pig, but he has gotten closer. Only Simon appears to be acting properly. He quietly goes about the business of helping Ralph build huts, looking after the littluns, and being concerned about their real terror of the imaginary monster not because he wants to, but because it is the right thing to do. He does it because he understands that it simply needs to be done. Still, he escapes the moral posturings of Jack and Ralph, and enters into the jungle. There, he sees the world in a poetical, almost surreal fashion. Unclouded by civilization, or its residue, he can be enveloped in the truth of their situation. Simon enters a place on the island where, physically and mentally, none of the others can go. Here, he sees the island differently and has an almost communal experience. This shows his ability to be insightful, introspective, and understanding. His vision of the island, and the events that occur, is different. He sees the truth in things simply: the huts need to be built, Ralph needs to take charge, the island is beautiful. It is his ability to perceive clearly that will reveal the true nature of the beast on the island. Ralph is fast becoming burdened by leadership. He no longer sees the island as a place to have fun away from grownups. Since the small boy’s death in the fire, the tone of their existence has changed somberly for him. No longer can his actions be performed lightly, lest they rage out of control again. It is this fear, perhaps, that renders him ineffectual, at the same time making him frustrated by his ineffectiveness. In addition, Ralph is hampered by his attachment to the fire. This time it is being used as a signal for their potential rescue and salvation. In this fashion, it is being used responsibly and is, therefore, a symbol of responsibility. And it is hard work. Ralph is slowly learning, through his belief in and attempts to maintain the fire, that desire does not necessarily mean accomplishment. In a parallel theme, his power over the others is slipping because he cannot quite control them. The boys, with the exception of Ralph, Piggy, Simon, and Samneric lack the spiritual power that allows them to achieve goals simply because they are necessary. As the bulk of the castaways on the island become more savage, they move away from responsibility and democracy, closer to chaos and the ruling power of fear and intimidation. Jack’s new identity too is emerging, but as it moves farther away from his role as choir leader, and closer to his role as hunter, the reader sees that he can efficiently learn to be a killer. It is this easy propensity for violence that Golding has identified as the basic character defect in humans. It is seen vividly in Jack, and in Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis

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lesser degrees in the others. But in Jack, it is a conscious attempt at hedonistic satisfaction. He seeks to be a killer because he desires it. As a result, he will gleefully descend into savagery, dragging the others more or less willingly along. The disturbing aspect of this is how easily he can accomplish it, and (as can be seen at the end of the novel) how easily he can revert back to his old self when order returns. By the end of this chapter, Jack and Ralph seem to be moving in different directions. Ralph struggles to retain what is civilized, as Jack slips further into savagery. It is Golding’s point that the latter is easier because it is what humans are attuned to. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis New Characters Henry: Biggest of the littluns. Distant relative of the boy with the mulberry−colored birthmark. He is teased by Roger. Percival Wemys Madison: One of the smallest of the littluns, a “mouse−colored boy” not very attractive “even to his mother.” Plays on the beach with Johnny and Henry. Cries a lot. Thought a little batty by the others. Summary The chapter opens with exposition that establishes the beauty of the island and the lazy rhythm of the castaways’ daily lives; they play all day. The midday seems to cause hallucinations in them that Piggy calls “mirages”: Strange things happened at midday. The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the few stunted palms that clung to the more elevated parts would float up into the sky, would quiver, be plucked apart, run like raindrops on a wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors. Sometimes land loomed where there was no land and flicked out like a bubble as the children watched. Percival, who is generally miserable, cannot adjust to the island’s rhythm and spends a two−day crying jag in one of the shelters. The others dismiss him as “batty.” The smaller boys are identified as “littluns.” They mostly play all day and obey Ralph and the conch both out of a vaguely remembered sense of loyalty to authority, and because of the “amusing content of the assemblies.” Three of the littluns, Henry, Percival, and Johnny are playing on the beach when Roger and Maurice emerge from the forest, having been relieved from their posts of tending the signal fire on the mountain. Roger destroys the sand castles the littluns had built, causing Percival to get sand in his eye and cry. Maurice, from some dimly remembered sense of propriety, hurries away. Roger, now described as having evolved from “unsociable remoteness” to “something forbidding,” remains behind. Johnny throws sand, causing Percival to cry again. Henry wanders off from the others and Roger stealthily follows him down to the water. He watches as Henry becomes absorbed in playing with small creatures in a tidal pool.

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Roger begins to throw rocks at him, missing on purpose, not because he doesn’t desire to hurt the boy, but because “Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.” Henry notices the stones and is initially disturbed. Then, thinking it a joke, he looks for the joker. Roger hides behind a palm tree and doesn’t allow himself to be seen. Jack interrupts, not noticing Roger’s strange pleasure, and leads Roger to a small pool of water at the end of the river where the twins, now referred to as Samneric, and Bill are waiting. He shows them two leaves full of red and white clay. He smears the clay on himself for camouflage as he explains that the pigs, who cannot smell him coming, will now not be able to see him coming. He calls it “dazzle−paint” and the others don’t understand. “Like moths on a tree trunk” he explains, trying to compare the situation to something he learned from some vaguely remembered biology lesson. Roger quickly understands. Jack smears on black with a charcoal stick. He sees his reflection in the water and dislikes it. He washes and starts again, this time planning his make−up. “He made one cheek and one eye−socket white, then he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw.” His new reflection excites him and he performs a silly dance that quickly evolves into a “bloodthirsty snarling.” His new disguise becomes “a thing of its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self−consciousness.” He orders the others to follow him hunting, and they are compelled by the mask into compliance. Meanwhile, Ralph, Simon, Maurice, and Piggy are swimming in the lagoon. Piggy suggests making a sundial using a stick and the others are scornful. Ralph turned and smiled involuntarily. Piggy was a bore; his fat, his ass−mar [Ralph’s word for his asthma] and his matter−of−fact ideas were dull, but there was always a little pleasure to be got out of pulling his leg, even if one did it by accident. Piggy saw the smile and misinterpreted it as friendliness. There had grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass−mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor. Piggy continues to press for a sundial, and Ralph tells him to shut up. Piggy complains that Ralph said he wanted things done to get rescued. Maurice does a belly−flop in the lagoon that distracts them, and Ralph uses the opportunity to ignore Piggy. He casually casts his gaze upon the horizon and spots smoke coming from a ship passing on the horizon. Ralph shouts, “Smoke! Smoke!” but the others cannot see anything. Still, they are confident the ship will see their signal fire. They ask Ralph if the fire is going. Simon and Piggy look toward the mountain, and Simon calls Ralph’s name because there is no signal fire. Ralph bolts for the mountain. The others desperately follow. They reach the fire, which had gone out. The choir members who tend it are nowhere in sight. “A pile of unused fuel lay ready.” Ralph is livid. They see below the choir members emerge from the forest waving sticks and chanting. Jack is leading them. They are carrying the gutted carcass of a pig on a stick between them and chanting “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” Jack, triumphant, his face smeared with clay, reaches them first. Ralph informs him that the fire is out. Jack does not understand Ralph’s distress or the significance of the fire being out, and proudly informs Ralph that this time he cut the pig’s throat himself. Ralph tells Jack about the ship, but Jack appears unconcerned, defending his actions in terms of satisfying the others’ need for meat. “The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled common−sense.”

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Then Piggy unwisely admonishes Jack. When some of the hunters, chagrined at the failed opportunity for rescue, agree, Jack punches Piggy in the stomach. Before Ralph can intervene, Jack smacks Piggy on the head and his glasses fly off and break on the rocks. Simon retrieves them for him. Only one lens is broken, but Piggy is very upset. Jack mocks him and the hunters laugh. Ralph almost laughs too. Jack grandly apologizes to Ralph for neglecting the fire. His hunters are impressed with their leader’s gentlemanly gesture, but Ralph does not accept. He orders the fire lit again. Jack loudly complies, but Ralph’s persistent silence both galvanizes his leadership qualities and erects a barrier between him and Jack. When the fire is built, Ralph purposefully goes to Piggy to use his glasses and “Not even Ralph knew how a link between him and Jack had been snapped and fastened elsewhere.” Jack slaughters the pig and they clumsily roast it. Ralph wishes to resist, but cannot. Piggy asks for some meat but Jack says that he cannot have any because he didn’t hunt. Piggy points out that Ralph and Simon didn’t hunt either. Finally Simon gives him some meat and is ashamed for having started to eat without him. Jack, angry at Simon’s empathy, hacks off more meat and orders Simon to eat it. He turns to the others and angrily tells them, “I got you meat,” and orders them to eat. The ensuing silence embodies the boys’ fear of and respect for Jack. The situation is awkward until Maurice asks Jack where he found the pig. Roger begins to speak, but Jack must tell the story himself. The others become excited and Jack is careful to let them know he cut its throat himself. Maurice pretends to be the pig and they pretend to beat him. They dance and sing, “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in.” As the chant dies away, Ralph, envious and resentful, announces he will be calling an assembly with the conch and walks off down the mountain. Discussion and Analysis Chapter 4 establishes Roger’s personality and reinforces the themes of organization, perception, and identity. It is here that Roger’s personality begins to emerge, unfettered by civilized restraints. As the boys’ organizational system breaks down, the possibility of catastrophic consequences again emerges. Piggy’s outlook is severely impaired when his glasses are broken, and he slips closer to blindness as Jack edges toward savagery and the complete loss of his identity. Ralph’s leadership, though nobly intended, is again ineffectual. Roger, initially the “dark boy,” is now revealed to have sadistic tendencies. He callously destroys the littluns’ carefully constructed sandcastles on the beach. Maurice joins him in this, but feels bad and quickly leaves. Roger, on the other hand, follows Henry to the beach and throws stones near him. This would be simply a game under normal circumstances, but Roger’s determination to remain unseen makes his behavior abnormal. He is perversely delighted in baffling Henry and leaving him baffled. He avoids actually hurting the littlun, but he will carry this behavior to frightening extremes later in the novel. Jack finds he can free himself from civilized constraints and moral responsibility by painting his face and completely obscuring any vestiges of his old self not already changed by nature. By camouflaging his face he becomes the ultimate hunter, even affecting those around him. It is only after he does this that he gets to kill his pig, and it is even noted that he cut its throat himself. It is entirely appropriate that half of his carefully planned face is colored red, the color of blood. Almost savage, Jack has no qualms about attacking Piggy either. He punches the boy, smacks his head, and breaks his glasses. Symbolically, his new identity of violence and uninhibited action result in destroying half of Piggy’s ability to see clearly. In other words, Jack’s move closer to violence is one step farther away from perceiving civilization for all the boys. He is not yet able to stand up to Ralph, but easily preys on the more vulnerable Piggy. Like Roger, he is testing the boundaries of his new identity as a forerunner for abandoning himself totally. When he revels in the orgiastic feast of the pig, he begins to order the others around and they obey. Jack’s sense of authoritarian power is emerging here, and it is effective. While Ralph is unable to get the others to obey him through civilized Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

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means, Jack is easily able to exert control through fear and intimidation. Poor Piggy, Jack’s victim, finds his usefulness on the island waning. Even Ralph scoffs at his idea for a sundial. The notion is not particularly useful, but it is Piggy’s response to Ralph’s directive that they “do something.” At this point, not too many children are listening to Ralph. Piggy’s one connection to civilization, his ability to see through man−made glasses, is limited when Jack breaks them. His ideas abandoned, his ability to see impaired, he is now forced to view things through one lens. His gradual loss of sight represents their moving away from rational thought. Despite the fact that Ralph will ally himself to Piggy later in the chapter, Piggy and his ideas, like his sight, are slowly becoming more obsolete the longer the boys are stranded. Ralph’s well−intentioned plans go horribly awry when the hunters abandon the signal fire to follow Jack after a pig. As a result, their first chance for rescue is missed. Jack downplays this by focusing on his triumphant hunt, but this only serves to alienate Ralph. Ralph is then put in the unfortunate position of having to criticize the hunters’ success. He is frustrated because his plan would have worked had it been carried out. He is losing his power to maintain order on the island. In addition, his belief in the responsibility of the fire produces no tangible result (despite the fact that it was the hunters who failed), whereas Jack quite effectively shows his use of fire by roasting the pig and feeding the others with meat. On a parallel note, the first consciously successful violent act on the island, when Jack slays the pig, coincides with the significant failure of the fire. As the boys eventually gravitate toward violence and savagery, they will move farther away from civilization and responsibility. Perhaps Golding’s proposed inherent defects of mankind are linked to man’s desire for instant gratification, and his inability to reconcile the civilized and primal factions of his nature. Piggy and Ralph are faulty because they do not recognize the power and presence of savagery, while Jack and Roger cannot temper theirs with civility. Somewhere in between these two differing failures is Simon, who is emerging as a sympathetic figure. He does not scoff at Piggy’s sundial proposal along with the others. He retrieves Piggy’s broken glasses for him, and he is ashamed to have begun eating the roasted pig when Piggy had none. He even gives Piggy some of his own. He appears to recognize the savagery, and even partakes in its resulting feast, yet he remains able to understand the need for civilization and respect, and can feel sorry for Piggy and ashamed of himself. Percival represents the basic attitude of the littluns. He is so overwhelmed by circumstances that his normal routines of crying and playing are performed merely by rote. Later, his prominent name (Percival Wemys Madison, so far only referred to as Percival) will become formal evidence of the boys’ total loss of civilization. Percival represents the boys’ gradual loss of innocence. The longer they remain on the island, the more they forget their ingrained social mores and move toward savagery. In addition, Percival verbally expresses the accurate fear of the beast on the island, the fear of the unknown. Toward the end of this chapter, the subtle politics of responsibility versus popular opinion will have driven a wedge between Ralph and Jack. Jack will become further allied with his hunters as Ralph, Piggy, and Simon bear the brunt of responsibility. The fire, ineffective in the rescue, will roast the pig very easily and its two functions will also emerge as symbols of the boys’ perception. To Ralph it will become the burden of responsibility, and to Jack, the symbol of triumph and power. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

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Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis New Character Phil: Littlun who speaks of his dream of the beast. Summary Ralph walks down a narrow path, concerned about the up−coming meeting. “He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s waking life was spent watching one’s feet.” He is determined that the meeting “must not be fun, but business.” He wanders past the bathing pool and contemplates their meeting place (called “the platform”). He notes that one of the essential distractions is a springy log that the children bounce on instead of concentrating on the meeting. He notices no one has taken the time to fix the thing, but cannot quite grasp why. It will be the first assembly they have had so late, and the appearance of the platform is eerily altered by the approaching dusk. Ralph chastises himself for his inability to think clearly: “Once more that evening Ralph had to adjust his values. Piggy could think. He could go step by step inside that fat head of his, only Piggy was no chief. But Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains. Ralph was a specialist in thought now and could recognize thought in another.” He blows the conch and the others come. Those who were aware of the missed rescue are solemn, affecting those who weren’t aware. They fear Ralph’s anger. Ralph begins by trying to convince the others that a serious assembly is necessary. He complains that many make suggestions, but few carry them out. He notes the lack of fresh water and the poor conditions of the huts as examples. His attempt to establish a lavatory where the tide can cleanse the mess is interrupted by the littluns laughing at the mention of their loose bowels (caused by eating unripe fruit on the island). Piggy wishes to speak but Ralph refuses. This gesture reinforces the seriousness of his intentions. He uses this advantage to bring up the fire. Ralph blames the hunters for letting the fire go out, stating that the need for the fire is greater than the need for pig. He begins to talk of additional issues and someone complains that it’s too much. He overrides them and impresses them with the importance of controlling the fire as well. He decrees that the fire will only be allowed on the mountaintop. He reminds them that they elected him chief, therefore they need to do what he says. Several of the boys protest and reach for the conch to speak, but Ralph leaps onto the trunk of a tree and again forcefully reminds them that he is chief and they must do what he says. Jack wishes to speak but Ralph doesn’t let him. He says, “Things are breaking up. I don’t understand why.” He mentions the littluns’ fear of the beast and the assembly begins to grow afraid. Ralph finishes by telling them that they must address the unreasonable fear of the beast so they can get on with more important things, like accomplishing tasks, the fire, and being happy. He admits also experiencing some nameless fear, but that it is not of a physical beast. Jack takes the conch. He berates the littluns for their fear of the beast and calls them cry−babies. He tells them there is no animal. Ralph interrupts, angry that Jack is placing ideas about a physical beast in the littluns’ heads. Jack blames Ralph for first personifying the beast. Then, as a hunter, he assures the others that there is no beast on the island. Jack’s speech, unlike Ralph’s, is greeted with applause. Piggy takes the conch and attempts to agree with Jack and explain the myth of the beast’s existence logically, but the littluns heckle him. Piggy becomes frustrated because the conch is not being honored in his hands. Piggy finally gains the floor and attempts to logically explain why the beast could not possibly exist, and that what they could actually fear is each other. The others do not grasp this and heckle him again. To prove his point, Piggy suggests letting a littlun talk of the beast so they can point out how ridiculous the notion is.

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Phil, a littlun, steps forth. He talks of a dream of fighting snake−like things from the jungle and calling to Ralph for help. Then he speaks of something big he saw moving through the jungle. The others listen intently. Ralph tries to dismiss it for what it is, a nightmare, but Phil insists it is real. Ralph takes the conch and tries to convince Phil that nothing could be moving in the jungle at night because the others are all asleep. Then Simon quietly admits to going to his secret place in the jungle at night. Ralph admonishes him for moving about the jungle at night, but Jack attributes it to loose bowels and the assembly laughs. Ralph feels bad for Simon’s humiliation, but takes the conch and tells him not to do it again because it may frighten the littluns. Simon starts to speak, but resists, deferring because Ralph still has the conch. Ralph asks Piggy to continue, and Piggy summons Percival Wemys Madison to speak of his fears. Percival is terrified of speaking to the assembly. Piggy asks him to say his name, but he cannot. He turns to Ralph who sharply orders Percival to speak. Percival begins to speak, announcing his name and address first as he was taught. He cannot, however, quite remember his telephone number. He begins to cry uncontrollably and other littluns join in. Maurice intervenes and distracts them from their tears by pretending to fall down. Jack gains control of the conch, grabs Percival, and asks him where the beast lives. Piggy jokes that it must be a clever beast to have remained hidden in the island. Amid the assembly’s laughter, Percival whispers to Jack, and Jack tells them he said that the beast comes from the sea. “The last laugh died away. The assembly considered the vast stretches of water, the high sea beyond, unknown indigo of infinite possibility, heard silently the sough and whisper from the reef.” Maurice tells them, “Daddy said they haven’t found all the animals in the sea yet.” And the beast is real to them once again. They begin to argue and Ralph quiets them by unexpectedly blowing the conch again. This time Simon speaks, even though he is terrified of doing so in front of the assembly. Unfortunately, “Simon became inarticulate in his efforts to express mankind’s essential illness.” He attempts to explain by asking what they believe is the dirtiest thing of all. His effort results in a crudely anonymous response, a one−syllable word referring to a bowel movement, and his point is not made. In the ensuing chaos, Jack and Piggy wrestle for control of the conch, and Ralph takes it from them. He notes that the darkness has probably spooked everyone, and someone suggests the beast is a ghost. Many agree and Piggy angrily grabs the conch. “What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think? Going off—hunting pigs—letting fires out—and now!” He and Jack again struggle, and Ralph orders Jack to let him speak because he has the conch. Jack becomes angry, “And you shut up! Who are you anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing.” Ralph reminds him he was chosen as chief. “The rules!” shouts Ralph. “You’re breaking the rules!” “Who cares?” Jack shouts back. “Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!” But Jack shouts him down. “Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong—we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat!” He whoops and runs off and most of the assembly follow. “What’s grownups going to say?” Piggy despairingly wonders again. He urges Ralph to tell them how important the fire is. But Ralph knows, and expresses to Piggy, that his advantage is temporarily lost. If he blows the conch, and they do not return, he will lose control permanently.

