LORD OF THE

FLIES
WILLIAM GOLDING
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PLOT OVERVIEW 2

CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND ANALYSES 4

Chapters 1-2 4
Chapters 3-5 6
Chapters 6-7 9
Chapters 8-9 11
Chapters 10-11 12
Chapter 12 13

CHARACTER ANALYSIS 15

Ralph 15
Jack 15
Piggy 15
Simon 15
Roger 16
Littluns 16

THEMES 17

SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS 19

IMPORTANT QUOTES 20

ESSAY TOPICS 28

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 2

PLOT OVERVIEW
Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel-prize winning British author William
Golding. Golding was knighted in 1988 and was a fellow in the Royal Society of
Literature. In 2008, The Times named him third on their list “The 50 greatest British
writers since 1945.”The title of Golding’s young-adult fiction novel is a reference to
Beelzebub, a prince of hell.

During a wartime evacuation, an airplane crashes on a remote island. The only

survivors are young boys, their ages ranging from middle childhood to
preadolescence. Ralph, described as “fair” (7), seems delighted when he realizes
there are no adults around, but soon Piggy, a fat, asthmatic boy, convinces him of
the need to put things right and act proper. By blowing on a conch they find near
the lagoon, Ralph calls the others together and becomes their leader. He makes
three rules: to have fun, to survive, and to maintain a fire to signal any passing
ships.

Opposing Ralph is Jack Merridew. He accepts Ralph’s leadership at first, but soon
a schism opens up between them over leadership. The other boys don’t want to
follow rules either: they tend to play instead of work. When Jack’s hunter clique lets
the fire go out, the schism grows wider, as Ralph blames Jack for losing their
chance at being rescued.

Meanwhile, the smaller children (termed “littluns”) grow afraid. They think a beast
lives on the island. Simon, one of Ralph’s friends, says that maybe the beast is
them, but Jack says he will kill the beast, manipulating the others into following
him.

While the children are asleep, an aerial battle takes place over the island, and a
dead pilot parachutes down. In the darkness, two boys tending the fire see
something billowing and believe it is the beast. After Ralph, Jack, and Roger see
the beast for themselves, Jack calls for the others to make him leader, and, when
he receives no support, storms off to the other side of the island. His hunters go
with him, and soon most of the others as well. From a bastion of stones they name
Castle Rock, Jack and his hunters paint their faces, hunt pigs, and raid Ralph’s fire.
They erect a pig’s head on a stick. Seeing it, Simon names it “Lord of the Flies” and
believes it talks to him, warning him he is danger, that he was right and the beast is
all of them, and that the hunters will kill him. When he rushes down to tell the other
boys, who are holding a ceremonial dance, he is beaten to death.

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 3

Afterward, Jack decides to steal Piggy’s glasses, not only so he can start fires, but
so Ralph can’t. They raid Ralph’s camp and take the glasses. When Ralph, Piggy,
Sam, and Eric journey to Castle Rock to take the glasses back, Jack ignores
Ralph’s authority. He captures Sam and Eric, then attacks Ralph. Above them,
Roger loosens a rock that hits Piggy as it is falls, shattering the conch and killing
Piggy.

That night, Ralph steals back to Castle Rock, where Sam and Eric tell him he is to
be hunted. The next day, betrayed by Sam and Eric, Ralph flees the hunters, who
try to smoke him out with a fire that eventually burns the entire island. Ralph kills or
injures several hunters as he flees, and as the fire forces him to the beach and the
hunters close in, he looks up to see a naval officer standing on the beach. The
officer seems to understand what has happened. With heavily-armed ships
standing out at sea, he tells the boys he will take them with him.