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The hunters and others gather nearby on the beach and chant and dance in a circle, frightening the littluns. Ralph wonders if the beast may exist after all. Piggy argues the logic against this consideration, but Ralph stops him by verbally expressing that he should resign as chief. Piggy becomes afraid of this possibility. He says, “If Jack was chief he’d have all hunting and no fire. We’d be here till we died.” Simon joins them and Ralph despairs about the ineffectiveness of their efforts, calling them “Three blind mice.” Piggy asks him what would happen to him if Ralph gives up, and Ralph tells him that nothing will happen. Piggy laments that Jack hates him, but that Ralph is safe because Jack respects Ralph, and perhaps fears him. He finishes by whining about how no one listened when he had the conch. Simon speaks up and tells Ralph to continue being chief. Piggy tells Simon to shut up and blames him for failing to say that there wasn’t a beast. Piggy tells them that he fears Jack and thinks about him all the time. He says that Jack hates Ralph as well because Ralph controls the fire and is chief. Ralph does not quite understand this. Then Piggy expresses his real fear, which is that if Ralph resigned, Jack would become chief. Piggy fears that Jack, as chief, would still be too respectful and afraid to exact revenge upon Ralph, and would hurt him instead. Simon tells Ralph that Piggy is right and he should continue being chief. Piggy expresses his longing for the presence of an adult to control things. He wishes his Auntie were with him. Ralph wishes for his father, but abandons that line of thinking as useless. The hunters’ dance breaks up, and the dancers return to their huts. Piggy again verbally wishes for the intellectual presence of adults, who aren’t afraid and who discuss things over tea. Simon and Ralph agree that adults wouldn’t have lost control of the fire, or failed to build a ship. “The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life.” They long for grownups who wouldn’t quarrel, break specs, or talk about a beast. Their thoughts are interrupted by Percival Wemys Madison, wailing at the top of his lungs, in the throes of a nightmare, “living through circumstances in which the incantation of his address was powerless to help him.” Discussion and Analysis It is during Ralph’s poorly run evening assembly that the breakdown of organization is most evident, and the seeds of outright anarchy are planted. Ralph’s noble but ineffective leadership skills are highlighted, and Jack is shown to be both manipulative and the cause of the anarchic sentiments on the island. Ralph is starting to realize that what he wants to accomplish on the island for everyone’s good is reasonable. But he realizes he is not a thinker, like Piggy, and cannot control the actions of the others. A belief in organization is not enough. His initial intention to use the assembly as a fulcrum for order is quickly sabotaged by Jack’s sly introduction of the possibility of the reality of the beast. In doing so, Jack not only highlights Ralph’s inadequacies, but he strengthens his own importance with crowd−pleasing posturing and loud saber−rattling. In addition, Jack’s hatred for Piggy leads him to outrightly denounce the conch, the boys’ only symbol of order, as useless. By the end of the meeting, it is Jack who sees what motivates the boys more clearly than Ralph: fear. And it is Jack who will use this to begin his control over the boys. Ralph fails to understand that the boys are quiet and compliant when the meeting begins because they fear his anger. He loses control when the littluns laugh at the mention of diarrhea. He gains it again when he frightens them by talking about the beast. Jack quickly sees this and fosters the notion of a beast, then galvanizes his own abilities by giving them an opportunity to hunt, and therefore control their fear. By the end of the meeting, many follow him. He has united them through fear and intimidation. Still, Ralph is clearly the generally accepted leader. This is evident when Percival reveals it is Ralph whom he calls for help when the beast appears in his dreams. Jack quickly asserts himself as hunter of the beast, but the littluns’ ingrained acceptance of Ralph will take more to overthrow. Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis

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Percival and Phil speak of the beast, and the others listen. Percival attempts to fend it off in his own mind by clinging to his full name and address, talismans of a civilization where littluns do not believe a beast exists. But this memory, fading in Percival, is illustrated when he cannot remember the rest of the charm—his telephone number. The beast becomes real to the boys, if undefined. Jack, the hunter, tries to put it in physical terms, a being that can be hunted and killed. Ralph, the leader, both tries to acknowledge its presence, and yet downplay its physicality for the sake of order and safety. Piggy, the thinker, tries to scientifically prove it is not real, only his theories are wrecked by the diminishing power of the conch to champion reason and logic. Only Simon appears to recognize the true nature of the beast, but he is too inarticulate to express it adequately. His ability to perceive and define the beast does not extend beyond his own thoughts. To Simon, the real source of fear and terror on the island is the people themselves—the boys. It is within them that the beast exists. It is their own fear and lack of spiritual power that will cause the destruction and horror on the island. It is Simon who recognizes Golding’s thesis, that mankind’s evil nature is inherent in man. Unfortunately, Simon is also acutely aware of his own defect, his inability to communicate his knowledge to the others. This arises from his terror of the true beast, one that is harder to fight than any physical beast: the evil nature of mankind. As the situation spirals toward the book’s eventual violent conclusions, it is the breakdown of communication that allows events to occur. The meetings gradually evolve into chaotic power struggles when the boys, instigated by Jack, continually ignore the order of the conch. It is Simon’s inability to communicate his knowledge of the beast that allows it to reign free in the boys’ imaginations. It is Piggy’s inability to communicate his ideas that allows the contempt of intellectual thought to foster on the island. It is Ralph’s inability to fathom the reasoning behind his leadership idea, and communicate their need to the others that allows for the lack of accomplishment on the island to grow. But most importantly, it is Jack’s ability to disrupt rational thought, and communicate fear and chaos, that allows him to slowly assume authoritarian control. By the end, it is Jack who feeds the boys’ fears with his promises to kill the beast. By doing so, he makes the beast real. He rides the crest of this sentiment, using it to end the meeting while the attention is focused on him and his hunters, leaving Ralph in a perilous position of losing power altogether. Wise Piggy does not wish this, but more for his own personal safety. Simon, however, recognizes Ralph’s leadership as the only link to their civilized past, and therefore the only true protection against the beast. The chapter ends with young Percival wailing from the depths of his nightmare of the beast, now firmly real in the minds of them all: A thin wail out of the darkness chilled them and set them grabbing for each other. Then the wail rose, remote and unearthly, and turned to an inarticulate gibbering. Percival Wemys Madison, of the Vicarage, Harcourt St. Anthony, lying in the long grass, was living through circumstances in which the incantation of his address was powerless to help him. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis New Character Parachutist: Killed in an air fight over the island, his dead body lands on the mountainside and is, from a distance, mistaken for the beast by the boys. Summary When Percival’s nightmare ends, Ralph and Simon carry him to a shelter and the boys eventually settle into Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

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an uncomfortable sleep. As they sleep, 10 miles above the island, aircraft from the war are engaged in an air fight. A plane explodes, and unbeknownst to the boys, the corpse of a pilot parachutes onto the island. It lands on the side of the mountain and comes to rest in a sitting position, the lines tangle and anchor him to the rock. The wind, catching the parachute, causes the corpse to rock forward and back, “So as the stars moved across the sky, the figure sat on the mountain−top and bowed and sank and bowed again.” The next morning, while the island is still dark, Samneric awake to find the signal fire they were to maintain has gone out again. They relight it from the smoldering coals and in its glow they see the figure on the mountainside. Terrified, they flee back to camp. They wake Ralph and Piggy and tell them they’ve seen the beast. Ralph has them verbally call the others to assembly. He does not wish to blow the conch for fear of alerting the beast. In assembly, Samneric receive the conch and paint a frightening picture of the beast they believe they saw, one with eyes, teeth, and claws. They report that it chased them and Eric’s face, torn from running through the bushes, is mistaken to have been ripped by the beast. Jack proposes hunting it and Ralph points out that they only have wooden sticks as weapons. Jack asks him if he is afraid and Ralph replies that he is. Piggy takes the conch and suggests that they leave the beast alone. Ralph almost shouts at him in anger, but fears the beast will hear. He proposes that they go but leave Piggy behind to watch the littluns. Jack is scornful. Piggy is worried that if the beast returns he will be unable to fight it with his broken lens. Jack chides him for being scared. Piggy defends his right to speak with the conch, and Jack again denounces the power of the conch. “Conch! Conch!” shouted Jack. “We don’t need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us.” Ralph angrily defends the conch. He claims that Jack only wants to hunt and has forsaken the importance of getting rescued. He reemphasizes the importance of the fire. The mention of rescue swings support to Ralph’s side. The boys decide that instead of hunting the beast all over the island, a party will explore the only place on the island where they haven’t been, where the beast must therefore dwell: the back of the island where the rocks make a natural bridge to the smaller island. After their exploration they will relight the fire. After they eat, they set out with Ralph leading the biguns. As planned, Piggy is left behind to guard the littluns. Ralph relinquishes leadership of the hunt to Jack and is relieved to be temporarily free of responsibility. Jack, for his part, makes an enormously theatrical display of hunting. As they walk, Simon contemplates the existence of the beast. “Simon, walking in front of Ralph, felt a flicker of incredulity—a beast with claws that scratched, that sat on a mountain−top, that left no tracks and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric. However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick.” Simon, lost in his further thoughts about his inability to express his understanding of the beast to the others, walks into a tree and cuts his head. Ralph, who seemed on the verge of saying something to him, looks away. Both miss an opportunity to speak of the beast. They reach the bridge and see that it attaches the island to a smaller island of pink coral dotted with huge chunks of rock poised to roll back onto the bridge. Ralph turns to Jack because he is the hunter and must go first, but Jack hesitates. Ralph, realizing the burden of leadership is upon him again, decides he will go on. Simon tells him that he doesn’t believe the beast exists, but Ralph doesn’t really acknowledge his comment. Ralph moves forward. He does not know what he will do if he sees the beast. Jack, after having seen Ralph proceed without harm, joins him saying, “Couldn’t let you do it on your own.” They proceed over the bridge to the island, and Jack instantly recognizes that the island would make an excellent fort. He outlines his plan to use the boulders as defenses, rolling them onto an approaching enemy Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

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on the bridge. But Ralph’s thoughts again return to the signal fire and Jack is annoyed. The others, seeing Jack and Ralph unmolested, run across the bridge onto the small island and explore it excitedly. A group rolls one of the large stones into the sea. Ralph is angry because he thinks they should be thinking about the signal fire. The boys argue. Some want to roll more rocks. Others want to return and eat fruit. Some want to stay in the fort. Ralph wants them to achieve their plan, which is to determine the presence of the beast so they can return to the business of maintaining the fire. The boys fall petulantly silent and Jack leads them back off the rock. Discussion and Analysis The beast, previously imagined, has now taken a physical form. Simon still cannot articulate his feelings concerning the true nature of it. The assembly breaks down further, with Jack and Ralph still competing for their differing values. The two boys’ perception of the island further highlights their personalities. The corpse that falls from the sky becomes the physical representation of the beast. As seen by Samneric, the boys’ fear has taken on a plausible shape. Ironically, his death is caused by violence, therefore he is truly a metaphor for what they fear. As with most fear, it is exaggerated by those involved. Perhaps to cover up their negligence, or because they are actually afraid, Samneric make the beast very real to the others. Simon still rationally does not believe in the beast. He knows it cannot exist physically on the island or they would have seen it. Still, to him, there is much to fear on the island, but his thoughts on this subject only conjure up images of man. It is humanity the boys fear. Their own actions have resulted in chaos, savagery, and death. The problem is, he cannot quite grasp how to express this to the others. He and Ralph almost make a connection on the subject, but circumstances interfere and each returns to his own thoughts. Again, Jack denounces the power of the conch. As he slips further and further toward savagery, he no longer needs rules or symbols to follow. He is becoming increasingly vocal in communicating his scorn of the system. Still, he knows both sides of fear and its power. He continually goads Ralph by teasing him about his fear, yet when it comes time to actually display his ferocity, as in confronting the beast, he hesitates. On the other hand, Ralph, however reluctantly, fulfills his duty. Like the others, he is easily led by fear as well, yet he also conquers his fears in an attempt to do what is right. Jack and Ralph approach the smaller island for the first time, and their opposing perceptions of it speak toward their differing personalities. Ralph sees it as an obstacle to overcome so they can return to the business of maintaining the fire. Jack sees its military value. Ralph still clings to his position of responsibility and insists they must eliminate the place as the beast’s lair before they can continue. The boys that enter the island see its fort potential as well and playfully roll the rocks over the edge. Ralph, growing increasingly adult, has no time for this childish behavior. He must maintain the unpopular mantle of responsibility. Jack seizes upon this in order to strengthen his position, and it is he who leads the boys back off the island. The contrasts between Jack and Ralph are deepening at this point. Ralph is growing increasingly grownup and urges responsibility. His position is valid, but he still lacks the authority to actually enforce what he believes. On the other hand, Jack is growing increasingly more popular as he goads the kids to follow his childish actions. It is fun to play soldier, hunt, and break the rules. Furthermore, his insistence at disrupting the meetings is personally motivated by his jealousy of Ralph and dislike for Piggy. As seen, particularly in his reluctance to actually face danger, Jack is really not brave. Like a true politician, however, he talks a good game. In dangerously increasing increments, Jack is undermining the frail system of the island and introducing anarchy to the boys. He knows well the motivating and intimidating power of fear, and he uses it to his advantage. The boys have already shown, at the previous meeting, that they are easily lead by fear, and Jack’s ability to manipulate them through this will cause the actual emergence of the true beast they should fear: their own evil natures. Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

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Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis Summary Still in pursuit of the beast, Jack is leading the boys along a pig−run, and Ralph is content to follow. They stop to eat some fruit, and Ralph, suddenly aware of the heat and his own griminess, longs for a chance to wash his shirt, cut his hair, wash with soap, and cut his nails. He notices that his nails are bitten down to the quick, but does not remember doing it. Then he observes the others and their similarly disheveled appearances, and notes that they have all accepted these changes as normal. Ralph wanders down to the beach and contemplates the ocean on the far side of the island. He considers its vastness, and it reminds him of their hopeless situation and their limited chance for rescue. He notes that rescue seems plausible on the other side of the island, because the mirages they experience soften the aspect of the vast ocean surrounding them. Unconsciously, he is tense, gripping a rock, arching his back, mouth strained open. Simon appears at his elbow. “You’ll get back,” he says, insightfully knowing what Ralph is thinking from observing his posture. Ralph calls him batty and Simon repeats that he just thinks he’ll get back all right. The two boys suddenly smile at each other. A short time later when the boys are back near the pig−run, Roger calls Jack up to inspect some fresh pig droppings. “Jack bent down to them as though he loved them.” He tells Ralph they need meat, even though they are hunting the beast. Ralph agrees as long as they continue in the direction they are going. The boys set off again. Later, during a pause in the hunt, Ralph leans against a tree and daydreams of an idyllic cottage he and his parents had lived in back home. The daydream is peaceful and vivid. His thoughts are interrupted by a boar charging them from the brush ahead. The boys scatter, even Jack, and Ralph is left in the path of the charging boar. Cooly he flings his spear at it from only five yards away. It hits the animal in the snout and the boar swerves and runs off. Jack returns and searches the undergrowth for it. The boys pursue the pig, and none notice Ralph’s excitement at hitting the pig. They lose the pig’s track and in the break Ralph again speaks excitedly of his hitting the pig. This time Maurice bears out his story. For a moment Ralph is caught up in Jack’s world. “I hit him all right. The spear stuck in. I wounded him. He sunned himself in their new respect and felt that hunting was good after all.” Jack and Ralph compete briefly for attention from the hunters, and Jack wins it when he shows them a gash on his arm he claims the boar left with its tusks. Ralph tries again to get their attention by showing how he threw his spear. Robert joins him and pretends to be the charging pig. The boys make a ring with Robert in the middle and shout, “Kill him! Kill him!” Soon their play turns rough and they are actually hurting Robert, hitting him too hard with their spears. Jack grabs him by the hair and brandishes his knife. “‘Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!’” Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over−mastering.” Jack pretends to kill the pig and they make pig−dying noises. Robert is crying and hurt. They discuss their game. It reminds Ralph of rugby when he got badly hurt. Maurice suggests using a drum, and Roger reminds them they need a real pig. Jack suggests having someone dress up as a pig. Robert ruefully reminds them they need a real pig because they have to kill it. Jack suggests using a littlun and they all laugh. Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

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Later, as darkness advances, they discuss the options of continuing up the mountain or returning to camp. Jack wants to kill the beast. Ralph wants to relight the fire. They decide to go on, and Jack leads them. They come to a stretch of cliff that is unfamiliar to them, even to Jack, and Ralph must make a decision. “By now, Ralph had no self−consciousness in public thinking but would treat the day’s decision as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.” He tells them they have to return because of the littluns and Piggy, and Jack mocks his concern for Piggy. Ralph declares that one of them must go back through the jungle alone to inform Piggy of their whereabouts. The boys hesitate at the thought of traveling the jungle alone at night. Simon volunteers and, before Ralph can reply, goes into the jungle alone. Ralph asks Jack about the pig−run that he had found when exploring this section of the island before. Jack tells him it goes all the way to the mountain, and Ralph decides they will smash through the jungle until they find it. There is tension between he and Jack over the shifting mantle of leadership, and it builds as they discuss the pig−run. Ralph becomes concerned because it is growing dark, and he fears there will not be enough light to hunt for the beast. Jack mocks Ralph’s concern as he would mock Piggy, which causes Ralph to ask him, “Why do you hate me?” Jack does not answer. They stare at one another until Ralph turns angrily away first. He tells the others to follow him and they do. Jack brings up the rear “displaced and brooding.” They find the pig−run and it leads them to the mountain. Ralph and Jack argue yet again, this time over the decision whether to continue, rest for the night, or return to camp. Jack intimates that Ralph is cowardly. Ralph retorts that it was he who went first on Castle Rock. Jack asks the others if they want to join him, and they are silent. He asks Samneric directly, but they tell him that perhaps they ought to return to Piggy. Jack angrily decides to go and taunts Ralph into joining him. The others remain behind. Inexplicably, Roger joins them. They set off climbing the mountain, and darkness falls. Presently, a gust of wind blows ashes into their eyes, stinging them. They are at the edge of the old burned patch from the earlier raging fire. Ralph is tired and hesitates. Jack taunts him again, and Ralph suddenly outright hates Jack for the first time. Jack continues, and Ralph waits behind with Roger. Roger offers no explanation as to why he decided to join them, or any indication that he wishes conversation, and they sit in silence. The only sound is “impervious Roger” continuously tapping his spear against a rock. Jack returns and informs them he saw a “thing” on the mountaintop. It made a “plop” sound and bulged. This time Ralph decides to go and look. He notices Jack hesitate for the first time. He proceeds and Jack and Roger follow. They approach and Roger lags behind. They see the creature on the mountaintop, and it is indeed bulging. Ralph stifles a cry. Jack accuses him of being scared. Then the wind blows and the creature looks at them with its “ruin of a face.” The three boys flee down the mountain, leaving behind their “three abandoned sticks and the thing that bowed.” Discussion and Analysis Chapter 7 sheds more light on several of the boys’ personalities, the growing tensions between Jack and Ralph, and the theme of identity. The most telling scene in the chapter, however, is the pivotal mock pig−killing scene that succinctly reveals Golding’s hypothesis of the inherent defect in man’s character. Jack is drawn as a more complex figure. He desires to rival Ralph’s leadership, as can be seen during several of the scenes where he constantly mocks him or challenges his leadership, but he is not really a fit leader himself. Jack runs from the charging boar, he fails in his exploration of the island because he had been previously distracted by the opportunity to explore the pig−run, and he runs from the beast. He is, however, an excellent manipulator. To draw attention away from his cowardice and lack of responsibility, he claims to Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

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have been wounded by the boar, he constantly accuses Ralph of cowardice, and he is always careful to appear brave in front of the others. Ralph is further portrayed in the dual light of being a leader and being unable to be a leader. His intentions are always good; he wishes to protect Piggy, he wishes to relight the fire, he wishes to return to civilization, but he is always derailed in his intentions. Sometimes it is Jack who manipulates him away from his responsibility. Other times it is his inability to express the importance of his decisions. Nevertheless, his good deeds go unnoticed. The boys do not really take note of his bravery in the face of the charging boar because Jack turns the attention on himself. The boys do not agree with his decision to return to Piggy, until their own fears compel them in that direction. No one really ever observes that it is Ralph who truly leads them, and Ralph, unlike Jack, is rarely distracted from his duties. One final insight into Ralph’s character flaw as a leader is his own lack of insight. He knows he is not a good strategist (as can be seen in his own admission to being a poor chess player), but he is not truly observant either. When Jack hesitates to follow him up the mountain, Ralph notices the hesitation for the first time. Yet, in several instances earlier in the novel, Ralph had witnessed other instances of hesitating on Jack’s part. Most tellingly was when Jack hesitated to kill the first pig they encountered. However, he failed or chose not to notice. It is observing this weakness that causes Ralph to actually begin hating Jack and to see him for the first time. Yet, truly, he has disliked Jack for some time now. Simon proves himself to be insightful and brave. He understands Ralph’s longing to return home in the scene by the sea. Ralph has not verbalized this, yet Simon’s observation of his character revealed this to him. This goes far toward establishing Simon’s ability to understand the abstract, and his ability to see within the character of human nature. Simon also bravely volunteers to travel back to Piggy through the darkened jungle. He is not afraid of the beast, as the others are, because he understands that it is only when he is away from the others that he is truly away from the beast. Nevertheless, the prospect of traveling through any jungle alone in the dark is daunting. Simon does not hesitate. One progression highlighted in this chapter is the boys’ increasing loss of identity. The longer they remain on the island, the farther away from their civilized selves they move. This is shown both in Ralph’s observation of their lengthening hair and by their deteriorating clothes. Each contrast with his own daydreams of a more civilized existence. And among the hunters, only Ralph is shown having any desire to return. He longs for a bath, haircut, and manicure. The pivotal scene in the chapter occurs when the boys pretend to kill the pig and hurt Robert in their enthusiasm. The scene reveals the depths of Jack’s growing cruelty when he suggests using a littlun next time. He is always willing to prey on weaker beings. But the truth that is revealed in this encounter is from Ralph. Ralph does not realize how easily he is seduced by blood lust. Riding the high of his encounter with the pig, he willingly joins the dance and is among those who hurt Robert. He recovers, but does not seem to even realize how close they all came to actually killing the boy. That he slips so easily into this more Jack−like role reveals more about Golding’s perception of the defective character of man than all in the novel thus far. If even so good a character as Ralph can be quickly seduced into the desire to hurt and kill, then it is no surprise that the lesser characters follow this path as well. The implication is, of course, that this is a flaw within all mankind. Ralph’s inability to reconcile these two conflicting aspects of his character are the root of his flaws, as much as Jack’s inability to temper his tendency toward savagery is the root of his. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

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Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis Summary Piggy, upset by the news that the beast exists, stares up at the mountain from the beach. Ralph assures him that it does indeed exist. Piggy questions it again and Jack nastily tells him to go see for himself. Ralph adds that it had teeth and “big black eyes.” Ralph is worried because the beast squats near where they must build the signal fire. “We’re beaten,” he says. Jack offers his hunters and Ralph calls them “Boys armed with sticks.” Jack angrily walks away and calls a meeting by blowing the conch. He tells the others that he’s seen the beast. He tells them that Ralph thinks the hunters are no good and cowards. Jack accuses Ralph of being like Piggy and of being a poor leader. He tells them Ralph is a coward as well, and that he ran from the beast while he and Roger stayed behind and faced it. He tells them Ralph is “not a hunter. He’d never have got us meat. He isn’t a prefect and we don’t know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing.” Finally Jack asks them to vote again to see if Ralph should not be chief. No one moves. He asks again but the boys remain silent. Angry, and with tears of humiliation in his eyes, Jack lays the conch at Ralph’s feet. “I’m not going to play any longer. Not with you.” He asks those who wish to hunt to join him and then walks off. Piggy assures him they can get along without Jack anyway, and they no longer need hunters because the presence of the beast will force them to remain close to camp anyway. Then, to the astonishment of all, Simon takes the conch. Painfully, he suggests they climb the mountain. Piggy scornfully asks him why. Simon says, “What else is there to do?” Piggy takes the conch from Simon and again suggests they are all better off without Jack, then reiterates Ralph’s need for the fire to be lit. Ralph reminds him that the beast is on the mountain, and Piggy suggests the obvious that they all have overlooked. They can build the fire right where they are. “The boys began to babble. Only Piggy could have the intellectual daring to suggest moving the fire from the mountain.” The boys are so excited at this prospect, they work to complete the task with frenzied abandon. Even Piggy helps collect wood, and he lights the fire himself as the littluns dance with excitement. Eventually they settle down and drift off, and Ralph speaks again of the need for a census. It is then they notice that few biguns had helped with the fire because most of them had slipped away to be with Jack. Samneric return with a huge log and as it burns, Ralph sits quietly by himself. Piggy proposes a feast, and he and the twins bring fruit. They eat and notice that Simon is not among them. Ralph wonders if Simon is climbing the mountain and Piggy replies, “He might be. . . . He’s cracked.” Meanwhile, Simon has slipped away and heads toward his secret place in the jungle: Simon had passed through the area of fruit trees but today the littluns had been too busy with the fire on the beach and they had not pursued him there. He went on among the creepers until he reached the great mat that was woven by the open space and crawled inside. Beyond the screen of leaves the sunlight pelted down and the butterflies danced in the middle of their unending dance. He knelt down and the arrow of the sun fell on him. That other time the air had seemed to vibrate with heat; but now it threatened. Soon the sweat was running from his long coarse hair. He shifted restlessly but there was no avoiding the sun. Presently he was thirsty, and then very thirsty. Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis

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He continued to sit. Elsewhere, on the beach, Jack is taking stock of his followers, mostly his old choir members still wearing the tattered remnants of their choir hats. He declares himself chief and there is no objection. He orders them to forget the beast and they agree. He tells them they will not dream of the beast on this side of the island and they are pleased. He informs them of his plan to draw more biguns away from the conch by killing a pig and having a feast. Then he leads them into the forest where they wound and track a large sow. They corner the wounded pig, and when she falls they are on her. Roger is particularly cruel, driving in his spear slowly by leaning his weight upon it until the sow screams in agony. Then Jack cuts its throat. Jack begins to rub the blood on his hands onto Maurice, and then they notice Roger withdraw his spear. They become hysterical because he had pinned the sow by driving the spear through its anus. They reenact the slaughter until they grow tired. They intend to drag the pig back to the beach for their feast. Then Roger notices they do not have the means to start a fire, and Jack assigns Henry, Roger, Bill, Maurice, and himself to put on paint and steal fire from the others. They decapitate the sow and leave its head impaled on a stick sharpened at both ends as a sacrifice for the beast. “The silence accepted the gift and awed them. The head remained there, dim−eyed, grinning faintly, blood blackening between the teeth. All at once they were running away, as fast as they could, through the forest toward the open beach.” As it turns out, the hunters left the head in the covert where they had trapped the sow, which is Simon’s secret place. Simon now sits and contemplates the head as it drips guts and draws flies. “The half−shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.” Simon replies to his interpretation of the head’s mocking expression: “I know that.” He is surprised to have spoken aloud. He imagines the head is telling him to “Run away. . . . Go back to the others. It was a joke really—why should you bother? You were just wrong, that’s all. Go back, child. . . .” Instead of running, Simon looks around and contemplates the beauty of his surroundings in contrast to “the pile of guts [that] was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw.” He ignores the flies that, sated from the pig, land on him and drink his sweat while “in front of [him] the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned.” Finally Simon looks the pig in the eye and sees the true beast. He begins to have an epileptic seizure. Back on the beach, Ralph and Piggy sit alone around their dying fire. Ralph gets more wood, because Samneric are not around. Piggy complains that Samneric should take two turns even though they do everything together. Ralph despairs he is unable to think like an adult, and that “The island was getting worse and worse.” Piggy complains that the others should understand the importance of the fire, but don’t. Ralph wonders, “Supposing I got like the others—not caring. What ’ud become of us?” Piggy tells him that he does not know, but they will just have to proceed as grownups would. Ralph continues to philosophically discuss the fact that he cannot understand why things break. Piggy is pleased because Ralph is finally accepting him as equal with this conversation. He suggests the problem is Jack and Ralph agrees with him. Suddenly they are attacked by painted figures from the forest, Jack’s raiding party. The raiders grab burning branches and Ralph recognizes Jack, “stark naked save for paint and a belt.” Jack lifts his spear and shouts, inviting them to his feast. “He paused and looked around. He was safe from shame or self−consciousness behind the mask of his paint. . . .” Behind him thunder booms in the sky. His seconds announce, “The Chief has spoken,” and they trot away.

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Piggy is left clutching the conch. He cannot understand why Jack did not try to take it. Ralph addresses what has just occurred to those who have remained with him: the littluns, Bill, Piggy, and the twins. He tells them that the others may be having fun, but the fire is still more important, but he cannot quite remember why. Piggy reminds him it is because they need to be rescued. Bill proposes going to the feast to complain about the hard work tending the fire. The twins agree and soon their thoughts of confronting Jack at his camp are overwhelmed by the thought of actually eating meat at the feast. Ralph tells them they can get their own meat, but the others confess to being afraid of going into the jungle themselves. They sit and think of meat while the thunderstorm builds above them. The scene shifts to Simon again, still in his secret place with the Lord of the Flies. He imagines it is taunting him, the voice coming from within himself. He tries to respond out loud, but he has sat too long and is too thirsty to form words. The beast asks Simon if he is afraid and he shakes. He laboriously forms audible words, telling it that it is only a pig’s head on a stick. Simon imagines that the head replies: “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . . You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?” The beast tries to tell him to join the others, have fun, hunt, but Simon, trapped in the approach of another advancing seizure, resists. The beast tells him to forget or else, “we shall do you, see? Jack and Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you see?” Simon imagines falling into the beast’s mouth and loses consciousness in the grip of the seizure. Discussion and Analysis True anarchy has arrived on the island. Jack has effectively split the group into two factions, fire makers and fire takers. The fire makers exist on fruit and follow responsibility. The fire takers hunt meat and have fun. Jack is their leader. The beast has finally made its appearance, and it is represented by the pig’s head. It is the Lord of the Flies, in common terms, Beelzebub, or anarchy. The violent rift within the two factions is aptly represented by the pig’s head, a grotesque monument to the boys’ increasing savagery. The power of Ralph’s faction, all of whom are tempted by meat, is weakening. Ralph himself cannot understand why they must keep the fire going or communicate that knowledge. Meanwhile, Jack’s influence grows. He organizes the raiding party and steals fire from Ralph. This scenario is not unlike Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and giving it to man, thereby unleashing violence and chaos among the mortals. The fire, in his hands, no longer represents a tool of responsibility, rather it is now a symbol of authority as the conch used to be. In Jack’s eyes, the power of the conch no longer exists. Fire is power, and with it he can hunt and roast pig to his heart’s content. Several personalities continue to evolve. Jack truly represents anarchy; he has finally broken from the circle of the conch and declared himself Chief (with a capital C). He uses the conch to call a meeting, but once the group is assembled, he does not honor its authority. Instead, he begins manipulating the boys with intimidation. In the end, when his party raids Ralph’s camp, he does not even bother to steal the conch because he has simply created his own society without the need for order. He rules with authoritarian power, without input from the others, and controls them with a combination of fear, orders, and the promise of gratification. Ralph continues to cling to responsibility, but is increasingly losing his purpose. He cannot even remember why they must keep the fire going; he only knows that they must. Since his participation in the previous hunt’s blood dance, he has slowly been seduced by Jack’s vision. For reasons not clear even to himself, though, he remains loyal to the conch. He clings to the hope that understanding will come, never realizing that it is his own inability to see this that is the root of his problems.

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Piggy too remains with the conch, but even he shows flashes of cruelty. He dismisses Simon as cracked, even though Simon is the only boy on the island that has shown him true kindness. Piggy cannot understand Jack’s disdain for the conch, either, but he really only remains loyal because of Ralph’s growing friendship and his own fear of Jack. His ability to see with only one eye is indicative of his perception of things as well. He can still see the need for order and civilization on the island, but blinded by the intrusion of violence and anarchy (as represented by Jack hitting him and breaking his glasses), he is more interested in self−preservation than in the spiritual and moral need for order. Simon, still an outsider, is the only one who begins to understand the nature of the beast. He looks directly into its face and sees the truth. Still, his conversation is imagined and comes from within himself, which is where, of course, the beast is in everyone. His discourse with the beast within himself foreshadows events symbolically. In the end of the chapter he falls into the mouth of the beast as he slips into his seizure, just as the violence that will later consume him and the others emerges from within themselves and devours them. When the beast tells him he is part of him, Simon understands that it is real. And this revelation leads the beast to reveal that because he is a part of them, that is why they have not been able to accomplish anything on the island. Their characters are too flawed. The true chilling revelation, however, is the full emergence of Roger’s character. Previously a strange loner, his personality has emerged as truly sadistic. Even more so than Jack, Roger loves the hunt for the pain he can inflict. He slowly drives his spear into the anus of the sow, torturing it more than killing it. This is the brutal extension of his previous torture of Henry on the beach. Another indication of the descent toward savagery the boys are experiencing comes through the hiding of their identities with paint. Jack especially is uninhibited when he is made−up; he brazenly steals the fire and dances naked in front of Ralph. His identity is truly transformed and made unrecognizable by the paint. All the boys know there is now a beast on the island. Only Simon knows where it is. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis Summary Simon wakes from his seizure−induced sleep and makes a decision, “What else is there to do?” There is no reply, even from within. He leaves his secret place. He travels to the mountain where the figure of the dead parachutist rocks in the breeze. Despite his fear, he approaches the figure and sees that, like the pig’s head, it too is covered with flies. Simon crawls close to the figure and looks into its face and finally understands what it truly is. “Then the wind blew again and the figure lifted, bowed, and breathed foully at him. Simon knelt on all fours and was sick till his stomach was empty.” Then, despite his revulsion, he frees the parachutist’s lines from the rock so that it is no longer trapped. He looks to the beach and sees the boys far away, and he sees too that the fire, which they moved to be away from the beast, is out. He decides, “The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.” He starts toward them down the mountain. Back at the lagoon, Piggy and Ralph are bathing idly in the pool. Ralph squirts some water at Piggy. They muse about the whereabouts of the others. Piggy says they have gone to join Jack’s party, “Just for some meat.” Ralph says he doesn’t care. Piggy suggests joining them, and Ralph stares at him until he adds, “I mean—to make sure nothing happens.” Ralph squirts some more water at his friend. Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis

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Ralph and Piggy approach Jack’s lot and hear the sounds of the party. They see the pig roasting over a fire and most of the boys lying around drinking from coconut shells. The others see them and all are silent. Ralph and Piggy approach. One of the boys tending the pig tears off a chunk of hot meat and burns Piggy with it as he runs past. Piggy yells and dances about and they all laugh at him. “Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal.” Jack orders them some meat, and orders the others to eat all they want. He demands drink, and Henry obediently brings him some. He tells them to sit and all but Ralph and Piggy obey. He asks who will join his tribe, and Ralph tells him he is still chief. They proceed to argue about possession of the conch and its boundaries of authority on the island. Several agree to join Jack and Ralph threatens to blow the conch for a meeting. Jack tells him that no one will listen. Piggy tries to get Ralph to leave. Meanwhile, a huge thunderstorm is building above them. Ralph asks them what the hunters will do in the rain without shelters. Then it begins to rain, and several littluns start panicking. Jack orders everyone to do their ritual dance. They form a circle and Roger pretends to be the pig in the middle. They chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” Piggy and Ralph, intimidated by the coming storm, join the circle. Lightning and thunder burst above them. “Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind.” At this moment, Simon emerges from the forest screaming about a dead man on a hill. He wanders into the center of the circle. The boys mistake him for the beast, fall on him, and beat him as he screams something about a body on the hill. Simon staggers to the edge of the rocks and falls over onto the beach. The boys descend upon him again, screaming and biting, and beat him to death in the sand. One by one they break up and stagger away. “Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand.” High up on the mountain, the wind catches the parachute of the dead man and carries it toward the boys as if it were awkwardly walking over the tops of the trees. The boys scatter in fear at the sight of this horrid apparition in the wind, lightning, and rain. The body is carried out to sea by the storm. Presently, the gale wanes and the tide comes in. With it are strange creatures that glow in the dark. The water and the glowing creatures surround Simon’s body and cleanse it of blood. Discussion and Analysis Several of the novel’s themes are reinforced in this chapter, but it is Golding’s evocative description of Simon’s death and burial at sea that form the chapter’s compelling core. The boys continue to move away from order and responsibility. They have joined Jack to satisfy their inherent craving for meat, and have forsaken the wisdom of shelters and responsibility. This hedonistic lifestyle is so powerful that even Ralph and Piggy join in the Bacchanalian debauch. Golding’s description of the feast places it in terms of a Roman orgiastic feast, itself a symbol of mankind’s descent into savagery through its own base desires. As the Roman empire became corrupt, with the focus more upon self−gratification, so do the boys descend. They lay about, gnawing meat down to the bone while, “Jack, painted and garlanded, sat there like an idol. There were piles of meat on green leaves near him, and fruit, and coconut shells full of drink.” Piggy and Ralph experience slight losses of their identities. Around the bathing pool they reveal this slide. Ralph no longer cares who joins Jack. Even Piggy suggests joining him for some meat. These utterances Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis

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illustrate their own inherent weaknesses and make it plausible when they join the murderous circle later. The conch is abandoned by Jack for good. He has completely broken from its power and has installed himself as absolute leader, replacing the democratic process with his authoritarian absolute rule. Like a dictator he orders those who follow him about, and they obey. He openly refuses the conch’s power by declaring none will listen if Ralph blows it. It is telling that Ralph has not even brought it to this feast. But it is around Simon that this chapter truly focuses its message. His awakening in the clearing and subsequent discovery of the true nature of the beast are described in the beautifully poetic prose Golding reserves for Simon’s character alone. This subtle choice of description implies a relationship between violence and beauty in regard to man. Spiritually, only Simon truly understands the beast, but to do so he must look it directly in the face and confront it. Only by opening himself up to truth and beauty, can he achieve the vision needed to see into the core of humanity and spot the beast. The discovery of the true nature of the beast is that, at its center, it is man. In order for there to be chaos and decay, there must first be beauty. In Simon’s idyllic retreat, the corpse of the pig has drawn flies that devour it and replace the butterflies that swarmed there. Likewise, the corpse of the man, nature’s beautiful creation, is, like the pig’s head, rotting and covered with flies. The focus of these flies, who worship at the temple of their lord, is death by violence, the ultimate destruction of beauty. On a symbolic level, it is the forces of nature that brings the beast to the boys spiritually and symbolically. Simon had to travel to the mountain to view the beast and understand it. Since he was inherently peaceful, his spiritual attempts to understand his own violent nature forced him to seek out the face of the beast to confront it. On the other hand, the boys, who are inherently violent, succumb to their natures and kill Simon, and the beast has truly arrived. This happens both spiritually when they commit the violence, and symbolically when the wind carries the corpse of the airman to them over the trees. Simon’s burial at sea by the magical glowing creatures is described in the same implications of duality. But the content of the chapter’s final paragraph, Golding’s description of the cleansing and removal of the corpse, suggests there is a relationship between man’s violent nature and the natural order of the world. Simon is lifted and carried away by forces that derive their power from the core of the earth in its manipulation of the tides. This suggested relationship is central to Golding’s theme that the great violent natural tendencies of humans are due to a flaw inherent in man’s character, a flaw planted naturally, and from which there is no civilized escape. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis New Characters Willard: A member of Jack’s tribe, beaten in punishment for an unnamed offense. Stanley: Tribal member, asks if they really killed Simon. Summary Piggy carefully watches Ralph approach. Somehow, Ralph still maintains his leadership charisma, despite what happened to Simon. He is limping, bruised, and has dead leaves in his hair. Together, they determine that only Ralph, Piggy, Samneric, and some littluns remain loyal to the conch. Ralph and Piggy sit on the platform facing the shell.

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Ralph begins to talk about Simon and what happened. He says it was murder. Piggy insists that it is no good to talk about it like that. He says it was only because they were scared. “I wasn’t scared,” said Ralph slowly, “I was—I don’t know what I was.” Piggy suggests, desperately, that Simon may still be alive and that he was only pretending. He suggests that maybe it was an accident. Ralph says, “I’m frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home.” Piggy insists again it was an accident. Piggy says they should not tell Samneric that they were at the dance, and they then rationalize that they were only on the outskirts of the dance and not really participants after all. Piggy says the four of them can live by themselves and keep the fire going. Samneric emerge from the jungle with wood. The moment is awkward. Soon they all begin making clumsy excuses as to why they were not at the dance’s conclusion. They all insist they left early, despite the fact that each of them bears physical wounds from the frenzied encounter. On the other side of the island, Roger approaches the small outcropping attached to the main island that the boys call Castle Rock. He is not surprised to be challenged by a sentry who identifies him and allows him to pass. Roger tells him he could have passed easily if he wanted to, and the sentry shows him their defenses. A log has been placed as a lever under a huge rock, ready to topple it down onto the pathway if necessary. Roger admires Jack’s leadership. The sentry tells him they are beating a boy named Willard that afternoon for some unknown reason. Roger considers this briefly, “assimilating the possibilities of irresponsible authority.” Then he joins the others. Jack is holding council, naked to the waist, his face painted in white and red. Willard lies sniveling in the background, having been beaten. Jack promises his tribe they will hunt again tomorrow. He assures them the gate is securely guarded against the others sneaking in. When a tribe member asks why they would even try, Jack’s reply is “vague but earnest.” He says they will try to spoil things. He also says the beast might try again, after having already attempted to come in disguise. The others shudder in agreement. Stanley wants to ask if they really killed Simon, but he cannot quite finish the words. Jack insists they did not, but each tribe member reacts internally to the truth. Jack orders them to sacrifice the head of all kills to the beast. Stanley agrees it was the beast. Jack says it is best to keep on the good side of it. He promises a feast for tomorrow, and Bill asks what they will use to light the fire. Jack secretly blushes behind his paint, but then commands that they will steal fire from the others. Roger and Maurice volunteer to accompany Jack on the mission. Back on the beach, Ralph is using Piggy’s glasses to light a fire. They verbally long to be rescued. When someone determines they need more wood, Piggy claims he cannot carry any because of his asthma. The other boys fetch some until Eric complains he is too tired to carry any more wood. “What’s the good?” Ralph encourages him not to think that way but cannot remember why. Piggy reminds him that it is for the rescue. They discuss the difficulties of tending the fire always, and Ralph allows them to let it go for the night. No one wants to look for wood in the dark anyway, so they return to the shelters and try to sleep. Ralph thinks about being rescued and returning home. He inadvertently makes a noise that frightens Piggy, who asks him not to do that. In another corner of the shelter, Samneric are wrestling each other while locked in the throes of a nightmare. Piggy and Ralph shout and they calm down. Piggy tells Ralph that they really need to be rescued or they will go crazy. Ralph sarcastically suggests he mail a letter to his aunt. Piggy replies solemnly, “I don’t know where she is now. And I haven’t got an envelope and a stamp. An’ there isn’t a mailbox. Or a postman.” Ralph laughs uncontrollably and Piggy cannot understand why. Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis

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Then they hear something moving outside and, fearing the beast, become quiet. “Desperately, Ralph prayed that the beast would prefer littluns.” From the jungle, voices call for Piggy, and Ralph tells him to remain silent. Piggy has an asthma attack at the same time Jack’s tribe members assault them. There is general confusion. Ralph is punched in the nose but gets the better of his opponent. He pummels the face below him until his opponent kicks him between the legs and he rolls off. The shelter collapses and the attackers disappear back into the jungle. They drag Piggy clear and assess the damage. Unbeknownst to Ralph and Eric, their stories reveal they were beating each other. Ralph was pummeling Eric’s face, and Eric kicked Ralph between the legs. The boys never realize the truth of this. Piggy says he thought they were going for the conch, and Ralph checks and tells him it is still there. But Piggy says, “I know. They didn’t come for the conch. They came for something else. Ralph—what am I going to do?” Down the beach, the attackers run along and dance triumphantly. Jack leads their victory, his chiefdom now secure. He stabs the air with his spear while Piggy’s glasses dangle from his left hand. Discussion and Analysis The last vestiges of civilization disappear in this chapter. Jack’s tribe is firmly in place, and Jack is accepted as its leader. As a leader, he is better than Ralph at achieving his goals; it is only that his goals are destructive. Unlike Ralph, Jack’s leadership involves intimidation and fear. He orders his tribe around and beats those who don’t obey. Where Ralph is unable to quell his followers’ misery over Simon’s death, Jack is able to assuage his followers’ doubts. Ralph fails with the truth and flimsy rationalization, while Jack assertively covers the truth with empty rhetoric. Ralph is unable to organize the fire and cannot even remember why it is important. Jack sets a clear goal for his tribe, and they carry it out. The stealing of Piggy’s glasses represents not only the triumph of violence and chaos, but the destruction of civilization and vision. Piggy, the one true believer in the sanctity of the conch and order, is now blind and helpless. Further indications of the ineffectiveness of civilization in the face of chaos are the feeble attempts of Ralph and Eric to fend off their attackers. They blindly fight one another and succeed only in becoming their own worst enemies. Not recognizing the primitive sides of their own nature, they struggle with themselves and are ultimately self−destructive. Jack leads his tribe behind his mask of paint, which camouflages his own shortcomings. His followers cannot see his inability to take the fire into account as he blushes at forgetting they don’t possess it. They can, however, see his instant decision to steal the fire and they follow blindly. Roger again emerges as a figure whose frightening personality could rival Jack’s. When the sentry tells him Jack is beating a follower, Roger muses on the possibilities of irresponsible authority. In such an atmosphere, where there are no legal or moral restraints, he is free to act as he pleases and satisfy his sadistic tendencies. Whereas Jack is acting in his capacity to submit his own brand of anarchic rule, Roger sees it as an opportunity to indulge his dark desires. He is more deliberate in his approach to chaos than Jack. Unlike Jack, who sees it as necessity, Roger views it as opportunity. He is the worst result of the breakdown of authority. The conch has become meaningless. Its usefulness has been so limited, it is no longer even a target for Jack’s usurpation of power. Fire has taken its place and represents the true mantle of power on the island. Fire, which could have been used for good, is now captured and subjugated to serving a bestial master and his bestial Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis

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desires. Fire is power, and Jack now wields it. With Simon dead there is no longer any chance of understanding the terrible nature of humanity on the island. Ralph comes close to Simon’s insight when he admits to being frightened of himself and the others, but he cannot understand why. He does not see the beast inside his own nature, and therefore cannot recognize what he is fighting against. This is related to his inability to remember why they must maintain the fire for rescue. The beast is loose. The Lord of the Flies has unlimited dominion over the boys. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 11 Summary and Analysis Summary It is dawn on the beach, and Samneric watch as Ralph tries unsuccessfully to restart the fire from embers in the ashes. “Piggy sat expressionless behind the luminous wall of his myopia.” He is livid over the loss of his glasses, insisting Ralph call a meeting, even though it is only him, Ralph, and Samneric. Ralph blows the conch and Piggy takes it and says, “I can’t see no more and I got to get my glasses back. Awful things has been done on this island. I voted for you for chief. He’s the only one who ever got anything done. So now you speak, Ralph, and tell us what. Or else—.” Ralph tries to respond but is unable to bring his response to a definite point. He labors the point that they would have given the fire to Jack if he had asked, and now they cannot build a signal fire for rescue. He is unable to say more. Piggy insists that Ralph do something. Ralph considers washing and brushing their hair and going civilly, to prove they aren’t savages. Sam suggests taking spears and Piggy defiantly refuses. He declares he is going to tell Jack Merridew what he feels in a proper manner. The others tell him he will get hurt and he replies, “What can he do more than he has?” Piggy insists on carrying the conch when he goes, telling them: ‘I’m going to him with this conch in my hands. I’m going to hold it out. Look, I’m goin’ to say, you’re stronger than I am and you haven’t got asthma. You can see, I’m goin’ to say, and with both eyes. But I don’t ask for my glasses back, not as a favor. I don’t ask you to be a sport, I’ll say, not because you’re strong, but because what’s right’s right. Give me my glasses, I’m going to say—you got to!’ Moved by Piggy’s emotional appeal, Ralph agrees to try. He gives the conch to Piggy, who flushes with pride at carrying it. They eat some fruit, discuss their appearance, and Ralph again suggests cleaning up. Eventually they decide to go as they are. Ralph declares that Jack and his group will be no better. Eric points out that Jack and his group are painted. “The others nodded. They understood only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought.” Eric again suggests painting themselves and Ralph yells “No paint!” He screams at them that they need smoke. Piggy adds, too hastily, that it’s for rescue. “I knew that,” shouted Ralph . . . “I knew it all the time. I hadn’t forgotten.” Piggy backs down. The twins stare at Ralph “as though they were seeing him for the first time.” They move toward Castle Rock, and stealthily approach behind the tall grass. They see smoke from the fire, a thin wisp. They step out of the grass. All but Piggy are armed with spears. They advance slowly. Roger, on sentry, stops them and demands identification. Ralph tells him, “You can see who I am. . . . Stop being silly.” Chapter 11 Summary and Analysis

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He blows the conch loudly and Jack’s followers appear, “painted out of recognition.” He announces he is calling an assembly. No one moves. Ralph starts forward and leaves Piggy kneeling on the stone bridge behind. Roger watches them carefully with his hand on the lever of the rock poised over the bridge. Ralph declares an assembly. There is silence. He declares it again and demands to see Jack. The group makes excuses for Jack, but then Jack appears from the jungle, his features hidden by paint, but “identifiable by personality and red hair.” His followers emerge from the jungle carrying the headless corpse of a pig. Jack tells him to go, but Ralph angrily asks about Piggy’s glasses, and Ralph calls Jack a thief. Jack rushes him with his spear. Ralph parries and lashes Jack across the face with his own spear. They spar again and stand facing each other, keeping just out of reach. Piggy desperately tries to remind Ralph not to forget why they came. Ralph remembers, puts down his spear and appeals to Jack for Piggy’s glasses. He looks into Jack’s painted face and cannot remember what he used to look like. He reminds the others that they need the signal fire also. They will be here forever without it. Jack’s tribe laughs at him and Ralph is enraged. He calls them “painted fools” and explains how he is unable to keep the fire going with so few people helping. Jack orders them taken and his followers obey. “Samneric protested out of the heart of civilization,” but their spears are taken and they are clumsily tied up. Jack goads Ralph. “See? They do what I want.” Ralph’s temper breaks and he screams at Jack, “You’re a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!” He charges Jack and they fight. Behind them, Piggy begs to speak. He holds up the conch and surprisingly, all quiet down. Roger, his one hand still on the lever, throws stones at Piggy but misses. Piggy lifts the shell and says, “Which is better—to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? . . . Which is better—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? . . . Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?” As Piggy speaks, Jack backs up to his tribe and prepares to rush them. Above, Roger, “with a delirious sense of abandonment,” releases his rock. The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet on his back across that square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy’s arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed. Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone. Jack screams that that’s what Ralph will get. The conch is gone. He is chief now. He hurls his spear at Ralph, grazing his side. The others, including Roger, hurl their spears as well. Ralph turns and flees, leaps over the headless body of the pig, and disappears into the forest. Jack starts to pursue him, but stops at the pig and orders the others back to the fort. Roger has joined them to look at Piggy. The others avoid him slightly because of the new “hangman’s horror [that] clung around him.”

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Jack begins brutally probing Samneric and asking them why they came to him with spears. Roger tells him, “That’s not the way.” Then, “Roger edged past the chief, only just avoiding pushing him with his shoulder. The yelling ceased, and Samneric lay looking up in quiet terror. Roger advanced upon them as one wielding a nameless authority.” Discussion and Analysis For one last time, Ralph is in control, with Piggy as his secondary advisor. He remembers why they need smoke, and he manfully leads the expedition to Jack’s in a last−ditch attempt to regain civilized ways on the island. His identity is intact, while Jack’s and his followers have obscured themselves completely, and, having abandoned themselves totally to savagery, are completely hidden behind their paint. The destruction of the conch and the death of blind Piggy are the climax of Golding’s thesis. At this point, the boys have truly descended irreversibly into savagery due to the defects in their personalities. Jack has completely lost himself in his twisted vision, and he rules in an authoritarian manner behind an anonymous mask. Ralph’s inability to understand the reasoning behind his desire for civilization and rules has made his leadership truly ineffective, with tragic results. Piggy’s blind faith in a system of rules has failed him, and he never understood why. His vision gone, he is as dispensable as his namesakes, the island pigs. The boys have blindly allowed Jack to lead them down his path, and their identities are obscured behind the paint as well. They give Jack their unquestioning faith, as long as he gives them pleasure in return. It is really only Roger who has received satisfaction from the entire situation. Unlike Jack, there is no sense of regret or wrongdoing in Roger. His sadistic tendencies are given full reign, and he comes into his own. He kills Piggy with “delirious abandonment.” His rock−throwing episode, from earlier in the novel when he abused Henry, is repeated with a graver intensity. In the end, when he brushes past Jack, almost pushing him with his shoulder, it is easy to imagine who the next leader on the island will be, and in what direction Jack’s brand of authority is heading. The destructive power released by Roger when he rolled the rock is indicative of the brute force that is only one step beyond Jack’s authoritarian rule. Roger’s chilling approach toward the twins ends the chapter, and hints what is to come in the book for the boys. Of course, the destruction of the conch, and its truly blind devotee, marks the end of all vestiges of civilization on the island. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 12 Summary and Analysis New Character Naval officer: He is the first ashore from the rescue ship to encounter the boys. Summary Ralph lay in hiding in the jungle assessing his wounds. He is close to Castle Rock for his pursuers did not follow him far. He glimpses a savage he believed was Bill, but “This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt.” As the afternoon wanes, he sneaks closer and sees Robert, armed with a spear, idly manning a sentry post. Behind Robert, a cooking fire is roasting the pig. Ralph’s mouth waters. A figure gives Robert a piece of meat and Robert begins to eat. Ralph retreats to eat some fruit, knowing he is momentarily safe as the feast progresses. He also knows that any bond between he and Jack is gone, and Jack will pursue him forever. “No,” he rationalizes. “They’re not as bad as that. It was an accident.” Chapter 12 Summary and Analysis

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He approaches the fruit, and two littluns, frightened of his bloodied appearance, run off. He eats and approaches the empty shelters. He cannot stay there for he is too alone. He wishes to try again with Jack so he walks toward Castle Rock again. He wanders into Simon’s old hiding place and sees the pig’s head mounted on a stick. It is only bone now, having been picked clean by the flies. He knows the skull is significant, but cannot understand why. It stares at him and grins. The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers but won’t tell. A sick fear and rage swept him. Fiercely he hit out at the filthy thing in front of him that bobbed like a toy and came back, still grinning into his face, so that he lashed and cried out in loathing. Then he was licking his bruised knuckles and looking at the bare stick, while the skull lay in two pieces, its grin now six feet across. He wrenched the quivering stick from the crack and held it as a spear between him and the white pieces. Then he backed away, keeping his face to the skull that lay grinning at the sky. That night, Ralph stealthily approaches Castle Rock, where he sees another armed sentry. He feels his own isolation acutely. He moans as he rests and finds he cannot sleep despite his weariness. He longs to walk among his friends and have all the old ways back. But instead, he lies alone, knowing he is an outcast, “Cos I had some sense.” He listens to the familiar chant from Castle Rock, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” Presently, two sentries replace the single guard and Ralph sadly recognizes their shape. Samneric are now part of Jack’s tribe. After a bit, he approaches them and calls out to them. They do not hear him and he must call out louder. He is worried because the only weapon he has is the spear that held up the pig’s skull. He safely gets their attention and they tell him he must leave. Ralph tells them he came to see them. He notices they are painted and that they are ashamed of this. Samneric tells him again to leave. They tell Ralph they were made to join the tribe, and that Jack and Roger hate him and plan to hunt him in the morning. They tell Ralph that they will form a line across the island and hunt him like a pig. Ralph asks what they will do when they catch him. Samneric give him some meat and tell him that Roger has sharpened a stick at both ends. It is clear from their reply that they fear Roger more than Jack, that he did something awful to them to force them to join the tribe. Ralph leaves. He cannot comprehend the significance of the sharpened stick. Behind him, he hears Samneric arguing with someone. He eats the meat and settles into some vines for a deep sleep. He awakes next morning to the sound of the hunters pursuing him. Ralph hides in an indentation left by the rock that killed Piggy. He hears Jack, Roger, and one of the twins approaching. Roger is torturing the twin to reveal where he had spoken to Ralph the night before. The twin, in pain, reveals the position. They begin to roll rocks off Castle Rock and into the thicket to flush him out. They roll a huge rock down and almost crush him. Then two savages surround his thicket and thrust spears in. Ralph thrusts back and wounds someone. They cannot reach him in the thicket. Presently he smells smoke and realizes they are trying to burn him out. Ralph flees and attacks a small savage blocking his path. He gets past and they pursue him, tightening the cordon around him, not giving him time to think. He considers breaking the line, climbing a tree, or hoping they will pass. None of these are attractive alternatives for him. He decides to hide and retreats into what used to be Simon’s secret place. The fire approaches, leaving a huge curtain of smoke between the island and the sun. He hears the fire as it prepares to consume the fruit trees, and he wonders what they will eat tomorrow. Chapter 12 Summary and Analysis

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A savage approaches him, but doesn’t see him. A herd of pigs, flushed by the fire and the hunters, runs by. Ralph prepares to attack. The fear of the implied purpose of the sharpened stick drives him. The savage sticks his face in the thicket. Ralph charges him and gets past. A spear flies past him as he runs. He avoids a bush that bursts into flames. He passes the shelters as they burst into flames. He falls onto the beach and rolls over and over with his arm up, preparing to beg for mercy. Ralph looks up into the face of a uniformed naval officer peering at him curiously. He asks Ralph if there are any adults around. Dazed, Ralph shakes his head. The savages emerge from the jungle and look at the naval officer. “Fun and games,” the officer guesses. Then behind the boys, the jungle bursts into flames. “We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?” Ralph tells him two have been killed. The officer is astonished, both at the deaths and at the appalling appearance of the children. Others emerge from the jungle. Percival Wemys Madison approaches the officer and attempts to recite the litany of his name, address, and phone number, but this time he cannot even remember his name. The officer tells Ralph they will rescue them and asks how many there are. Ralph does not know. The officer asks who’s boss and Ralph tells him he is. Jack, standing in the background, unpainted now and wearing the remains of his choir cap, starts forward at this, then stops. Piggy’s glasses still hang on his belt. The officer is appalled at the lack of organization. “I should have thought that a pack of British boys—you’re all British, aren’t you?—would have been able to put up a better show than that. . . .” Ralph tries to explain that they cooperated at first. “The officer nodded helpfully. ‘I know. Jolly good show. Like The Coral Island.’” Ralph just stares at him. Then he thinks of the lost beauty of the island, Simon and Piggy, and he begins to weep. Others join him. “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.” The officer is embarrassed by this display. “He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.” Discussion and Analysis It is obvious that Roger has tortured Samneric into submission and has dark plans for Ralph. This is never quite revealed, but the sharpened stick suggests Roger’s previous anal impalement of the wounded pig, and the mounting of the first sacrifice to the beast. Ralph’s contemplation of the skull of the Lord of the Flies is significant. He does not understand it, as he has not understood the lack of cooperation on the island previously. All of Ralph’s inability to comprehend stem from his not recognizing the beast inherent in his own nature. He does not understand Jack’s desire to hunt, he does not understand why he must maintain order, and he does not remember why they need the fire for good things. Even as he confronts the face of the beast, he is not a deep enough thinker to understand. Like all violence, the end result of destruction is that it consumes itself like a disease in a dying body. The flies have consumed the flesh of the pig, and only the skull is left. Still, Ralph’s attempt to destroy it only results in the skull breaking and appearing larger than before. Then, without knowing why, his instincts for self−preservation take over and he takes the spear. He is willing to fight and kill to survive. He is willing to use the beast to survive. He does not see the connection that his actions have caused the beast to become larger and more powerful just as his striking out at the skull caused it to split into a larger grin.

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The bitter irony of the story’s end is that the smoke the boys use to flush Ralph for the kill is the signal for their rescue. Jack, or perhaps even Roger, unleash their power in order to kill Ralph: the last remaining vestige of civilization. They do not seem to care, or perhaps they do not understand, that what they have done will destroy them all. Like Ralph, Jack is unable to see the other side of his own nature. Ironically, it is Ralph’s vision that is realized when a ship arrives after having spotted their smoke. The officer, representing newly discovered civilization, is appalled at the condition of the children. He cannot understand why they were not able to carry on like good British schoolboys and behave like the children in The Coral Island. But, like Ralph and Jack, he does not see the duality of his own nature. He is on the beach, shocked at the boys’ lack of civilization, yet he is an officer on a boat in which the main function is to hunt and kill. The boys’ true loss of innocence is expressed when Percival Wemys Madison, whose only flimsy hold on the past was his memorized name, phone number, and address, can no longer even remember his name. Ralph is unable again to express the truth behind his actions. He accepts responsibility for the island and weeps for the loss of innocence. Like Simon, he has come to a true understanding of the Lord of the Flies, or the “darkness of man’s heart.” For the first time he seems to recognize the true value of Piggy. Jack stands cowardly in the background. He has removed his makeup and put on his choir hat. Only Piggy’s glasses on his belt remain as a testament to his savagery. He wisely declines to accept leadership responsibility now that blame will probably be assigned. Like a true anarchist, he is able to shed his personality if it will suit his purpose. Golding’s final irony lies in the person of the naval officer. He is appalled at the savagery of the children. He is embarrassed by their behavior and lack of decorum, and he is amazed at how easily they reverted to warlike ways. Yet when he looks away from their savagery, his gaze settles on the craft he arrived and will leave in, a battle cruiser, an efficient weapon of war. Like Ralph and Jack, and the dirty children in front of him, he cannot comprehend the violent tendencies of his own nature. Like Ralph, he clings to a code of civilization he does not understand. Like Jack, he unquestioningly follows his primitive desires. The beautiful island burns behind them. It is a metaphor for society and the world, a paradise, destroyed by the primitive instincts of man. Golding has proven his point within the restrictive confines of his story. The children of the island all possessed flaws that lead to their inevitable moral destruction, as represented by the physical destruction of the island. The fire that would have consumed them all, like the fire of the all−consuming war, is the power of the beast released. In each case, the characters contributed to the eventual destruction of their island, as the war and the rest of mankind is destroying the world. Ralph clung to a belief in order, without ever recognizing his own savage instincts. He occasionally succumbed to them, but never understood them. This was why he was able to fail as a leader and an organizer. Piggy held stubbornly to a belief in order and intellectual thought, but his inability to understand chaos, or even allow for it a little, caused his death. His blind insistence on order tended to bring out the worst in Jack and Roger, and his isolation by pomposity and physical laziness did not make his viewpoint any more appealing to the others. Jack was the antithesis of Ralph, yet mirrored Ralph’s inability to see the other side of his nature. He was violent and anarchic, and sought rule by absolute power. His belief in his own authoritarian rules would have eventually lead to the destruction of them all.

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Roger was, like Jack, a product of anarchy on the island. His own perverse character was emerging unfettered as civilization on the island gradually disappeared. He was probably the next in line for leadership, as his brute force was the direction Jack’s administration was heading. His contempt for Jack was even beginning to show when he took over the task of torturing Samneric, and he one−upped Jack’s regime of fear by killing Piggy. He is the worst in terms of what Golding says lay hidden in man’s nature. Finally, Simon, able to see the beast, yet unable to tell the others the truth, becomes the truest victim of the beast. His death is the death of truth and beauty, powerful enough to spot the beast, but too fragile to fight the inherent flaws of humanity. In the end, the cyclical nature of events in the novel returns the boys to the war−torn world from which they came, removing them from the war−torn world in which they created and lived. On a final note, the two major characters without violent tendencies, Piggy and Simon, do not survive. They are unable to recognize their own id (as mentioned in the beginning of the guide as the modern equivalent of Beelzebub in man’s nature), which ensures the survival of the host at all costs, and therefore lack the inherent ability to survive. The death of wisdom (Piggy) and spirituality (Simon) become inevitable on the island as the other boys progress toward savagery. This parallels the events in the outside world of Golding’s novel (as the atomic war rages on), and perhaps in the real world that Golding witnessed during World War II. The message contained therein, then, must be that spiritually and intellectually, mankind cannot survive as the modern world careens towards chaos and destruction. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Quizzes 1. Chapter 1 Questions and Answers 2. Chapter 2 Questions and Answers 3. Chapter 3 Questions and Answers 4. Chapter 4 Questions and Answers 5. Chapter 5 Questions and Answers 6. Chapter 6 Questions and Answers 7. Chapter 7 Questions and Answers 8. Chapter 8 Questions and Answers 9. Chapter 9 Questions and Answers 10. Chapter 10 Questions and Answers 11. Chapter 11 Questions and Answers 12. Chapter 12 Questions and Answers

Chapter 1 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Who are the first two characters to appear in the story? 2. What do Ralph and Piggy find in the small lagoon?