STEVEN GALLOWAY

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 4

CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND ANALYSES

Chapters 1-2

Chapter 1 Summary: “The Sound of the Shell”

From the wreck of a downed airplane that cut a scar through the jungle, two figures
emerge: Ralph, tall and handsome, with fair hair, and Piggy, short and fat with thick-
rimmed glasses, who implores Ralph not to tell the others his nickname is Piggy.
Ralph is delighted with the island, and the fact that there are no grownups near.
Piggy’s stomach is upset, and he keeps trundling off into the bushes to use the
bathroom. On the beach Ralph takes off his clothes and swims, completely relaxed,
unafraid of their circumstances. Piggy can’t swim because of his asthma, but he
sees a conch shell in the water. When Ralph retrieves it, Piggy tells him how to
blow it. Ralph raises the conch, summoning the other boys from the plane crash.
When all arrive, they decide to elect a leader, choosing Ralph, even though Piggy
is smarter and Jack, leader of a boys’ choir, has more leadership skills. Ralph,
Simon, and Jack decide to see if the island is actually an island; Piggy is told not to
come. They climb to the top, passing trails made by animals, stopping once to push
a giant boulder off the mountainside into the forest below. At the top they see it is
an island and realize that they are marooned on the island. On the way down, they
find a small piglet stuck in the jungle vines. Jack hesitates with his knife, and the
piglet runs away, but Jack swears he will not hesitate the next time, slamming his
knife into a tree to emphasize his point.

Chapter 2 Summary: “Fire on the Mountain”

When Ralph comes back down the mountain he blows the conch again, and the
others gather. He tells them they’re on an uninhabited island, and it may be some
time before they are rescued. He says they can’t have everyone talking at once, so,
as in school, they’ll raise hands, and whomever Ralph recognizes to speak will get
the conch. Jack says they’ll need hunters. Piggy points out that no one knows
where they are, so they may be there a while, but Ralph says it’s a good island—
they have food and water, they can hunt pigs, and they’ll have a good time until the
grownups rescue them. One of the small boys says he saw a snake-thing, “a
beastie” (35), but Ralph insists there is no beast here. He asserts again that they
will be rescued: a ship will come by and save them, and they only need to help with
a signal. At this point, the other boys rush up the mountain and begin to gather
wood for a fire. They drag up old rotten logs in a blowdown part of the forest and

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 5

use Piggy’s glasses to start a fire, but the wood is so old and dry it goes up in
flames in seconds, producing little smoke. Jack says his men will man the fire,
throwing on green branches when a ship is sighted. He agrees they need more
rules—they aren’t savages, after all. But Piggy isn’t placated. He says they are
acting like a bunch of children, not listening to Ralph, running off to do whatever
strikes them at the moment. While he is talking, the forest below catches fire.
Piggy, laughing, says that they could have burned down the whole forest and
maintains that they should have built shelters. Piggy also points out that they don’t
know where all the kids are. Beneath them, the fire burns on.

Chapters 1-2 Analysis

Ralph is the first character to emerge from the jungle. He is unperturbed by the
plane crash and is delighted by the idea that there are no grownups around. His
realized ambition—to be his own boss, without the rules and regulations of
grownups—is here. Piggy is next to emerge, although he is caught in the creeper
vines of the jungle in much the same way the piglet is caught at the end of the
chapter. Piggy is short and fat, with asthma and poor vision. He contrasts sharply
with fair and tall Ralph. Ralph is fit, an alpha male, and Piggy is small and weak.
Piggy is intelligent, but his intelligence will win him no awards here, where only the
strong will survive. It is Piggy who finds the conch, but he has no breath to blow it.
Instead, Ralph does, summoning the other survivors to him, which helps him, along
with the power of the conch, to get elected as leader. Since the men with
megaphones are not around—the men who herded the boys onto planes and away
from a war where the atom bomb was soon to be dropped—the conch, a primitive
tool, becomes their mouthpiece. With conch in hand, Ralph is elected leader over
the more intelligent Piggy and the more experienced leader Jack. It is Ralph’s
alpha nature, which none of the children would be able to define, that causes them
to elect him. They think that he is the fittest among them, to lead as well as to
survive. As Ralph, Jack, and Simon climb the mountain, they leave Piggy behind.
While climbing, they come across a piglet stuck in the creeper vines, an ominous
foreshadowing of Piggy’s fate.

On the beach after blowing the conch, Ralph begins to build a government.
Whoever speaks must have the conch, Ralph says, much in the same way
members of Parliament must be recognized by the chair to have the floor. Jack and
his choir will be the army, the hunters. The children all decide to build a fire, and
while gathering wood, work together systematically for the greater good. Their
progress is reminiscent of the progress of early man: fire, government, armies.
England is at war, evident because of the evacuation and the reference to the
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 6

bomb. Justas the children are stranded at sea after the onset of the nuclear war,
the next step in their own social progress will be toward war and savagery.

Their progress is also problematic in other ways:the boys continually interrupt the
conch-speaker; they run off as soon as Ralph mentions fire; and they make no
plans to contain or control the fire. The latter later leads to them burning down the
forest. Jack says they aren’t savages, but all signs point to the fact that they are.
The government they try to build is weak at best, much in the same the
government structures of the old world, the world they’ve left behind, must have
been weak enough to break down into war. They fail to protect the children in the
same way the old world failed to protect them—Piggy says they don’t know where
some of the children are. The one with the mark on his face is missing, last seen
down in the fire, much the same way they themselves have been left in the fire by
the old governments.

Chapters 3-5

Chapter 3 Summary: “Huts on the Beach”

After a few weeks on the island—indicated in how Jack’s hair is longer and how
huts have been erected along the beach—Jack is obsessed with killing a pig. He
follows the trails through the jungle with a spear, naked and tanned under the
tropic sun. After flinging his spear and missing a pig, he walks back to the beach,
where Ralph is trying to erect a shelter. Ralph remarks that he has no help, and
Jack relates that he is frustrated because he wants meat. What’s more, he wants to
kill. When Ralph points out Jack’s failure, Jack becomes angry.When Jack points
out that Ralph hasn’t been successful in providing shelter, Ralph in turn becomes
angry at Jack. Both agree the other boys are no help—they hold a meeting, and
everyone promises to work hard, but five minutes after the meeting each child runs
off on his own, to play or eat or swim. After Jack and Ralph give up their hunting
and shelter-building for the evening and join the other children in play, Simon
sneaks off into a private hole he found, where he watches the others.

Chapter 4 Summary: “Painted Faces and Long Hair”

By Chapter 4, the boys have grown used to the island. Their hair is longer, their
skin is darker, and they have become accustomed to the rhythms of the island, the
quick swing from dusk to dark, the long slow slide of the sun across the sand. They
recognize each other by size and separate according to “bigguns” and “littluns”
(59). The littluns have built sand castles along the beach, and while Henry,
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 7

Percival,and Johnny are playing among them, Roger and Maurice come out of the
forest, kicking sand on the littluns. When Henry wanders away from Percival’s
crying, Roger follows him and begins to throw rocks, although he only throws them
near Henry; the rules and regulations of civilization keep him from crossing that
line. While he watches Henry, Jack appears out of the forest, beckoning to Roger.
When Roger follows, he sees Jack has gathered clay and charcoal. He paints his
face like a mask.

On the beach, Piggy tells Ralph they could make a sundial, but this depresses and
angers Ralph, who thinks a sundial is as useless as a TV. When Ralph sees the
smoke of a ship on the ocean, he begins to run up the mountain, even though he
knows the fire is out. Piggy is too far behind to light the fire with his glasses, and
they watch in frustration as the ship disappears. When Jack and his hunters appear
with a killed pig, Ralph accuses him of letting the fire go out. Jack contends that
they needed all the hunters, but in the argument, Jack and Ralph find themselves
at odds with another: “By the time the pile was built, they were on different sides of
a high barrier” (73).

Chapter 5 Summary: “Beast from Water”

After the missed attempt at signaling the ship, Ralph calls a meeting. In the twilight,
he lays down rules, the most important being that the fire must not go out. He
points out how they’ve stopped working together and how they have stopped
doing the things they need to do, such as bringing fresh water and building
shelters. He says that they were happy, at first, but then they started getting
frightened, chiefly due to the littluns talk of a beast. Ralph firmly maintains that
there is no beast, only fear, and that “fear can’t hurt [them] any more than a dream”
(82). Jack, contradicting Ralph, declares that he’ll kill the beast because he’s a
hunter, while timid Piggy suggeststhat they’re frightened of people. When Piggy
asks the littluns about the beast, Percival relays that the beast comes out of the
sea. Simon poses that he thinks the beast is them, the children themselves, as well
as someone else—an anonymous voice in the dark that says there are ghosts on
the island. Jack shouts them down, dismissing the notions. He ignores both the
conch and the rules, boasting that they’ll kill the beast. Jack takes his hunters off
into the darkness, ending the meeting and rejecting the rules.