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3. How does Ralph summon the others? 4. Who is elected chief? 5. For what purpose does Jack Merridew want his choir used? 6. What assignment does Ralph give Piggy instead of allowing him to join the exploration expedition? 7. Who does Ralph select to accompany him on the expedition? 8. What weapon does Jack possess? 9. What does Simon call the strange bushes they find? 10. Why does the piglet trapped in the creeper vines escape? Answers 1. The first two characters to appear in the story are Ralph and Piggy. 2. Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell. 3. Ralph summons the others by blowing the conch shell. 4. Ralph is elected chief. 5. Jack wants the choir to become hunters. 6. Ralph tells Piggy to get everybody’s name. 7. Ralph selects Jack and Simon. 8. Jack has a large sheath−knife. 9. Simon calls the bushes candle−buds. 10. The piglet escapes because Jack hesitates to kill it. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 2 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Where does Ralph get the idea for using the conch to speak? 2. Why is Jack so enthusiastic about the possibility of creating rules? 3. Which boy pessimistically introduces the reality that they may never be rescued? 4. Who first mentions “the beastie”? Chapter 2 Questions and Answers

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5. Who is the last to join the boys on the mountain to make a fire? 6. How do the boys start the fire? 7. How does the fire become uncontrollable? 8. Who defends Piggy from Jack for not helping with the fire? 9. How does Piggy first notice a boy is missing, even though he doesn’t know his name? 10. What causes the drum−roll sound the boys hear in the fire? Answers 1. Ralph’s idea for order came from his school back home. 2. Jack is excited at the prospect of enforcing the rules. 3. Roger, the “dark boy,” first suggests this pessimistic notion. 4. “The beastie” is first mentioned by the small boy with the mulberry−colored birthmark 5. Piggy is the last to join the fire makers. 6. The boys start the fire with Piggy’s glasses. 7. The fire quickly spreads when sparks from it ignite the surrounding jungle. 8. Simon defends Piggy. 9. Piggy doesn’t see the boy with the mulberry−colored birthmark. 10. The drum−roll sound is caused by live trees exploding from the heat of the fire. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 3 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What sort of weapon is Jack using to hunt pigs? 2. How does Jack know there is a pig in the creepers ahead of him? 3. How are the boys collecting drinking water? 4. Who helps Ralph with the hut building? 5. How many huts have the boys managed to build? 6. What does Jack claim to feel behind him when he hunts? Chapter 3 Questions and Answers

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7. What does Jack suggest will make him a better hunter? 8. Which boy does Jack view as odd? 9. Where does Simon go in the jungle? 10. When do the candle−buds that Simon sees bloom? Answers 1. Jack uses a five−foot sharpened stick. 2. Jack found the pig’s fresh droppings. 3. They collect drinking water in coconut shells. 4. Simon helps Ralph build the huts. 5. Simon and Ralph have built two huts. 6. Jack claims to feel “the beastie” behind him. 7. Jack suggests painting his face for camouflage. 8. Jack thinks Simon is odd. 9. Simon goes to a hidden clearing concealed in the jungle. 10. The candle−buds bloom at night under the stars. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 4 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Which three littluns are playing on the beach as the chapter opens? 2. Who destroys the littluns’ sandcastles? 3. What does Roger do to cruelly bother Henry? 4. What substances and colors does Jack use to paint his face? 5. What item does Piggy suggest they build with a stick? 6. What does Ralph spot on the horizon? 7. Why is the signal fire out? 8. What violence does Jack commit toward Piggy? Chapter 4 Questions and Answers

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9. How did the hunters kill the pig? 10. Who gives Piggy meat despite Jack’s objection? Answers 1. Percival, Henry, and Johnny are playing on the beach. 2. Roger and Maurice destroy the sandcastles. 3. Roger throws rocks at Henry and then hides. 4. Jack uses clay and charcoal to paint his face white, red, and black. 5. Piggy suggests they build a sundial. 6. Ralph spots a passing ship. 7. The signal fire is out because the hunters have elected to follow the camouflaged Jack after a pig rather than tend the fire. 8. Jack punches Piggy in the stomach and smacks him in the head, breaking his glasses. 9. Jack cuts the pig’s throat. 10. Simon shares his roasted pig with Piggy. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 5 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What time of day does Ralph unwisely choose for this assembly? 2. Which matters does Ralph intend to address and solve? 3. Who first speaks of the beast in the jungle? 4. Who first introduces the notion that the beast comes from the sea? 5. Which of the boys is the first to denounce the power of the conch? 6. Who does Ralph chastise for wandering in the jungle at night? 7. Which of the boys suggests that the beast could be from the sea because all the creatures in the sea haven’t been found yet? 8. Who recognizes the true nature of the beast on the island, but is unable to express it to others? 9. Who challenges Ralph’s leadership by saying, “You can’t hunt, you can’t sing”? Chapter 5 Questions and Answers

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10. Which two boys desperately try to convince Ralph to remain as chief after Jack breaks up the meeting? Answers 1. Ralph chooses the early evening when the shadows and diminishing light are changing everything. 2. Ralph intends to solve problems with the fire, shelters, and lavatory habits. 3. The littlun Phil first speaks of the beast in the jungle. 4. The littlun Percival first speaks of the beast from the sea. 5. Jack first denounces the power of the conch. 6. Ralph chastises Simon. 7. Maurice suggests the beast could be an undiscovered creature from the sea. 8. It is Simon who knows but cannot tell. 9. Jack challenges Ralph’s leadership based upon his own criteria for leadership. 10. Piggy tries to convince Ralph to remain as chief in order for Ralph to protect him from Jack. Simon tries to convince Ralph to remain as chief because he believes it is the only way to protect themselves against the true beast. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 6 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What falls onto the island during the night? 2. Who is tending the fire when the “beast” is discovered? 3. What makes the “beast” move? 4. What does Ralph tell Jack to do at the meeting when Jack tries to talk out of turn? 5. What do the boys discover when they get to the tail end of the island? 6. Who volunteers to go first and see if the beast is ahead? 7. How does Jack view the island abutment they discover? 8. What do the boys do when they enter the small island? 9. What does Ralph urge them to concentrate on instead? 10. Who leads the boys off the island? Chapter 6 Questions and Answers

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Answers 1. A dead pilot parachutes onto the island at night. 2. Samneric are tending the fire. 3. The “beast” moves when wind catches in its parachute. 4. Ralph tells Jack to sit down. 5. They discover a smaller coral island attached to the larger one by a stone bridge. 6. Ralph volunteers. 7. Jack sees it as a potential fort. 8. The boys roll a large rock into the ocean. 9. Ralph urges them to concentrate on the signal fire. 10. Jack leads them off the island. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 7 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. For what does Ralph long when the boys first stop and rest? 2. Of what does Ralph dream when he contemplates the sea? 3. Who correctly interprets Ralph’s reverie as a longing to be rescued? 4. What do Jack and the boys do when the boar charges? 5. What does Ralph do when the boar charges? 6. Who plays the pig in the boys’ mock pig−killing scene? 7. Which of the boys volunteers to return to Piggy alone in the dark? 8. Which three boys continue to the mountain to encounter the beast? 9. Which part of the beast do the boys see? 10. What do the boys do when they see the beast? Answers 1. Ralph longs for a bath, haircut, and manicure.

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2. Ralph dreams of a cottage where he used to live and of rescue. 3. Simon knows what Ralph is thinking. 4. Jack and the hunters dive for cover when the boar charges. 5. Ralph stands his ground when the boar charges and hits it in the snout with his spear. 6. Robert plays the pig and is hurt. 7. Simon volunteers to return to Piggy. 8. Ralph, Jack, and Roger continue up the mountain. 9. The boys see what they believe to be the beast’s face. 10. The boys drop their spears and flee down the mountain. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 8 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Who calls the assembly to discuss the beast? 2. What lie does Jack tell the others at the assembly? 3. What does Jack do before he leaves the assembly? 4. What is Piggy’s radical idea concerning the fire? 5. What feast does Piggy supply for Ralph and the fire builders? 6. How does Roger help in killing the sow? 7. What do the boys do with the pig after they kill it? 8. Who converses with the pig’s head about the nature of the beast? 9. What does Jack’s raiding party steal? 10. What threat does the beast make to Simon at the end of the chapter? Answers 1. Jack calls the assembly. 2. Jack tells them he and Roger faced the beast while Ralph fled. 3. Jack quits the assembly. Chapter 8 Questions and Answers

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4. Piggy suggests building the fire near the huts instead of on the mountain. 5. Piggy supplies a feast of fruit. 6. Roger pins the sow by driving his spear through her anus. 7. The boys cut off the pig’s head and mount it on a stick. 8. Simon imagines speaking with the pig’s head. 9. Jack’s raiding party steals burning sticks to make their own fire. 10. The beast tells Simon that all the boys will kill him. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 9 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. In Simon’s secret place, which source of food do the flies prefer? 2. Where does Simon decide to go? 3. What does Simon do to the figure on the mountainside? 4. Who suggests Ralph and Piggy should go to the party? 5. How is it that Ralph and Piggy’s awkward presence at the party is accepted? 6. What does Jack declare about the conch to Ralph? 7. What is the weather like toward the end of the party? 8. What chant do the boys sing as they dance? 9. Who emerges from the jungle with the secret of the beast? 10. What scares the boys and sends them scattering? Answers 1. The flies prefer the pig’s blood to the blood from Simon’s nose. 2. Simon decides to travel to the mountain and look into the face of the beast. 3. Simon frees the parachutist’s lines from the rock. 4. Piggy suggests that he and Ralph join Jack’s party. 5. The boys all laugh at Piggy and that breaks the tension. Chapter 9 Questions and Answers

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6. Jack declares he will no longer obey the conch. 7. The weather becomes threatening: rain, thunder, and lightning. 8. The boys chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” 9. Simon emerges from the jungle and is killed before he can reveal the secret of the beast. 10. The boys scatter at the sight of the dead parachutist “walking” along the treetops as he is carried by the wind. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 10 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Who is left among the boys that remain loyal to Ralph? 2. What rationalization do Ralph and Piggy arrive at concerning their role in Simon’s death? 3. What does Jack plan to do in order to enable his followers to have another feast? 4. Why is Roger so excited at the prospect of the beating of Willard? 5. What sacrifice to the beast does Jack order? 6. Why will it be so difficult for Ralph’s group to keep the fire going? 7. How does Ralph suggest Piggy contact his aunt? 8. Who does Ralph fight during the attack? 9. What does Ralph’s attacker do to him during the fight? 10. What did the attackers steal? Answers 1. Piggy, Samneric, and some littluns remain with Ralph. 2. Ralph and Piggy rationalize that they were on the outside of the circle and did not really help beat Simon to death. 3. Jack plans to steal Piggy’s glasses to start a fire. 4. Roger is excited because he will be able to indulge his own dark desires under Jack’s irresponsible rule. 5. Jack orders his hunters to always sacrifice the head of their kills to the beast.

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6. Ralph’s group cannot keep the fire going because they are so few and Piggy will not help with the physical labor. 7. Ralph suggests Piggy should write a letter to his Aunt. 8. Ralph accidentally fights Eric during the attack. 9. Eric knees Ralph between the legs. 10. The attackers steal Piggy’s glasses. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 11 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. In the beginning of the chapter, what does Piggy tell Ralph to do with the conch? 2. What reason will Piggy give Jack for the return of his glasses? 3. What does Ralph declare their appearance will be when they approach Jack? 4. Who challenges the boys on their approach to Castle Rock? 5. When Jack appears, what has he been doing? 6. What does Ralph call Jack that provokes a fight? 7. What happens to Samneric after the fight? 8. What is Roger doing during Piggy’s plea for a return to decency? 9. Who releases the rock that kills Piggy and destroys the conch? 10. Who takes over the questioning of Samneric from Jack at the chapter’s end? Answers 1. Piggy tells Ralph to blow the conch to call for an assembly. 2. Piggy will tell Jack to return them because it is the right thing to do. 3. Ralph declares they will wear “No paint!” when they approach Jack. 4. Roger challenges Ralph’s approaching party. 5. Jack has been hunting. He has a headless pig corpse with him. 6. Ralph calls Jack a thief.

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7. Samneric are disarmed and captured by Jack’s tribe. 8. Roger throws rocks at Piggy. 9. Roger releases the rock. 10. Roger takes over the questioning of Samneric from Jack. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Chapter 12 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Where does Ralph first hide from his pursuers? 2. Who gives Ralph meat from Jack’s feast? 3. Why did Samneric join Jack’s tribe? 4. What has Roger prepared for Ralph? 5. How does Jack’s tribe flush Ralph from hiding? 6. What does Ralph discover when he flees to the beach? 7. How does Jack appear on the beach? 8. What boy cannot remember his name? 9. Who takes responsibility for the events on the island? 10. Why is the naval officer disappointed in the boys? Answers 1. Ralph hides in the bushes near Castle Rock. 2. Sam gives Ralph some meat. 3. Samneric were tortured by Roger until they joined the tribe. 4. Roger has prepared a stick sharpened at both ends for Ralph. 5. Jack’s tribe flushes Ralph by setting the jungle on fire. 6. Ralph discovers a ship has come to rescue them. 7. When Jack appears on the beach, he has put on his choir cap. Piggy’s glasses are on his belt, but he is not described as wearing his makeup.

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8. Percival Wemys Madison cannot remember his name. 9. Ralph takes responsibility by admitting to being the leader. Jack considers speaking up, but is silent. 10. The naval officer is disappointed because the boys did not behave like the good little British schoolchildren in Coral Island. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Characters Bill Like Maurice, Bill is initially confused by the clash of values among the boys. At first he seems seduced by Jack's painted face into joining the hunters in their anonymity; yet he then turns fearful and runs away. Eventually, however, Bill imagines group hunting and "being savages" as "jolly good fun" and thus a way of banishing these fears. He tries to convince Ralph's group to accept Jack's invitation to the feast, thinking that Jack is less fearful than Ralph about going into the jungle to hunt. Soon he has defected to Jack's group and is seen painted like a savage and stalking Ralph. Eric See Samneric Henry Henry is the biggest littlun and a relative of the littlun with the mulberry−marked face who disappears after the first big fire. Henry is the object of Roger's seemingly innocent game of throwing stones. Later, Henry defects to Jack's camp and is part of the raiding party that steals fire from Ralph and Piggy. Johnny Along with Percival, Johnny is the smallest of the littluns. He is described as "well built, with fair hair and a natural belligerence," which he soon shows by throwing sand in Percival's face. Later, Johnny is shown crying when he thinks Eric may be bleeding from his encounter with Jack's fire−stealers. The littlun with the mulberry−marked face Otherwise unidentified except as a distant relative of Henry, this littlun was noticed immediately after the boys came on the island; he is the first boy to mention seeing a "snake−thing," a "beastie [who] came in the dark." He is not seen after the fire got out of control. He is therefore the focus of much anxiety, especially among Ralph's group, which had tried to make a special point of looking after the littluns. Percival Wemys Madison Percival Wemys Madison, of the Vicarage, Harcourt St. Anthony, Hants, as he has been taught to introduce himself, is "mouse−colored and had not been very attractive even to his mother." Along with Johnny, Percival is the smallest littlun. When Ralph and Piggy are trying to seek a rational explanation for Phil's dream of having seen and fought with "twisty things in the trees," they call on Percival as someone who was supposed to have been up that night and who might have been mistaken for the fearful thing that has so terrorized the littluns. But Percival's mere recitation of his name and address is enough to set off sad memories of his former life. His wails, along with his speculation that the beast comes from the sea, soon set off the other littluns on similar crying jags.

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Maurice One of the "biguns," he is next in size to Jack among the choir boys. Like most of the boys, he is a mixture of potentially good and bad traits. Which traits are developed depends on how strong the call of society and law is over the powers of darkness and savagery. In the beginning, Maurice is helpful by suggesting that the boys use green branches on the fire to make smoke. He also makes the "littluns" forget their sorrow by pretending to fall off the twister log and making them laugh. Like Piggy, Maurice wants to believe that the world is a scientific place where human fears can be explained and needs can be met. Yet Maurice, who "of all the boys . . . was the most at home" on the island, is still fearful that "we don't know [about the beast], do we? Not certainly, I mean. . . ." Giving in to his fears, Maurice joins Roger in asserting his power by kicking over the littluns' sand castles. He also suggests adding a drum to the mock pig−killing ritual. Maurice's capitulation to his repressive leanings is complete when he defects to Jack and helps him steal fire from Piggy and Ralph. Jack Merridew Jack would have preferred to be called Merridew, his last name, rather than a "kid name." This attitude may suggest the "simple arrogance" that causes Jack to propose himself for chief. After all, he exclaims, "I'm chapter chorister and head boy." (The rough American equivalents of these positions might be president of the glee club and head of the student council.) It's true that Jack has the advantage of being tall; his direction of the choir is another sign of an "obvious leader." As a political animal, however, Jack recognizes that choir conducting won't get him far on a deserted island. His decision to turn the choir into a group of hunters with himself as leader shows that he can be a wily strategist. In other ways, however, Jack is careless and destructive, as when he accidentally steps on Piggy's glasses and breaks a lens. Similarly, Jack becomes so fixated with hunting that he neglects the fire, which goes out before the boys can signal a passing ship. Nevertheless, Jack is successful in daring Ralph to come with him to hunt the mysterious beast when darkness is falling. On that hunt Jack and Ralph, joined by Roger, perceive through the falling darkness the dim, shrouded figure of the dead parachutist—an image of the adult world that suggests the destruction of the rational society envisioned by Ralph and Piggy. As Ralph's civilized world disintegrates, Jack's savage society becomes more distinct and powerful. Jack separates his group from Ralph's when the group fails to dethrone Ralph and recognize Jack as leader. Then Jack sets about wooing away the other boys to his group. One way is by inviting everyone to a pig roast. Another is by painting his hunters' bodies and masking their faces, thus turning them into an anonymous mob of fighters who can wound and kill without fear of being singled out as guilty. Significantly, it is Jack who is the first of the older boys to see the possibility of the beast's existence, and ultimately the ways to use the fear of the beast to his advantage: as a motivation for hunting, and as a means of keeping the littluns under his control. When Simon seeks to expose the beast as just a "dead man on a hill," he is killed by Jack's group. With Jack's successful theft of Piggy's last glass lens, the hunters' raid on Ralph and Piggy's fire, the capture and defection of Sam and Eric, and finally Piggy's death, as engineered by Jack and Roger, the "savages'" power is almost absolute. Only the intervention of adult society, represented by the British captain, is able to save Ralph from being killed and to reduce Jack to embarrassed silence at his failure to harness the powers of evil. Phil One of the more self−confident littluns, Phil straightforwardly describes his dream of the "twisty things" when requested by Piggy. Piggy Piggy is an intelligent and rational boy whose excess weight and asthma often make him the butt of the others' jokes. Yet because of his scientific approach to problems, Piggy is a voice of reason without whom Ralph's leadership would have been undermined far sooner. It is Piggy who not only recognizes the significance of the conch but whose spectacles enable Ralph to start the fire, whose smoke is their only chance of being saved. It Characters

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is Piggy who realizes that building the shelters is at least as important for their long−term survival as keeping the fire going. It is Piggy whose understanding of the depths of Jack's hatred for Ralph forces Ralph to confront his despair at their prospects for getting along. And it is Piggy who makes the brilliant, however simple, suggestion that the fire be moved down to the beach away from the "beast from air." For all his intellectual powers, however, Piggy is basically ineffectual without Ralph. Piggy is a man of thought, not of action, and he is physically weak because of his asthma. Without his spectacles, he is blind and helpless. After Jack has broken one lens from his glasses and stolen the other, Piggy is doomed in a society where irrational fears and physical strength are more respected than science, law, and dialogue. It is significant that Piggy and the conch are both destroyed at the same time by a huge rock rolled down a cliff by Roger, who has been freed by Jack from the "taboo of the old life . . . the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law" to unleash his savage instincts. Of all the children, Piggy is the most adult in his appearance, behavior, and beliefs. His thinning hair, which never seems to grow, and his frequent appeals to "what grownups would do" suggest his maturity and wisdom. In the closing lines of the book, Ralph weeps not only for "the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart," but for "the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy." Ralph The fair−haired, tall, handsome Ralph is an obvious choice to lead the band of children stranded on the island. He has a "directness" in his manner that the narrator calls a sign of "genuine leadership." As E. M. Forster describes Ralph in an introduction to one of the novel's editions, he is "sunny and decent, sensible and considerate." He seems to be genuinely interested in the welfare of the entire group and can get along with all kinds of people. Perhaps he gets his sense of natural authority from his father, a commander in the Navy. He also has above−average powers of observation. He is the first to see the conch shell buried in the sand, though it is significant that it is Piggy who points out how it can be used as a signaling device. In fact, Ralph is far from the ideal leader, and certainly far from the idealized Ralph in The Coral Island, R. M. Ballantyne's romantic children's story for which Golding intended his book to be a reality check. Ralph lacks the charisma and strategic skills to get the other boys to recognize what the conch represents—order, authority, dialogue, democracy. These are the qualities that are necessary if the group is to keep its signal fire going long enough to attract a passing ship. Golding often notes the "shutter" or cloud that sometimes comes over Ralph's mind when he is addressing the group and that prevents him from finding the right word to get their attention or galvanize them to action. This cloud of imperfection makes Ralph a kind of everyman with whom we can each identify, but it contributes to the gradual descent of the boys into a savagery to which Ralph himself succumbs by the end of the story. Robert Like Simon and Maurice, Robert is one of the medium−sized boys on the lower end of the biguns' spectrum. In the stripped−down world of the island where the physical assumes more weight, Robert finds his niche guarding Castle Rock. Robert is more comfortable taking orders than giving them. The one time he takes any initiative, pretending to be the pig in a ritual game, he is quickly reduced to a sniveling child. He also serves with Jack and Maurice on the committee that welcomes Ralph's group to Jack's feast. Roger Just as Piggy represents Ralph's best quality, his attempts to act mature, so Roger stands for Jack's worst characteristic, his lust for power over living things. Roger is first introduced as one of the biguns who "kept to himself with an inner intensity of avoidance and secrecy." While Piggy thinks about ways to be rescued, Roger is "gloomily" pessimistic about the group's chances. Acting on his darker impulses, at first in small ways, he knocks over Percival and Johnny's sand castles. Then he throws stones at Henry, only missing because his arm "was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins." Once he sees how Jack's "dazzle paint" created a mask that "liberated him from shame and self−consciousness," however, it Characters

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is only a matter of time before Roger comes under Jack's power. First we see him, along with Ralph and the rest, participate in the mock pig kill in celebration of the successful hunt. Then, not long after Jack secedes from the group, Roger follows him and is soon hunting pigs and offering to help Jack steal fire from Ralph's group. Though part of Roger still questions the irresponsibility of some of Jack's actions, like beating Wilfred, he nevertheless goes along with them. It is Roger who, "with a sense of delirious abandonment," finally releases the boulder from Castle Rock that kills Piggy and destroys the conch. And it is Roger who, "wielding a nameless authority," moves to detain Sam and Eric. Sam See Samneric Samneric As twins, the two always act together and indeed are often called Samneric as one unit. In the beginning Sam and Eric are especially helpful to Ralph, rekindling the fire on top of the mountain after it almost goes out. Even after being scared by the "beast from air," the twins do not desert Ralph, as Maurice and Roger do; instead the twins go with Piggy to gather fruit for their own feast. After attending Jack's pig roast, Sam and Eric return to Ralph and Piggy's shelters, the last "biguns" to remain loyal, though none will admit to the other that they were in any way involved in Simon's death. Finally Sam and Eric are captured by Jack's group while accompanying Piggy and Ralph to demand that Jack return Piggy's glasses. In the ensuing confrontation, Ralph attacks Jack and runs into the jungle, where his presence is then betrayed by the twins, who fear for their lives. Simon Perhaps the most symbolic character in the story, Simon represents the religious prophet or seer who is sensitive and inarticulate yet who, of all the boys, perhaps sees reality most clearly. Simon's special powers are signaled early in the story when, even though he is not one of the bigger boys, he is chosen by Ralph to join him and Jack to explore the island. Among all the boys, it is Simon whose behavior is perhaps the most exemplary during the first part of the story. He is Ralph's faithful helper in building the shelters. Simon alone recognizes that "maybe [the beast is] only us" or just a "pig's head on a stick." Simon, for all his sensitivity and fears, knows that the only way to deal with fear is to face it. When no one else wants to climb back up the mountain after seeing the "beast from air," it is Simon who proposes just such a climb. "What else is there to do?" he reasons. And even after Simon imagines the beast telling him, with the "infinite cynicism of adult life," that "everything was a bad business," he answers, "I know that." Ralph's vision of how things are is all−too−human and clouded compared to Simon's, though Simon must periodically retreat to the candle−budded trees in the forest to restore and maintain this clearsightedness. Yet even Simon faints with weakness and disgust after seeing the beast and imagining it saying, "You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? . . . I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?" When confronted with the realization that he is isolated and cut off from the others in his special knowledge, and just as afraid to die as any of them, Simon begins to lose the vision that had made him a potential savior of the group. What began as a ritual and make−believe killing of the pig as a way of celebrating a good hunt now becomes a real ritual murder. Simon, in an attempt to tell the others about his discovery of the "man on the hill," accidentally stumbles into a ring of littluns and is killed in the confusion. The shame that Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric all feel the day after Simon's death, despite their attempts to ignore it, show that civilized values still have some hold on them. Yet the incident marks an important turning point in the story, for it is the first time that the boys have deliberately killed one of their own. » Back to Table of Contents