Chapters 3-5 Analysis

Jack and Ralph, while still friends, experience the first conflict between them. Jack
is obsessed with hunting and feels that their survival is dependent on taking up
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 8

arms, i.e., spears. Ralph wants to provide shelter for everyone. Their conflict stems
from differing ways of ruling: one wants war, and the other wants the safety of
shelter: “They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling, unable to
communicate” (54). Neither can explain to the other why their mode of governing is
preferable, and so they remain at odds, perhaps in the same way the old world was
at such odds they went to war.

A second conflict is that they are finding how hard it is to govern. The children will
not work. They hold meetings, but afterwards the children wander off. Left to their
own devices, the boys eschew their own survival for the pleasurable experiences
of play and the comfort of food. Without the enforced rules of society, they find
themselves reverting to an animal-like state, eating whenever they want, frolicking
in the water, forgoing shelter-building, and underrating the ideation of working
together for the common good.

The boys continue their descent into savagery. Roger’s longer hair makes him look
forbidding; he throws rocks at Henry, and while he doesn’t cross the line into
hitting him, the suggestion is there. Similarly, there is the underlying suggestion of
murder on the island. When Jack’s hunters come back with a killed pig, they chant:
“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood” (69). Piggy has already been named an
outsider, and the chants to kill the pig foreshadow how the other boys will come to
see Piggy.

By allowing the fire to die out, Jack chooses the savagery of the kill over the safety
of civilization. The act is accidental, but he clearly values the hunt over being
rescued. Even when Ralph tells him how he failed, Jack is ecstatic from the kill. It
takes Ralph telling him about the missed ship two or three times before he begins
to understand, yet Jack believes a simply apology will suffice.

Two factions become distinctive: Jack’s hunters and those who follow Ralph. The
argument over the fire divides them. Jack repeatedly tells the story of killing the
pig, while Ralph can only think of the lost chance for rescue. During the fight, Jack
hits Piggy in the stomach, much as he gutted the killed pig.

Ralph’s meeting is to restore the orderhe can feel slipping awayas the chasm
between him and Jack grows. In his speech, Ralph mentions building shelters,
which are symbols of a civilized way of life. He also mentions water, which without
they will die. With disdain, he addresses that they’ve stopped using the appropriate
places to go to the bathroom, that they are, quite literally, dropping their waste all
over the island. Ralph emphasizes the importance of the fire, which in itself is a
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 9

symbol of light, goodness, and rescue. It is a symbol of their humanity, and without
the fire—without the light inside them—they become less than human. Theirbrief
attempt at building a civilization is failing, shown through the leaning shelters, the
lack of fresh water, and the fire going out.

As they turn their attention to the fear pervading them, Simon poses that maybe it’s
them. He means that maybe at the core man always fears other men and that
civilizations inevitably break down into fighting. Percival believes that the beast
came out of the sea. The children themselves literally came from the sea after the
crash, and figuratively, mankind came out of the sea as he evolved. The
overarching premise is that men are beasts, and the beasts occupying the island.
Essentially, the ones the children need to be afraid of are themselves and their
human nature.

Chapters 6-7

Chapter 6 Summary: “Beast from Air”

As the children sleep, they do not see the lights of an air battle high above them,
nor do they see the parachute descending on the island. Sam and Eric, asleep
when they are supposed to be tending the fire, also do not see the parachute until
they wake before dawn and relight the fire. They can’t quite make out the
parachute or the man in the darkness, so they think the beast has returned. They
rush down the hill to wake Ralph, who calls an assembly. In the assembly, Ralph
decides they must try to find the beast. Leaving Piggy with the littluns, Ralph, Jack,
and the bigguns set off for the only part of the island they haven’t explored. Where
the rock comes down from the mountain higher up, Ralph and Jack find a
protected outcropping, which Jack says would make a great fort, easily defended.
With some of his hunters, he begins pushing great rocks down into the sea, but
Ralph says there is no food. He says they must build up the fire again to have any
hope of rescue.