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Themes Good and Evil During their abandonment on the island, Ralph, Piggy, Simon, and many of the other boys show elements of good in their characters. Ralph's calm "stillness," and his attentiveness to others' needs, make him a potentially good person. Good may be defined here as something just, virtuous, or kind that conforms to the moral order of the universe. Piggy's knowledge and belief in the power of science and rational thought to help people understand and thus control the physical world for their mutual benefit are also obviously a force for good. Simon, always ready to help out, sensitive to the power of evil but not afraid to stand up to it, is perhaps the strongest representative of the forces of good in the story. Yet all of these characters ultimately fall victim to the forces of evil, as represented by the cruelties of the hunters, especially Jack and Roger. Piggy loses his glasses, and thus the power to make fire. This power, when controlled by the forces of reason, is a powerful tool for good: it warms the boys, cooks their food, and provides smoke for the rescue signals that are their only hope for survival. But in the hands of those with less skill and knowledge, the fire becomes an agent of destruction— first unintentionally in the hands of those who are ignorant of its powers, then purposefully when Jack and the hunters use it to smoke out and destroy their opponents. It is Simon's bad luck to stumble upon the feasting group of boys with his news about the "man on the hill" just as the group's ritual pig hunt is reaching its climax. Simon's ritual killing, to which Piggy and Ralph are unwitting yet complicit witnesses, is perhaps the decisive blow in the battle between the forces of good and evil. Later Piggy loses his life at the hand of the almost totally evil Roger, who has loosed the boulder from Castle Rock. Now, without Piggy's glasses and wise counsel and Simon's steadfastness, Ralph is greatly weakened, and to survive he must ultimately be rescued by adult society, represented by the British captain. It is important, however, to note that Jack, too, is defeated because he cannot control the forces of evil. It is Jack's order to use fire to destroy Ralph's hiding place that virtually destroys the island, although, ironically, it is the smoke from that fire that finally attracts the British ship and leads to the boys' rescue. Appearances and Reality At several points in the story, Golding is at pains to stress the complexity of human life. During the novel, neither a firm grasp of reality (represented by Piggy's scientific bent and the island's ocean side) nor the comfort of illusions (seen in Ralph's daydreaming, Simon's silent communion with nature among the candlebud trees, and symbolized by the sleepy lagoon side of the island) is enough to save the boys from the forces of evil. The sun, which should represent life and the power of reason, can also be blinding. Yet darkness is no better, as can be seen when the littluns' fantasies and fears are only further distorted by nighttime shadows. This sense of complexity is perhaps best summed up by Ralph, speculating on how shadows at different times of day change the appearance of things: "If faces were different when lit from above or below—what was a face? What was anything?" This comment can also relate to the power of the painted faces of Jack's hunters to remove the hunters from a sense of individual responsibility for their masked deeds. Reason and Emotion Because of Golding's great interest in Greek and Roman mythology, this theme is sometimes summarized by critics as the conflict between the Apollonian and the Dionysian aspects of life. This refers to the Greek gods Apollo, the god of reason, and Dionysus, the god of wine and emotion. Most characters in the story show elements of both reason and emotion. Piggy, with his interest in science and fact, may seem to represent the life of reason, while Jack and the hunters may seem to represent the emotional side of life. To Golding, however, matters are not that simple. Just as in Greek mythology, the grave of Dionysus is found within the temple of Apollo at Delphi, so in the story reason and emotion may battle with each other within the same character. Thus when Roger first throws rocks, his arm is conditioned by rational society to avoid hitting the littlun Henry. Later his emotions will overcome his reason and he will loose the boulder that kills Piggy. Themes

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Sometimes Golding shows the struggle between reason and emotion using two characters, as when Ralph the daydreamer struggles to remember the rational ideas Piggy told him about rescue. In the end, reason, in the form of the British captain, seems to triumph over the runaway emotion that has led to the destruction of the island and at least two of its temporary inhabitants. But the reflective reader will remember that the world to which the captain will presumably be trying to return has, in fact, been destroyed by an atom bomb. This suggests that in the end the grand achievements of science, compounded with the irrational emotions of warring powers, may have spelled the doom of humanity. Morals and Morality Golding himself has said that the writing of Lord of the Files was "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature." Golding sets a group of children, who should supposedly be closest to a state of innocence, alone on an island without supervision. In this fashion, he can test whether the defects of society lie in the form of society or in the individuals who create it. Ralph tries to maintain order and convince the boys to work for the common good, but he can't overcome the selfishness of Jack and his hunters. By the time Piggy makes his plea for the return of his glasses—"not as a favor . . . but because what's right's right"—Jack and his gang can no longer recognize a moral code where law and cooperation is best and killing is wrong. As the author once commented, "the moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system." » Back to Table of Contents

Style Point of View All novels use at least one perspective, or point of view, from which to tell the story. This may consist of a point of view of no single character (the omniscient, or "all−knowing" point of view), a single character, multiple characters in turn, and combinations or variations on these. Golding uses the omniscient point of view, which enables him to stand outside and above the story itself, making no reference to the inner life of any of the individual characters. From this lofty point he comments on the action from the point of view of a removed, but observant, bystander. Golding has commented in interviews that the strongest emotion he personally feels about the story is grief. Nevertheless, as the narrator he makes a conscious decision, like the British captain at the end of the story, to "turn away" from the shaking and sobbing boys and remain detached. The narrator lets the actions, as translated through the artist's techniques of symbolism, structure, and so on, speak for themselves. Even so dramatic and emotional an event as Piggy's death is described almost clinically. "Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across that square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red." Symbolism A symbol can be defined as a person, place, or thing that represents something more than its literal meaning. The conch shell, to take an obvious example in the story, stands for a society of laws in which, for example, people take their turn in speaking. The pig's head is a more complex example of a symbol. To Simon, and to many readers, it can have more than one meaning. On a rational level, Simon knows the pig's head is just that: a "pig's head on a stick." But on a more emotional level, Simon realizes that the pig's head represents an evil so strong that it has the power to make him faint. When he thinks of the head as "The Lord of the Flies," the symbol becomes even more powerful, as this title is a translation of "Beelzebub," another name for the Devil. Similarly, the fire set by using Piggy's glasses, when controlled, could be said to represent science and technology at their best, serving humans with light and heat. When uncontrolled, however, fire represents science and technology run amok, killing living things and destroying the island. Simon himself can be said to symbolize Christ, the selfless servant who is always helping others but who dies because his message— that Style

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the scary beast on the hill is only a dead parachutist—is misunderstood. Throughout the story, the noises of the surf, the crackling fire, the boulders rolling down hills, and trees exploding from the fire's heat are often compared to the boom of cannons and drum rolls. In this way, Golding reminds us that the whole story is intended to repeat and symbolize the atomic war which preceded it. Setting In the setting for Lord of the Flies, Golding has created his own "Coral Island"—an allusion, or literary reference, to a book of that name by R. M. Ballantyne. Using the same scenario of boys being abandoned on a tropical island, The Coral Island (1857) is a classic boys' romantic adventure story, like Johann Wyss's The Swiss Family Robinson, in which everyone has a great time and nobody dies or ends up unhappy. Golding, however, has quite different ideas, and he has used the setting in his story to reinforce those concepts. Yes, the island can be a wonderful place, as the littluns discover by day when they are bathing in the lagoon pool or eating fruit from the trees. But at night the same beach can be the setting for nightmares, as some boys fancy that they see "snake−things" in the trees. Golding builds a similar contrast between the generally rocky side of the island that faces the sea, and the softer side that faces the lagoon. On the ocean side of the island, "the filmy enchantments of mirage could not endure the cold ocean water. . . . On the other side of the island, swathed at midday with mirage, defended by the shield of the quiet lagoon, one might dream of rescue; but here, faced by the brute obtuseness of the ocean . . . one was helpless." Thus the setting reinforces Golding's view of human nature as a struggle of good intentions and positive concepts like love and faith against the harshness of nature and human failings like anger. » Back to Table of Contents

Historical Context Golding and World War II "When I was young, before the war, I did have some airy−fairy views about man. . . . But I went through the war and that changed me. The war taught me different and a lot of others like me," Golding told Douglas A. Davis in the New Republic. Golding was referring to his experiences as captain of a British rocket−launching craft in the North Atlantic, where he was present at the sinking of the Bismarck, crown ship of the German navy, and participated in the D−Day invasion of German−occupied France. He was also directly affected by the devastation of England by the German air force, which severely damaged the nation's infrastructure and marked the beginning of a serious decline in the British economy. Wartime rationing continued well into the postwar period. Items like meat, bread, sugar, gasoline, and tobacco were all in short supply and considered luxuries. To turn their country around, the government experimented with nationalization of key industries like coal, electric power, and gas companies as well as the transportation industry. Socialized medicine and government−sponsored insurance were also introduced. Such changes, and the difficult conditions that produced them, suggest the climate of the postwar years in which Golding wrote Lord of the Flies. The Geography of a Tropical Island Although highly romanticized in both Western fiction and nonfiction, life on a typical tropical island is not all that easy. The weather is usually very hot and humid, and there is no breeze once one enters the jungle. While fish abound in the surrounding waters and the scent of tropical flowers wafts through the air, one must still watch out for sharks, and one cannot live on a diet of fruit and flowers. James Fahey, a naval seaman who served in the Pacific islands during the war, concluded: "We do not care too much for this place, the climate takes the life right out of you."

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The Political Climate of the 1950s The rise of the Cold War between the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) and the western powers after the end of World War II signaled a new phase in world geopolitics. Actual wars during the 1950s were confined to relatively small−scale conflicts, as in Korea (involving the United States) and Vietnam (involving the French). The nonviolent yet still threatening sabre−rattling between the USSR and the United States, however, reached a peak with the first successful hydrogen bomb test by the United States on November 1, 1952, at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific. A second device, hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped over Japan, was successfully detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll. In the United States, public fallout shelters were designated for large cities, allegedly to protect citizens from the rain of radioactive materials produced by such nuclear explosions. Schoolchildren practiced taking cover under their desks during regular air raid drills. Also in 1954, Canada and the United States agreed to build a "DEW" line (Distant Early Warning Line) of radar stations across the Arctic to warn of approaching aircraft or missiles over the Arctic. In short, the atmosphere of the first half of the 1950s was one of suspicion, distrust, and threats among the big powers. An atomic war on the scale that Lord of Flies suggested did not seem out of the realm of possibility during the early 1950s. » Back to Table of Contents

Critical Overview Lord of the Flies has attracted an immense amount of both favorable and unfavorable criticism. Most vehement among the latter critics are Kenneth Rexroth, whose essay in the Atlantic Monthly castigated the author for having written a typical "rigged" "thesis novel" whose characters "never come alive as real boys." In the same camp is Martin Green (1960), who criticizes Golding's early works, including Lord of the Flies, as "not importantly original in thought or feeling." Otherwise admiring critics like James R. Baker have claimed that the popularity of the book peaked by the end of the 1960s because of that decade's naive view of humanity and rejection of original sin. Among critics who admire Lord of the Flies, there is remarkable disagreement about the book's influences, genre, significant characters, and theme, not to mention the general philosophy of the author. Frank Kermode's early essay, excerpts of which appear in Baker & Ziegler's casebook edition of the novel, examines R. M. Ballantyne's Victorian boys' adventure story The Coral Island as Golding's primary influence. He interprets Golding's book as a powerful story, capable of many interpretations, precisely because of the author's "mythopoeic power to transcend" his own allegorical "programme." Bernard F. Dick, while acknowledging The Coral Island's influence, builds on Kermode's observation that the book's strength is grounded in its mythic level by tracing the influence of the Greek dramatists, especially Euripides, whose play The Bacchae Golding himself acknowledged as an important source of his thinking. Dick notes that The Bacchae and Lord of the Flies both "portray a bipolar society in which the Apollonian [represented by Ralph] refuses or is unable to assimilate the Dionysian [represented by the hunters]." Dick finds fault with the author's having profound thoughts come out of the mouths of children, especially Simon. The critic recognizes, however, that this flaw grew out of Golding's decision to model his characters on the children in Coral Island. Nevertheless Dick is an overall admirer of Golding's craft in producing a work whose "foundation . . . is mythic" yet which is perhaps most accurately called a "serious parody." Using a psychoanalytic approach to the novel, Claire Rosenfield (1961) finds yet another source for Golding's ideas in psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's Totem and Taboo. Golding claimed in an interview that he had read "absolutely no Freud." Even so, Rosenfield's close reading argues that Golding must have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by Freudian ideas. Rosenfield reminds us that according to Freud, gods and devils are basically human processes projected into the outer world. Specifically, "Ralph is a projection of man's good Critical Overview

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impulses from which we derive the authority figures—whether god, king, or father. . . . Jack becomes an externalization of the evil instinctual forces of the unconscious." Piggy, whose knowledge of science, thinning hair, and respect for adults make him the most adultlike child on the island, is both a father figure and a symbol of the progressive degeneration of the boys from adults to animalistic savages. The abundance of possible critical stances on Lord of the Flies is summarized by Patrick Reilly in his chapter "The Strife of Critics" from his study "Lord of the Flies": Fathers and Sons. Reilly notes that the book "has been read as a moral fable of personal disintegration, as a social fable of social regression, as a religious fable of the fall of man." One critic is sure that civilization is victorious in the book, while another scoffs at the very idea that the book ends happily. Reilly himself puts Golding's work squarely in the tradition of the "dark epiphany" as used in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Both authors work under the notion that man is so thoroughly corrupted that his redemption as a species is hopeless, however gallant and inspirational individual attempts may be. Thus the reader of Golding at the end of book is left wondering how, if the world has been destroyed by atomic war, the captain and his ship will be rescued after he has rescued the boys. Reilly, however, does find hope in the figure of Simon, whose slow death ennobles him as a "hero, saint, martyr," in contrast to Piggy's quick dispatch and equally sudden disappearance. Thus the darkness within man as a whole in the story is balanced by the "brightness within" individual hearts, and Reilly concludes that "if we cannot be certain of salvation, perhaps it is enough to sustain us if we know that the darkness need not prevail." » Back to Table of Contents

Character Analysis In a summary of the book, the author said that his characters were symbolic. Thus, what the characters represent is indicated in these analyses. The facets of human psychology found in the boys apply to adults and indeed all of humanity. Jack Merridew Ruffle−haired, blue−eyed, thin, bony, freckle−faced, ugly, is taller than Ralph. Before arriving on the island, he had been choirmaster and right away leads the black−cloaked boys in military style along the beach. Like Ralph, he is accustomed to being a leader. At first he hesitates to stab a piglet but develops a taste for it. He leads the others in hunting, tempting Samneric away from tending the fire. He has fear but overcomes it by acting tough, aided by masking his face with paint and doing killing chants. He bristles when Ralph doesn’t respect his getting meat for the group, only talking about the fire. He mocks cowardice, especially in Piggy, and comes to break the “order” of assembly as imposed by Ralph. Hiding tears of humiliation, he leads a mutiny by his hunter−followers and becomes their chief. He is guarded and adorned like a god. Beyond order and reason, only he makes rules, enforcing them with physical punishment. He represents leadership by intimidation and rebelliousness. By the end he is compared to an “ape” and called a “savage.” Piggy Short, fat, awkward, asthmatic, has wispy hair that doesn’t grow (like a piglet). He can’t swim and wears glasses. His glasses represent the ability to see (think, reason), and he constantly wipes them. His glasses are also the tool with which fire is started. Smart and thoughtful, he suggests the boys meet in an assembly and constantly insists on the order of speaking when holding the conch. He is loyal to Ralph and the conch. He refers to what grownups would do in their plight; ironically, the grownups are involved in killing on a grand scale in World War II. Piggy is often ignored. “Mocking him makes the others feel cheerful.” He doesn’t believe in a “beast” but he does fear people. Over time he gets bolder; yet he has denial about the truth of Character Analysis

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Simon’s death. His glasses are stolen by Jack’s tribe, and he is killed by a boulder pushed by them. He represents reason and loyalty. Ralph 12 years old, attractive, flat−stomached, could grow to be a boxer. In the beginning, he is mild−mannered, carefree and fluent, exuding sunny confidence. He finds the conch. Is elected leader and initiates necessity to build shelters and a fire. He represents leadership by common sense and governmental authority. At first he is bored by Piggy’s ideas but later values and misses him. Throughout the ordeal, he pits himself against Jack by insisting upon the importance of keeping a fire going on top of the mountain so that the smoke could be seen and give them a chance to be rescued. In doing so, he insults Jack and commands him. He acknowledges his fear and in identifying Simon’s death as murder, shows that he has a conscience. He fantasizes about civilities at home. Nevertheless, he feels the charge of “wounding” a boar. As hardship and tension increase, he loses the ability to think and succumbs to snarling and physical fighting. Standing alone against the tribe at the end, he runs in doomed panic. He grieves over “the darkness of man’s heart.” Ralph and Jack have a connection and appreciation for one another that go unacknowledged. Their struggle for dominance is the way Golding shows the battle between civilization (respect for rules and order) and “savagery” (lawlessness and brute force). Roger Secretive and gloomy. He throws stones at Henry to intimidate him, relishing the freedom to be mean. He represents the aspect of a person who out of past resentments at being disciplined by elders lashes out cruelly when free from restraint. He joins Jack’s side, becoming known as Jack’s “hangman.” Numb to the sufferings of others, he releases the rock that knocks Piggy to his death and tortures the twins into submission. He prepares a stick, with points sharpened at each end, on which to mount Ralph’s head. Samneric Twins named Sam and Eric but because they are always together, even talking in tandem, they are called “Samneric.” Bullet−headed, tow−haired, chunky, full of vitality. They are put in charge of keeping the fire going but leave it to hunt. After mutiny by Jack, they stay with Ralph and Piggy but are captured by the hunters and tied up. Tortured by Roger, they are afraid to leave. They represent the cheerful, goodwill of young boys, submissive to whomever is in charge. Simon Not quite a “bigun”, bright−eyed, skinny, has long coarse black hair and is subject to fainting. He kindly helps the younger boys get fruit. A loner, he has a secret place in the jungle where he goes. The most intuitive of all, he is the first to realize through a vision that the beast is “human at once heroic and sick.” He foresees that Ralph will survive. He is the only one with the courage to go up to the “beast” and discover the paratrooper’s dead body. Because of his difficulty in speaking in front of others, before he can get his information out, he is killed by the fear−mad boys. When his body is carried out to sea, it glows with the light of phosphorescence. He represents the mystical side of humans. Other Characters Maurice: next in size to Jack. In saying that there are a lot of things that science doesn’t know, he represents the skeptical nature of humans. He knocks over kids’ sandcastles. With Jack’s tribe, he goes with Roger and Robert to steal Piggy’s glasses.