Chapter 7 Summary: “Shadows and Tall Trees”

Following Jack along the pig run, Ralph thinks how dirty he is. His hair is too long.
His nails are eaten away. He thinks too of a house he used to live in, before the
war began. Simon tells him he’ll get back to where he was, but Ralph isn’t sure. As
they make their way toward the top of the mountain, a pig comes barreling along
the path. Ralph’s thrown spear strikes it, but they lose it in the undergrowth. Ralph
feels the thrill of the hunt, and with the other boys, pretends Robert is a boar. They
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 10

close in on him. Ralph strikes him with the butt of his spear, and Robert begins to
cry until they let him loose. He then says they need a real pig so that they can kill it,
to which Jack says they should use a littlun. As they continue climbing to the top of
the mountain, most of the boys want to turn back, afraid the beast might be there.
Only Ralph, Jack, and Roger continue up, Jack and Ralph goading one another to
continue. When Jack creeps ahead, he returns to say he saw something up there.
When they all three climb up, the wind lifts the head of the downed pilot so that
they can see his ruined face, causing them all to flee in the darkness.

Chapters 6-7 Analysis

At the end of Chapter 5, Ralph and Piggy wish for a sign from the adults. The sign
comes in Chapter 6 in the form of an airplane battle high above the island, but they
don’t see it. Had they, the battle would have told them the war is still going on.
They’ve convinced themselves the adults would know what to do. Piggy in
particular believes that the adults could fix everything: “They’d meet and have tea
and discuss. Then things ‘ud be all right—” (94). However, the battle indicates that
things would not be all right.The adults have just as hard a time as the children at
getting alongsince the world of the adults has exploded into war.

The downed pilot is also a reminder of Simon’s words that perhaps the beast is
them. In the darkness, the children can’t make out the pilot’s face, nor even tell
what he is, so their fears make him into a monster, in the same way they’ve made
each other into monsters. Their fears have gotten the better of them. The pilot,
even though dead, could have given them hope of rescue, but instead, their fears
turn him into a monster, not a harbinger of hope. Had they seen him for what he is,
they might have thought how close his plane must have been, how close ships
might have been, how close they were to someone—even a world at war—and
know that they were not entirely alone on the island.

While searching for the beast, Ralph and Jack’s fears get the better of them as well.
The chasm between them continues to grow. The only reason they go up the
mountain together is out of fear that they will be seen as cowards if they don’t.
Their different visions of how to run things has caused the divide in loyalty. Jack
wants to hunt the beast; Ralph wants the fire relit. Both of them think they are
protecting the children as well as themselves, but the different means they have
chosen—Ralph wanting rescue, and Jack wanting to kill for their safety—sets them
at odds with another. They’ve chosen different methods to govern, and those
methods inevitably force them to confront one another instead of working
together.
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 11

Chapters 8-9

Chapter 8 Summary: “Gift for the Darkness”

When Jack, Ralph, and Roger come down from the mountain, Jack calls an
assembly. He tells the others that they saw the beast. He says that Ralph thinks the
hunters are no good. When Jack calls Ralph a coward, saying he stayed back
instead of crawling toward the beast, he and Ralph come close to blows. Jack asks
for a vote as to who should be chief, but none of the boys vote, so he runs off
down the beach. Ralph and Piggy decide they should build a fire on the beach, but
by the time they’ve finished building it, most of the bigguns have run off to join
Jack. At the far end of the beach, Jack tells his hunters that he’s chief. He leads
them on a hunt, where they kill a fat sow with their spears and bare hands. Jack, in
a gift to the beast, cuts off the pig’s head and puts it on a stake. When Simon sees
it, he names it “Lord of the Flies”(138) because of the big green bottle flies
swarming over it. As Jack plans a feast and goes down to steal fire from Ralph,
Simon sits talking to the pig’s head, who tells him that he is a silly boy for thinking
the beast could be killed.