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Robert: not quite a “bigun.” Acts like a boar in an early attempt for the boys to practice hunting. Gets hurt when the dance turns fierce and wild. Some characters are “littlun’s who represent various stages of innocence and untamed fear. Among them are: Percival Wemys Madison: darker skinned, cries a lot. He sees the “beast” in the sea and breaks down from fright. Eventually he can’t recall his name. Boy with mulberry birthmark: disappears after night talk of “beastie” Johnny: six years old, sturdy and fair, already belligerent. Henry: trusting. Wilfred, Stanley, Bill, Harold, Phil are others of the uncounted group. » Back to Table of Contents

Essays and Criticism 1. Lord of the Flies: Interpretations 2. Teaching Rationale for William Golding's Lord of the Flies 3. The Coral Island Revisited

Lord of the Flies: Interpretations In this essay, Diane Andrews Henningfeld explores how Golding's novel can be interpreted in a variety of different ways—including as political, psychological, and religious allegory. Lord of the Flies, William Golding's first novel, was published in London in 1954 and in New York in 1955. Golding was forty−three years old when he wrote the novel, having served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. According to Bernard Oldsey, "The war appears to have been an important influence on him." Lord of the Flies is deliberately modeled after R. M. Ballantyne's 1857 novel The Coral Island. In this story, a group of English boys are shipwrecked on a tropical island. They work hard together to save themselves. The only evil in the book is external and is personified by a tribe of cannibals that live on the island. The book offers a Victorian view of the world: through hard work and earnestness, one can overcome any hardship. By giving his characters the same names as those in Ballantyne's book and by making direct reference to The Coral Island in the text of Lord of the Flies, Golding clearly wants readers to see his book as a response to the Victorian world view. Golding's view is a much bleaker one: the evil on the island is internal, not external. At the end of the book, the adult naval officer who invokes The Coral Island almost serves as Ballantyne's voice−"I should have thought that a pack of British boys— you're all British, aren't you?—would have been able to put up a better show than that." Golding's understanding of the world, colored by his own experiences in World War II, is better represented by Ralph's weeping "for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy." Essays and Criticism

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Initially, critics commented less on the novel as a work of art than on its political, religious, and psychological symbolism. For example, James Stern in a 1955 review for The New York Times Book Review wrote "Lord of the Flies is an allegory on human society today, the novel's primary implication being that what we have come to call civilization is at best no more than skin deep." Indeed, many critics have argued that Lord of the Flies is an allegory. An allegory is a story in which characters, setting, objects, and plot stand for a meaning outside of the story itself. Frequently, the writers of allegory illustrate an abstract meaning by the use of concrete images. For example, George Orwell, in Animal Farm, uses animals and the barnyard as concrete representations of the Russian Revolution. Often, characters in allegories personify some abstract quality. In the medieval drama Everyman, for instance, the concrete character Everyman stands for all of humanity. While it is possible to read Lord of the Flies as allegory, the work is so complex that it can be read as allegorizing the political state of the world in the postwar period; as a Freudian psychological understanding of human kind; or as the Christian understanding of the fall of humankind, among others. As a political allegory, each character in Lord of the Flies represents some abstract idea of government. Ralph, for example, stands for the good−hearted but not entirely effective leader of a democratic state, a ruler who wants to rule by law derived from the common consent. Piggy is his adviser, someone who is unable to rule because of his own social and physical shortcomings, but who is able to offer sound advice to the democratic leader. Jack, on the other hand, represents a totalitarian dictator, a ruler who appeals to the emotional responses of his followers. He rules by charisma and hysteria. Roger, the boy who takes the most joy in the slaughter of the pigs and who hurls the rock that kills Piggy, represents the henchman necessary for such a totalitarian ruler to stay in power. Such a reading takes into account the state of the world at the end of the World War II. For many years, leaders such as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt led democratic countries against totalitarian demigods such as Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini. Further, in the early 1950s, the world appeared to be divided into two camps: the so−called Free World of Western Europe and the United States, and the so−called Iron Curtain world of communist eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. At the time of the writing of Lord of the Flies, the world appeared to be teetering on the brink of total nuclear annihilation. Thus, by taking into account the historical context of Lord of the Flies, it is possible to understand the work as political and historical allegory, even as a cautionary tale for the leaders of the world. Freudian psychological critics, on the other hand, are able to read Lord of the Flies as an allegory of the human psychology. In such a reading, each of the characters personifies a different aspect of the human psyche: the id, the super ego, and the ego. According to Freud, the id (located in the unconscious mind) works always to gratify its own impulses. These impulses, often sexual, seek to provide pleasure without regard to the cost. Jack's impulse to hunt and kill reaches its peak with the killing of the sow pig, a killing rife with sexual overtones. Jack never considers anything but his own pleasure; thus he can be considered an allegorical representation of the id. The superego is the part of the mind that seeks to control the impulsive behavior of the id. It acts as an internal censor. In Lord of the Flies, Piggy serves this role. He constantly reminds Ralph of their need to keep the fire burning and to take proper responsibility for the littluns. By so doing, he urges Ralph to control Jack. Piggy understands that Jack hates him, because he stands between Jack and his achievement of pleasure. Further, just as the superego must employ the ego to control the id, Piggy cannot control Jack on his own; he must rely on Ralph to do so. Finally, the ego is the conscious mind whose role it is to mediate between the id's demand for pleasure and the social pressures brought to bear by the superego. Freud calls this mediation process the reality principal; that is, the notion that immediate pleasure must be denied in order to avoid painful or deadly consequences. Ralph clearly fills this role. He attempts to control Jack and engage his energy for the tending of the fire. To do so requires him to put off the pleasure of the hunt Essays and Criticism

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in order to secure rescue. In a Freudian reading of The Lord of the Flies, Golding seems to be saying that without the reinforcement of social norms, the id will control the psyche. Finally, it is possible to read Lord of the Flies as a religious allegory. In such a reading, the tropical island, filled with fruit and everything needed for sustenance, becomes a symbol of the Garden of Eden. The initial identification of the beastie as a snake also brings to mind the story of the Fall of Man. Indeed, it is possible to read the fall of the parachutist as the event which leads to the ouster from Eden of the boys. Further, Jack's identification with hunting and Ralph's identification with shelter as well as their natural antagonism appear to be allegorization of the Cain and Abel story. Indeed, it is only the intercession of the adult who comes looking for them which saves Ralph from murder. Many critics have attempted to read Simon as a Christ figure; he is the one boy who has the true knowledge which can save them. Like Christ, he is martyred. Unlike Christ, however, his death seems to have no significance for the boys; his knowledge dies with him. More recently, critics have recognized the technical and artistic skill exhibited by Golding in Lord of the Flies. Especially notable is the way in which Golding fuses allegorical structure with strong, realistic descriptions, well−developed characterizations, and a coherent, fast moving plot. The description of the death of Piggy, for example, demonstrates Golding's skill with realistic, graphic prose: The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed. Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone. Golding also provides strong characterizations. While it is possible to see each boy fulfilling an allegorical role, none of the characters (with the possible exception of Simon) functions solely as part of the allegory. This can perhaps best be seen in the development of Jack. During the first trip into the jungle, he is unable to kill the pig with his knife; by the end of the book he is hunting human quarry. Jack's growth from choirboy to murderer is accomplished with great skill. Finally, Golding writes a fast−moving, suspenseful adventure story. The book moves quickly from the first days on the beach to the final hunt scene, reaching a feverish pitch that is broken abruptly by the appearance of the naval officer, just as it appears that Ralph will be killed. While the appearance of the adult, however, closes the action, it does not provide us with a happy ending. Indeed, at the moment of the climax of the adventure story, Golding suddenly reminds us of the allegorical nature of the book: the naval officer's cruiser is a weapon of war. Although we feel relief over Ralph's rescue, we suddenly understand that the adult world is little different from the world of the island, a place where men hunt and kill each other indiscriminately, a place where men can blow up the entire planet, our island in the sea of the universe. Source: Diane Andrews Henningfeld, in an essay for Novels for Students, Gale, 1997. Henningfeld is a professor at Adrian College. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

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Teaching Rationale for William Golding's Lord of the Flies In the following excerpt, Paul Slayton finds Lord of the Flies to be a parable about modern civilization and human morality, and describes Golding's literary techniques. Lord of the Flies is William Golding's parable of life in the latter half of the twentieth century, the nuclear age, when society seems to have reached technological maturity while human morality is still prepubescent. Whether or not one agrees with the pessimistic philosophy, the idiocentric psychology or the fundamentalist theology espoused by Golding in the novel, if one is to use literature as a "window on the world," this work is one of the panes through which one should look. The setting for Lord of the Flies is in the literary tradition of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Johann Wyss's The Swiss Family Robinson, and like these earlier works provides the necessary ingredients for an idyllic utopian interlude. A plane loaded with English school boys, aged five through twelve, is being evacuated to a safe haven in, perhaps, Australia to escape the "Reds," with whom the English are engaged in an atomic war. Somewhere in the tropics the plane is forced to crash land during a violent storm. All the adults on board are lost when the forward section of the plane is carried out to sea by tidal waves. The passenger compartment, fortuitously, skids to a halt on the island, and the young passengers escape uninjured. The boys find themselves in a tropical paradise: bananas, coconuts and other fruits are profusely available. The sea proffers crabs and occasional fish in tidal pools, all for the taking. The climate is benign. Thus, the stage is set for an idyllic interlude during which British fortitude will enable the boys to master any possible adversity. In fact, Golding relates that just such a nineteenth century novel, R. M. Ballantyne's Coral Island, was the inspiration for Lord of the Flies. In that utopian story the boy castaways overcame every obstacle they encountered with the ready explanation, "We are British, you know!" Golding's tropical sojourners, however, do not "live happily ever after." Although they attempt to organize themselves for survival and rescue, conflicts arise as the boys first neglect, then refuse, their assigned tasks. As their "society" fails to build shelters or to keep the signal fire going, fears emanating from within—for their environment is totally non−threatening—take on a larger than life reality. Vines hanging from trees become "snake things" in the imaginings of the "little'uns." A nightmare amidst fretful sleep, causing one of the boys to cry out in the night, conjures up fearful "beasties" for the others. Their fears become more real than existence on the tropical paradise itself when the twins, Sam 'n Eric, report their enervating experience with the wind−tossed body of the dead parachutist. Despite Simon's declaration that "there is no beast, it's only us," and Piggy's disavowal of "ghosts and things," the fear of the unknown overcomes their British reserve and under Jack's all−too−willing chieftainship the boys' retreat from civilization begins. In the initial encounter with a pig, Jack is unable to overcome his trained aversion to violence to even stake a blow at the animal. Soon, however, he and his choirboys−turned−hunters make their first kill. They rationalize that they must kill the animals for meat. The next step back from civilization occurs and the meat pretext is dropped; the real objective is to work their will on other living things. Then, killing begins to take on an even more sinister aspect. The first fire the boys build to attract rescuers roars out of control and one of the younger boys is accidentally burned to death. The next death, that of Simon, is not an accident. He is beaten to death when he rushes into the midst of the ritual dance of the young savages. Ironically, he has come to tell the boys that he has discovered that the beast they fear is not real. Then Piggy, the last intellectual link with civilization, is killed on impulse by the sadistic Roger. Last, all semblance of civilized restraint is cast−off as the now−savage tribe of boys organizes itself to hunt down and kill their erstwhile leader, Ralph, who had tried desperately to prepare them to carry on in the fashion expected of upper middle−class British youth.

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That Golding intended Lord of the Flies as a paradigm for modern civilization is concretely evident at the conclusion of the work. During the final confrontation at the rock fort between Ralph and Piggy and Jack and his tribe, the reader readily forgets that these individuals in conflict are not adults. The manhunt for Ralph, too, seems relative only to the world of adults. The reader is so inclined to lose sight of the age of his characters that Golding must remind that these participants are pre−adolescents: The naval officer who interrupts the deadly manhunt sees "A semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with colored clay, sharp sticks in hand. . . ." Unlike that officer, the reader knows that it was not "fun and games" of the boys that the naval officer interrupted. The officer does not realize—as the reader knows—that he has just saved Ralph from a sacrificial death and the other boys from becoming premeditated murderers. Neither is the irony of the situation very subtle: The boys have been "rescued" by an officer from a British man−of−war, which will very shortly resume its official activities as either hunter or hunted in the deadly adult game of war. Golding, then, in Lord of the Flies is asking the question which continues as the major question haunting the world today: How shall denizens of the earth be rescued from our fears and our own pursuers—ourselves? While Golding offers no ready solutions to our dilemma, an understanding of his parable yields other questions which may enable readers to become seekers in the quest for a moral world. Even if one disagrees with Golding's judgment of the nature of human beings and of human society, one profits from his analysis of the problems confronting people today. . . Golding is a master at his trade and Lord of the Flies has achieved critical acclaim as the best of his works. Indeed, a dictionary of literary terminology might well be illustrated with specific examples from this piece of prose. The development of the several focal characters in this work is brilliantly and concretely done. In addition, the omniscient narrative technique, plotting, relating story to setting and the use of irony, foreshadowing, and certainly, symbolism are so carefully and concretely accomplished that the work can serve as an invaluable teaching aid to prepare students to read other literature with a degree of understanding far beyond a simplistic knowledge of the surface events of the story. Golding's characterizations will be used in this rationale to illustrate these technical qualities of the novel. A strength of Lord of the Flies lies in techniques of characterization. There are five major characters who are developed as wholly−rounded individuals whose actions and intensity show complex human motivation: Ralph, Jack, Roger, Simon and Piggy. A study of these characterizations shows the wide range of techniques for developing persona utilized by Golding and by other authors: Ralph, the protagonist, is a rather befuddled everyman. He is chosen for leadership by the group for all the wrong reasons. Ralph does not seek the leadership role; he is elected because he is older (12 plus), somewhat larger, is attractive in personal appearance and, most strikingly, he possesses the conch shell which reminds the boys of the megaphone with which their late adult supervisors directed and instructed them. In the unsought leadership role Ralph demonstrates courage, intelligence and some diplomatic skill. On the negative side he quickly becomes disillusioned with the democratic process and without Piggy's constant urgings would have cast aside the chiefs role even before Jack's coup d'etat. Ralph also demonstrates other weaknesses as he unthinkingly gives away Piggy's hated nickname and, more significantly, he gets caught up in the mob psychology of the savage dance and takes part in the ritualistic murder of Simon. Thus, by relating causes and effects, Golding reveals Ralph's change from a proper British lad to group leader to his disenchantment and finally to his becoming the object of the murderous hunt by the boys who once chose him as their leader. Jack, the antagonist, is developed as the forceful villain. Outgoing, cocky and confident, Jack marches his choirboys in military formation up the beach to answer the call of the conch. Jack is a natural leader who, except for his exploitative nature, might have been a congealing force for good. Instead, his lust for power precipitates the conflict with Ralph and Piggy's long−range planning for rescue. To attain leadership, Jack caters to boyish desires for ready delights and after he is assured that his choir boys will follow in this new Teaching Rationale for William Golding's Lord of the Flies

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direction, he resorts to intimidation to increase his following. In Jack, Golding has developed a prototype of the charismatic leader who gains adherents by highlighting the fears and fulfilling the ephemeral needs and desires of followers. Roger, "the hangman's horror," is a stereotyped character who does not change. He readily sheds a thin veneer of civilization which has been imposed upon him by the authority of the policeman and the law. So easily his arm loses the restraints which had once prohibited him from hitting the littl'uns with tossed rocks to a point where he can kill Piggy on impulse. It is but one more small step for him to proclaim the ritual dance must end in killing and to premeditate the murder of Ralph. Simon is the quintessential Christ−figure. A thin, frail little boy, subject to fainting spells, he alone has the mental acumen and the courage to go onto the mountain and disprove the existence of the "beast." He is martyred for his efforts by the group which no longer wishes to hear his "good news." Piggy, the pragmatic intellectual, is of necessity the most steadfast in motivation. He is tied to civilization by his physical weaknesses. Overweight, asthmatic, and completely dependent for sight upon his spectacles, the life of the happy savage has no allure for him. Without the aids of civilization, such as eye glasses and allergy shots, he cannot long survive. Consequently, he must reject the ephemeral allures offered by Jack and steadfastly hold, and seek to hold Ralph, to maintaining the smoke signal, his only hope for the aid and succor of rescue. His steadfastness in this aim enables him to call up the uncharacteristic courage to make the last appeal to Jack and his tribe before the rock fort because "right is right." His plea is to no avail; the sadistic Roger releases the boulder which throws Piggy from the cliff to his death. Another minor character, Percival Weems Botts, is developed as a stereotype to demonstrate the fragility of rote learning. This "little'un" who can only recite his name and address as a response soon forgets even that as all trappings of civilization are lost by the boys. Thus, Golding's techniques of characterization afford superior examples of the writer's craft and apt material to use to help students learn to interpret authorial voice and to respond to a piece of literature as a level beyond the denotative. Lord of the Flies has earned for itself and its author great critical acclaim. It has also been extolled by teachers for the excitement it can engender in readers and as a work in which the motivation of characters is readily understood by adolescent readers. Despite these accolades for the novel as a work of literary art and as a teaching tool, Lord of the Flies has on occasion aroused the ire of would−be censors. Some have opposed the use of the novel in the classroom because of the use of "vulgar" language. Certain words, notably "sucks," "ass," and the British slang word "bloody," are used. It is patently obvious that there is no prurient motivation behind the author's choice of these words. Not one of these words is ever used outside of a context in which the word appears to be quite naturally the word the character would use. The choir boys may well sing like "angels," as is stated; nevertheless, these are perfectly normal pre−adolescent boys. Given the proclivities of such youth the world over, verisimilitude would be lost had they, amongst themselves, always spoken like angels. The sexual symbolism of the killing of the sow has also raised some puritanical brows. This violent scene is described in terms which might well be used to describe a rape. Such symbolism is fully justified, however, if the author is to be allowed to make his point that the motivation of the boys, casting away the cloak of civilization, is no longer merely securing food. Rather, they have moved from serving practical needs to an insane lust for working their will upon other creatures. The next step is the slaughter of their own kind.

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Objection, too, has come upon that very point: children killing children. One must remind those who object to this violence that this piece of literature is a parable. Children are specifically used to show that even the innocence of childhood can be corrupted by fears from within. Those who would deny Golding this mode of establishing his theme would deny to all authors the right to make their point in an explicit fashion. The most vociferous denunciation of Lord of the Flies has been vocalized by those who have misread the book to the point that they believe it deals with Satanism. The symbolism of the title, which is the English translation of the Greek word "Beelzebub," is surely being misinterpreted by such folk. In fact, theologian Davis Anderson states unequivocally that "Golding is a Christian writer." Anderson defines the central theme of Lord of the Flies as a statement of what it is like to experience the fall from innocence into sin and to experience damnation. Thus, a theologian sees the novel as one dealing with the Christian doctrine of original sin and of the rupture of man's relationship with God. Consequently, one who would attack this novel as an exercise in Satanism assuredly holds an indefensible premise. Source: Paul Slayton, "Teaching Rationale for William Golding's Lord of the Flies," in Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints, Nicholas J. Karolides, Lee Burress, John M. Kean, eds., The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1993, pp 351−57. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

The Coral Island Revisited In the following excerpt, Carl Niemeyer compares Lord of the Flies to an earlier, utopian British children's novel, The Coral Island. One interested in finding about Golding for oneself should probably begin with Lord of the Flies. . . . The story is simple. In a way not clearly explained, a group of children, all boys, presumably evacuees in a future war, are dropped from a plane just before it is destroyed, on to an uninhabited tropical island. The stage is thus set for a reworking of a favorite subject in children's literature: castaway children assuming adult responsibilities without adult supervision. Golding expects his readers to recall the classic example of such a book, R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island (1857), where the boys rise to the occasion and behave as admirably as would adults. But in Lord of the Flies everything goes wrong from the beginning. A few boys representing sanity and common sense, led by Ralph and Piggy, see the necessity for maintaining a signal fire to attract a rescue. But they are thwarted by the hunters, led by red−haired Jack, whose lust for blood is finally not to be satisfied by killing merely wild pigs. Only the timely arrival of a British cruiser saves us from an ending almost literally too horrible to think about. Since Golding is using a naive literary form to express sophisticated reflections on the nature of man and society, and since he refers obliquely to Ballantyne many times throughout the book, a glance at The Coral Island is appropriate. Ballantyne shipwrecks his three boys—Jack, eighteen; Ralph, the narrator, aged fifteen; and Peterkin Gay, a comic sort of boy, aged thirteen— somewhere in the South Seas on an uninhabited coral island. Jack is a natural leader, but both Ralph and Peterkin have abilities valuable for survival. Jack has the most common sense and foresight, but Peterkin turns out to be a skillful killer of pigs, and Ralph when later in the book he is temporarily separated from his friends and alone on a schooner, coolly navigates it back to Coral Island by dead reckoning, a feat sufficiently impressive, if not quite equal to Captain Bligh's. The boys' life on the island is idyllic; and they are themselves without malice or wickedness, though there are a few curious episodes in which Ballantyne seems to hint at something he himself understands as little as do his characters. One is Peterkin's wanton killing of an old sow, useless as food, which the boy rationalizes by saying he needs leather for shoes. This and one or two other passages suggest that Ballantyne was aware of some darker aspects of The Coral Island Revisited

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boyish nature, but for the most part he emphasizes the paradisiacal life of the happy castaways. Like Golding's, however, Ballantyne's story raises the problem of evil, but whereas Golding finds evil in the boys' own natures, it comes to Ballantyne's boys not from within themselves but from the outside world. Tropical nature, to be sure, is kind, but the men of this non−Christian world are bad. For example, the island is visited by savage cannibals, one canoeful pursuing another, who fight a cruel and bloody battle, observed by the horrified boys, and then go away. A little later the island is again visited, this time by pirates (i.e., white men who have renounced or scorned their Christian heritage), who succeed in capturing Ralph. In due time the pirates are deservedly destroyed, and in the final episode of the book the natives undergo an unmotivated conversion to Christianity, which effects a total change in their nature just in time to rescue the boys from their clutches. Thus Ballantyne's view of man is seen to be optimistic, like his view of English boys' pluck and resourcefulness, which subdues tropical islands as triumphantly as England imposes empire and religion on lawless breeds of men. Golding's naval officer, the deus ex machina of Lord of the Flies, is only echoing Ballantyne when, perceiving dimly that all has not gone well on the island, he says: "I should have thought that a pack of British boys— you're all British aren't you?—would have been able to put up a better show than that—I mean—" This is not the only echo of the older book. Golding boldly calls his two chief characters Jack and Ralph. He reproduces the comic Peterkin in the person of Piggy. He has a wanton killing of a wild pig, accomplished, as E. L. Epstein points out, "in terms of sexual intercourse." He uses a storm to avert a quarrel between Jack and Ralph, as Ballantyne used a hurricane to rescue his boys from death at the hands of cannibals. He emphasizes physical cruelty but integrates it into his story, and by making it a real if deplorable part of human, or at least boyish, nature improves on Ballantyne, whose descriptions of brutality—never of course performed by the boys—are usually introduced merely for their sensational effect. Finally, on the last page Golding's officer calls Ralph mildly to task for not having organized things better. "It was like that at first," said Ralph, "before things—" He stopped. "We were together then—" The officer nodded helpfully. "I know Jolly good show. Like The Coral Island." Golding invokes Ballantyne, so that the kind but uncomprehending adult, the instrument of salvation, may recall to the child who has just gone through hell, the naivete of the child's own early innocence, now forever lost; but he suggests at the same time the inadequacy of Ballantyne's picture of human nature in primitive surroundings. Golding, then, regards Ballantyne's book as a badly falsified map of reality, yet the only map of this particular reality that many of us have. Ralph has it and, through harrowing experiences, replaces it with a more accurate one. The naval officer, though he should know better, since he is on the scene and should not have to rely on memories of his boyhood reading, has it, and it seems unlikely that he is ever going to alter it, for his last recorded action is to turn away from the boys and look at his "trim" cruiser, in other words to turn away from a revelation of the untidy human heart to look at something manufactured, manageable, and solidly useful. Golding, who being a grammar−school teacher should know boys well, gives a corrective of Ballantyne's optimism. As he has explained, the book is "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of The Coral Island Revisited

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human nature." These defects turn out, on close examination, to result from the evil of inadequacy and mistakenness. Evil is not the positive and readily identifiable force it appears to be when embodied in Ballantyne's savages and pirates. Golding's Ralph, for example, has real abilities, most conspicuous among them the gift of leadership and a sense of responsibility toward the "littluns." Yet both are incomplete. "By now," writes Golding, "Ralph had no self−consciousness in public thinking but would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess." Such detachment is obviously an important and valuable quality in a leader, but significantly the next sentence reads: "The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player. " Piggy on the other hand no doubt would have been a good chess player, for with a sense of responsibility still more acute than Ralph's he combines brains and common sense. Physically, however, he is ludicrous— fat, asthmatic, and almost blind without his specs. He is forever being betrayed by his body. At his first appearance he is suffering from diarrhoea; his last gesture is a literally brainless twitch of the limbs, "like a pig's after it has been killed." His further defect is that he is powerless, except as he works through Ralph. Though Piggy is the first to recognize the value of the conch and even shows Ralph how to blow it to summon the first assembly, he cannot sound it himself. And he lacks imagination. Scientifically minded as he is, he scorns what is intangible and he dismisses the possibility of ghosts or an imaginary beast. "Cos things wouldn't make sense. Houses an' streets, an'— TV—they wouldn't work." Of course he is quite right, save that he forgets he is now on an island where the artifacts of the civilization he has always known are meaningless. It is another important character, Simon, who understands that there may indeed be a beast, even if not a palpable one—"maybe it's only us " The scientist Piggy has recognized it is possible to be frightened of people, but he finds this remark of Simon's dangerous nonsense. Still Simon is right, as we see from his interview with the sow's head on a stake, which is the lord of the flies. He is right that the beast is in the boys themselves, and he alone discovers that what has caused their terror is in reality a dead parachutist ironically stifled in the elaborate clothing worn to guarantee survival. But Simon's failure is the inevitable failure of the mystic—what he knows is beyond words; he cannot impart his insights to others. Having an early glimpse of the truth, he cannot tell it, Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness. Inspiration came to him. "What's the dirtiest thing there is?" As an answer Jack dropped into the uncomprehending silence that followed it the one crude expressive syllable. Release was like an orgasm. Those littluns who had climbed back on the twister fell off again and did not mind. The hunters were screaming with delight. Simon's effort fell about him in ruins; the laughter beat him cruelly and he shrank away defenseless to his seat. Mockery also greets Simon later when he speaks to the lord of the flies, though this time it is sophisticated, adult mockery: "Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill," said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. Tragically, when Simon at length achieves a vision so clear that is is readily communicable he is killed by the pig hunters in their insane belief that he is the very evil which he alone has not only understood but actually exorcised. Like the martyr, he is killed for being precisely what he is not.

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The inadequacy of Jack is the most serious of all, and here perhaps if anywhere in the novel we have a personification of absolute evil. Though he is the most mature of the boys (he alone of all the characters is given a last name), and though as head of the choir he is the only one with any experience of leadership, he is arrogant and lacking in Ralph's charm and warmth. Obsessed with the idea of hunting, he organizes his choir members into a band of killers. Ostensibly they are to kill pigs, but pigs alone do not satisfy them, and pigs are in any event not needed for food. The blood lust once aroused demands nothing less than human blood. If Ralph represents purely civil authority, backed only by his own good will, Piggy's wisdom, and the crowd's easy willingness to be ruled, Jack stands for naked ruthless power, the police force or the military force acting without restraint and gradually absorbing the whole state into itself and annihilating what it cannot absorb. Yet even Jack is inadequate. He is only a little boy after all, as we are sharply reminded in a brilliant scene at the end of the book, when we suddenly see him through the eyes of the officer instead of through Ralph's, and he is, like all sheer power, anarchic. When Ralph identifies himself to the officer as "boss," Jack, who has just all but murdered him, makes a move in dispute, but overawed at last by superior power, the power of civilization and the British Navy, implicit in the officer's mere presence, he says nothing. He is a villain (are his red hair and ugliness intended to suggest that he is a devil?), but in our world of inadequacies and imperfections even villainy does not fulfill itself completely. If not rescued, the hunters would have destroyed Ralph and made him, like the sow, an offering to the beast; but the inexorable logic of Ulysses makes us understand that they would have proceeded thence to self−destruction. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself. The distance we have travelled from Ballantyne's cheerful unrealities is both artistic and moral. Golding is admittedly symbolic; Ballantyne professed to be telling a true story. Yet it is the symbolic tale that, at least for our times, carries conviction. Golding's boys, who choose to remember nothing of their past before the plane accident; who, as soon as Jack commands the choir to take off the robes marked with the cross of Christianity, have no trace of religion; who demand to be ruled and are incapable of being ruled properly; who though many of them were once choir boy's (Jack could sing C sharp) never sing a note on the island; in whose minds the great tradition of Western culture has left the titles of a few books for children, a knowledge of the use of matches (but no matches), and hazy memories of planes and TV sets—these boys are more plausible than Ballantyne's. His was a world of blacks and whites: bad hurricanes, good islands; good pigs obligingly allowing themselves to be taken for human food, bad sharks disobligingly taking human beings for shark food; good Christians, bad natives; bad pirates, good boys. Of the beast within, which demands blood sacrifice, first a sow's head, then a boy's, Ballantyne has some vague notion, but he cannot take it seriously. Not only does Golding see the beast; he sees that to keep it at bay we have civilization; but when by some magic or accident civilization is abolished and the human animal is left on his own, dependent upon his mere humanity, then being human is not enough. The beast appears, though not necessarily spontaneously or inevitably, for it never rages in Ralph or Piggy or Simon as it does in Roger or Jack; but it is latent in all of them, in the significantly named Piggy, in Ralph, who sometimes envies the abandon of the hunters and who shares the desire to "get a handful" of Robert's "brown, vulnerable flesh," and even in Simon burrowing into his private hiding place. After Simon's death Jack attracts all the boys but Ralph and the loyal Piggy into his army. Then when Piggy is killed and Ralph is alone, only civilization can save him. The timely arrival of the British Navy is less theatrical than logically necessary to make Golding's point. For civilization defeats the beast. It slinks back into the jungle as the boys creep out to be rescued; but the beast is real. It is there, and it may return.

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Source: Carl Niemeyer, "The Coral Island Revisited," in College English, Vol. 22, No 4, January, 1961, pp. 241−45. » Back to Section Index » Back to Table of Contents

Suggested Essay Topics Chapter 1: “The Sound of the Shell” 1. Examine the characters of Ralph, Jack, or Piggy in terms of what they possess that link them with their past lives, and what their emerging roles on the island are. Is there any indication which of these characters may be advancing more rapidly toward savagery than the others? Support your conclusion. 2. What is the symbolism of the conch? Why does it seem to have so much power? What characteristics does it have in common with what it appears to symbolize? Chapter 2: “Fire on the Mountain” 1. What is the significance of the boys’ first attempt at the fire? How does the result foreshadow events to come? What is the result of the fire? Why are the creeper vines significant? How does the fire’s result mirror the boy with the mulberry−colored birthmark’s fear? 2. What is the meaning of the beast that makes its first appearance in this chapter? Discuss how it is portrayed, and the others’ reaction to it. Does this foreshadow its later significance? How does the beast become real to the boys? Chapter 3: “Huts on the Beach” 1. Trace the path of Jack’s success as a hunter and Ralph’s growing ineffectiveness as a leader. Compare their emerging viewpoints in their argument together on the beach. What does this say about the two boys and their roles as civilized young men? 2. What divisions are becoming apparent among the boys on the island? Trace the characters and who they are allied to at this point. Discuss these alliances and why they are occurring. Chapter 4: “Painted Faces and Long Hair” 1. Examine Simon’s actions in this chapter and compare them to Roger’s. Both boys are outsiders like Piggy, yet seem to be accepted. Based upon these observations, present an argument for whom they will eventually ally themselves and explain why. 2. What is the significance of the camouflage paint that Jack puts on? How does it affect his personality? Why will it make him a better hunter? In what ways does it hide his personality? In what ways does it reveal his personality? Discuss its symbolic meaning as well as the others’ reactions to it. Chapter 5: “Beast From Water” 1. Trace the references to the beast in the novel thus far. Parallel that with the diminishing sense of order on the island and the boys’ gradual embracing of Jack’s savagery. What is the true nature of the beast on the island that Simon is unable to verbally define? 2. Discuss how and why Jack disrupts the meeting. What is at the core of the power struggle between he and Ralph? What techniques of anarchy and disruption does Jack apply? What is the result? What does it tell you Suggested Essay Topics

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about the characters of Jack and Ralph? Chapter 6: “Beast From Air” 1. Consider the character of Jack Merridew. How does he appear to be a qualified leader? What are his actual qualifications? Would he be a good leader? Why or why not? Compare him to Ralph. Who is better suited to lead the boys? Generally sum up why Jack’s character is introducing anarchy on the island and how. 2. What is the symbolic significance of the parachutist? How and why is it mistaken for the beast? In what ways is it a symbol of the beast? Chapter 7: “Shadows and Tall Trees” 1. The scene in which the boys beat Robert is a crucial development in the story. Examine this situation. What do the boys’ actions say about their descent toward savagery? Why is it so surprising that Ralph eagerly takes part in the ritual? Why does he? What do the boys’ actions after the beating say about their situation? 2. Consider the character of Simon. How is he different from the others? Why is he unable to express his thoughts? Why does he seem to know what Ralph is thinking? Trace his development as a character thus far, and the emerging role he has in the story. Chapter 8: “Gift for the Darkness” 1. Trace the boys’ gradual descent toward savagery to this point in the novel. What does it say about the nature of the beast? What is the beast? Who are the boys most closely related to it? When has it shown itself already? Where is it? Why don’t they see it? 2. Trace the symbolism of Simon’s relationship with The Lord of the Flies. Why is the head described as speaking from inside him? Why does he fall into its mouth? Why does he look it in the face? What is the result of understanding the nature of violence? Support your thesis with evidence from the story. Chapter 9: “A View to a Death” 1. Why does Simon travel to the mountaintop? What does he do there? What does he discover there? What is the symbolic meaning of his journey and discovery? 2. What is the meaning behind Simon’s death? How and why is he killed? What is he doing when he is killed? Why do Ralph and Piggy have a part in his death? What part do they play? Chapter 10: “The Shell and the Glasses” 1. How do Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric react to their roles in Simon’s death? What does this tell you about them? What does it tell you about the boys in general? How is this experience related to Golding’s theme that the flaws of mankind are inherent in man’s nature? 2. Examine and compare the two groups’ relationship to fire. What is significant about fire keepers versus fire takers or fire makers versus those who only want to use it to cook meat? Chapter 11: “Castle Rock” 1. Trace Roger’s evolution from “dark boy” to sadist. What behavior has he expressed that has gradually led him to evolve into a frightening and dangerous figure? How is he a natural extension of Jack’s authority? What place does the future hold for Roger on the island? 2. Examine Piggy’s last day of life on the island. What does it say about his character and his role on the island? What does he do? Why does he do it? How does his death contribute to the symbolism of the boys’ descent toward savagery? Suggested Essay Topics

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Chapter 12: “Cry of the Hunters” 1. Choose any of the main characters whose personalities are described in detail (Ralph, Jack, Simon, Piggy, Roger) and trace their development in the story as it pertains to Golding’s theory that the basic flaw of mankind is inherent in man. Support your thesis with character details highlighting their flaws or descent into savagery. 2. Throughout the story, trace the symbolic role of fire. Begin with the raging fire that kills the small boy, consider the changing role of fire between Jack’s tribe and Ralph’s, and finish with the fire that destroys the island and brings rescue. » Back to Table of Contents

Sample Essay Outlines The following paper topics are designed to test your understanding of the novel as a whole and your ability to analyze important themes and literary devices. Following each question is a sample outline to help get you started. • Topic #1 The characters’ loss of identity is a predominant theme of the book. Discuss each of the main characters’ loss of identity as the book progresses, and how this brings about the devastation that occurs in the book. Outline I. Thesis statement: The main characters in Lord of the Flies experience a loss of identity throughout the book that eventually causes the devastation and death that prevail. II. Ralph A. His original view of the island as a paradise B. His leadership qualities and ideas C. Ineffective leadership D. Inability to remember his purpose E. His own minor digressions into savagery III. Piggy A. Piggy’s introduction and the significance of his naming B. The rejection and acceptance of his ideas C. Piggy’s changing relationship with Ralph D. Piggy’s symbolic descent into blindness IV. Jack Merridew A. Jack’s original role on the island B. Jack’s leadership qualities C. The gradual symbolic camouflage D. Jack’s twisted vision V. Roger A. Roger’s initial description Sample Essay Outlines

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B. Roger’s bizarre behavioral tendencies unfettered by civilized restraint C. Roger’s emerging role in Jack’s tribe VI. Conclusion: Why the characters’ loss of their civilized identities support Golding’s theory that the problems with mankind are inherent in man. • Topic #2 Beelzebub, the demon of chaos, is also known as The Lord of the Flies. Though this is not referred to directly in the book, chaos, violence, anarchy, and destruction are central images in the book. Trace the characters’ relationships to The Lord of the Flies in the book, particularly as it is physically represented by the pig’s head impaled on a stick. Outline I. Thesis statement: Each of the main characters in Lord of the Flies has a significant relationship with “the beast” on the island that is connected with the emerging scenes of violence on the island and their fates. II. Ralph A. Leader and champion of civilization B. Opposite of Jack C. Minor forays into violence, anarchy, or chaos 1. Standing the boar’s charge and participating in the dance 2. Fighting with Jack 3. Forgetting his purpose D. Major forays into violence, anarchy, or chaos 1. His role in Simon’s death 2. Battling his attackers E. Ralph’s inability to destroy The Lord of the Flies 1. His encounter with the skull 2. Loss of control on the island III. Jack A. His increasing desire to hunt B. His decreasing desire for responsibility C. His increasing desire for power D. Denunciation of the conch E. Harbinger of anarchy 1. His own tribe on Castle Rock 2. His own brand of leadership 3. The hunt for Ralph IV. Piggy A. Intellect vs. manual labor B. Frail belief in the conch C. Inability to accept chaos D. Victim of violence V. Simon A. Understanding the nature of the beast B. Discussions with the pig’s head 1. Talking from within himself 2. Falling into the pig’s mouth Sample Essay Outlines

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C. The inability to express the truth D. Looking into the face of the beast E. Victim of violence VI. Roger A. The emerging sadist B. Behavioral abnormalities 1. Descriptions of his eager embracing of the collapse of authority C. Champion of anarchy VII. Conclusion: Sum up the boys’ relationships with “the beast” in terms of their fates. • Topic #3 A subtle thematic device in the book is Golding’s use of point of view to establish character and motives. Trace the book’s shifting point of view in these terms. Outline I. Thesis statement: Though Ralph is the main character of Lord of the Flies, and much of the story is told from his point of view, Golding also reveals his narrative through other characters, most notably Jack and Simon, as well as an omnipresent narrator. These separate views help to establish both character and theme. II. Ralph A. The novel’s predominant point of view B. Plain, descriptive prose C. Prose lapses into poetical visions III. Jack A. The hunter’s perspective B. Motivations for anarchy C. What kind of language? IV. Simon A. The poetical view of the island B. Character through vision C. Introspection V. Ralph, Jack, Simon A. The significance of the candle−buds VI. Omnipresent narrator A. Instances of B. Purpose of C. Prose style of VII. Conclusion: Even more than a narrative device, Golding’s shifting narration serves an integral function in the novel. » Back to Table of Contents

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Compare and Contrast

• 1950s: Economically, Great Britain was devastated by World War II. Homes, factories, railroads, docks, and other facilities had been destroyed by the German air force. Rationing of bread, meat, sugar, and gasoline continued well into the postwar period. Formerly a creditor, or lending nation, Great Britain for the first time in its history became a debtor nation. Today: Great Britain has regained economic stability, though not the economic power it had enjoyed before World War II. The discovery of oil in the North Sea and membership in the European Union (despite occasional disagreements) have enhanced Great Britain's economic strength. • 1950s: Politically, Great Britain was ruled in the immediate post−World War II period by the Labor Party, under which basic industries like coal, electric power, gas, and transportation were nationalized, social security was expanded, and universal health care was made available. With the coming of the Cold War, Great Britain sided with its World War II ally the United States against Russian expansionism, although a strong strain of antinuclear activism arose, centered around the placement of American nuclear missiles on British bases. Today: Great Britain remains politically strong, though a separatist movement in Northern Ireland continues to cause unrest. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, Great Britain has been able to focus its energies more on domestic problems and regional cooperation. • 1950s: Biologically oriented psychologists like Arnold Gesell believe that a child's intellectual development is only marginally affected by environment, while other scientists argue that it plays a dominant role. Today: Scientific studies using brain scans have shown physical differences between the brains of healthy children and abused children, suggesting experiences can actually change the circuity of the brain. » Back to Table of Contents

Topics for Further Study

• Compare and contrast the attitudes of Piggy, Ralph, Jack, and Simon toward the environment, as shown in the novel. Argue whether there is or is not any hope for environmental conservation as illustrated in the story. • Research the weather, plant and animal life, and ocean life of a tropical island in the Pacific Ocean. Imagine you have been abandoned on the island and write a week−long journal detailing how you would survive there. • Research actual instances of groups of adults or children being abandoned in the wilderness. Compare the outcomes of these cases to the events that occur in Lord of the Flies. • Read one of the inspirations for Lord of the Flies, R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island. Compare the characters and events of the two books, and argue which book you think portrays a more realistic outcome. Use examples from the text to support your argument. » Back to Table of Contents Compare and Contrast

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Media Adaptations

• Lord of the Flies enjoys the unusual status of being one of the few serious contemporary novels to have been made into a movie twice. The first, directed by Peter Brook in 1963 with an all−English cast, has been described as "compelling," but was only moderately successful at the box office. Available from Home Vision Cinema and Fusion Video. • The remake in 1990 featured an American cast and was directed by Harry Hook. While well−photographed and "visceral," with R−rated content, it is generally regarded as inferior to Brooks's version. Available from Columbia Tristar Home Video, The Video Catalog, and New Line Home Video. • An 89−minute sound recording on cassette (JRH 109), book, and study guide, produced in 1984 and featuring excerpts from the novel, are available from the Listening Library, Old Greenwich, CT. » Back to Table of Contents

What Do I Read Next?

• Euripides's ancient Greek tragedy The Bacchae, (405 BC), whose influence on Lord of the Flies is widely acknowledged, dramatizes the influence of the worship of Dionysus on the city of Thebes. In the play, King Pentheus tries to stop the Bacchantes' Dionysian ceremony and as a result is taken for a wild animal and killed by his mother. • Just as Lord of the Flies is a post−World War II response to R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island, so Golding's next novel, The Inheritors (1955), is a realistic response to H. G. Wells's optimistic theory of history as propounded in his Outline of History. • Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945), like Lord of the Flies, is an allegory influenced by its author's war experiences, and one that probes the nature of man and his attempts to form a just society. • The view of man and society in J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye (1951), in which a psychologically convalescing young man looks back on his experiences, has often been contrasted with the perspective of Golding's novel, and both books have been campus favorites at different times. • Praised for its style of its prose, Marianne Wiggin's 1989 novel John Dollar has been described as a "girl's version" of Lord of the Flies. Set in the 1910s, the novel follows a group of girls and their blinded schoolmistress who are stranded on an island near Burma after a storm. » Back to Table of Contents

Bibliography and Further Reading Sources Quotations from Lord of the Flies were taken from the following translation: Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Capricorn Books, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1954. Some information contained in the Overview section was taken from E. L. Epstein’s biographical and critical notes that follow the above edition of the novel.

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Baker, James R. "The Decline of Lord of the Flies." In South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 69, Autumn, 1970, pp. 446−60. Davis, Douglas A. "A Conversation with Golding." In New Republic, May 4, 1963, pp. 28−30. Dick, Bernard F. William Golding, revised edition. Twayne, 1987. Fahey, James J. Pacific War Diary, 1942−1945. Houghton Mifflin, 1963. Green, Martin. "Distaste for the Contemporary." In Nation, Vol. 190, May 21, 1960, pp. 451−54. Kermode, Frank. "The Novels of William Golding." In International Literary Annual, Vol. III, 1961, pp. 11−29. Also appears in shorter form in Baker & Ziegler (1964), pp. 203−6. Reilly, Patrick. 'Lord of the Flies': Fathers and Sons, Twayne's Masterwork Studies, No. 106, 1992. Rexroth, Kenneth. Atlantic Monthly, May, 1965. Riley, Carolyn, ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism: CLC 1. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1973. Rosenfield, Claire. "'Men of Smaller Growth': A Psychological Analysis of William Golding's Lord of the Flies." In William Golding's "Lord of the Flies," A Casebook Edition, edited by James R. Baker and Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. Putnam, 1964, pp. 261−76. Also appears in Leonard and Eleanor Manheim, editors, Hidden Patterns: Studies in Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism, Macmillan, 1966. Ryan, Bryan, ed. Major 20th Century Writers. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991, 2:E−K, 1206. For Further Study Baker, James R. and Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr., editors. William Golding's "Lord of the Flies," A Casebook Edition: Text, Notes, and Criticism. Putnam, 1964, esp. pp. IX−XXIV, 189−291. Includes the text of the novel, early critical articles pro and con, two interviews with Golding, and a checklist of other criticism. Cox, C. B. Review of Lord of the Flies. In Critical Quarterly, Vol. 2, no. 2, Summer, 1960, pp. 112−17. A contemporary review calling Lord of the Flies one of the most important novels to be published in the 1950s. Gindin, James. William Golding. St. Martin's, 1988. Gindin provides a good discussion of Golding's prose techniques and the way he suggests abstract ideas through his use of concrete detail. Herndl, G. C. "Golding and Salinger: A Clear Choice." In Wiseman Review, No. 502, Winter, 1964−65, pp. 309−22. Herndl sees Golding coming out of a classical and Christian tradition that implicitly honors social institutions and refutes individualism. Peter, John. "The Fables of William Golding." In Kenyon Review, Vol. 19, Autumn, 1957, pp. 577−92. A section of this essay appears in Baker & Ziegler, pp. 229−34. Peter finds this article "important and influential in attempting to define critical terms for an understanding of Golding's work." Bernard F. Dick notes that Golding himself especially liked this essay. Spitz, David. "Power and Authority: An Interpretation of Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.'" In Antioch Review, Vol. 30, no. 1, Spring, 1970, pp. 21−33. A careful study of characterization in Golding's novel.

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Stern, James. "English Schoolboys in the Jungle." In New York Times Review of Books, October 23, 1995, p. 38. Stern interprets the novel as social commentary. Tiger, Virginia. William Golding: The Dark Fields of Discovery. Calder & Boyars, 1974. Tiger summarizes religious, political, psychological, and anthropological interpretations while arguing that the story's structure "portrays its thematic meaning." Time, June 22, 1962, p. 64. An article tracing the growing popularity in America of Golding's novel. » Back to Table of Contents

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