Chapter 9 Summary: “A View to a Death”

As clouds begin to build up over the island, Simon wakes from where he has
fainted and makes his way down the mountainside. He sees the pilot stuck in his
parachute and is heading down to tell the others that the beast is a human:just a
man, stranded here in death like they are. Down below, Ralph and Piggy, realizing
all the others have joined Jack, decide they will as well. When they reach Jack, his
hunters offer them meat, but as the storm begins to break, they pretend they are
killing the pig again. They chant and dance as the wind kicks up. Lightning strikes,
and the rain storm blows in from the ocean. Simon, weak and weary, tries to tell
them that the beast is only a man, but in the frenzy of the storm and their fear and
savagery, Jack and his hunters fall on Simon, thinking he is the beast, and beat him
to death.

Chapters 8-9 Analysis

Jack calling the assembly is the first time anyone beside Ralph has called one,
signifying that, somehow, Ralph has lost his leadership and Jack has taken control.
And even though no one will vote for Jack to be the new leader, as soon as he
runs off, the bigguns follow him. Their fear has gotten to them again. They fear the
beast and believe that Jack and his spears can protect them.They forgo working
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 12

the fire for rescue in favor of what they consider safety. In their ignorance, they
have no idea that the beast is only a man, stranded on the island like they are. The
dead pilot foreshadows the fate of the boys. The fire represents comfort and
safety, and the spears and face paint represent savagery and reverting back to a
time before civilization when man could not even build a fire, when he stole from
his fellow man. Ralph and Piggy, wanting the kind of comfort that only comes from
the closeness of others, decide to join Jack and his hunters, not realizing they are
acquiescing to Jack. In doing so, they are accepting his rules of savagery. When
Simon comes down the hill, he is killed before he can tell the boys that he was
right: the beast was no more than a man. Simon’s death is a sign that the boys may
not make it to being men because they have allowed the beast—the fear and
savagery inside them—to take over.

Chapters 10-11

Chapter 10 Summary: “The Shell and the Glasses”

Along the beach, after the death of Simon, Ralph and Piggy try to decide what to
do. All they can think of is to keep the fire going and hope for rescue. Piggy tells
Ralph not to let on that they were part of the dance that murdered Simon. Piggy
says it was an accident. Near the Castle Rock, Jack has had one of his hunters
beaten. He proclaimsthat the beast is still out there and that they didn’t kill it. His
face is painted, and he points with his spear. He says they will steal more fire later
that night. Back at the beach, Ralph realizes they can’t always keep the fire
burning. He doesn’t know that Jack and his hunters will be coming to steal fire, so
when it goes out, Jack’s men attack Piggy in the dark and take his glasses. None of
them can see, so Ralph and Eric don’t realize they were only fighting each other
while Jack and his men got away.

Chapter 11 Summary: “Castle Rock”

Near dawn, Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric realize the fire is out. Piggy can’t see. They
decide to go after Piggy’s glasses, and to tell the others they have to keep a fire lit.
Ralph and Piggy plan on reasoning with Jack, but once they get there, they are
stopped on a narrow ledge outside Castle Rock. Above them, Roger challenges
them. He has one hand on the lever that will release the big rock. Ralph tries
reasoning with them, but Roger says he can’t let them in. When Jack appears, he
and Ralph begin to fight with spears. Piggy and Ralph plead for law and order over
hunting and killing, but Jack has worked his hunters into a frenzy. They tie up Sam
and Eric, then Roger releases the big rock, which falls and shatters the conch,
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 13

knocking Piggy forty feet down onto the rocks to his death. The ocean bubbles up
and claims him, and Ralph flees into the jungle while the hunters hurl spears after
him.

Chapters 10-11 Analysis

After the death of Simon, Ralph has trouble thinking. He often can’t remember why
they need the fire until Piggy reminds him. The death of Simon was both symbolic
and ironic in that while trying to kill the beast, they made themselves into beasts.
Subsequently, Ralph struggles to remember about the fire, their symbol of
civilization. It is the fire that gives them hope and comfort, and Ralph has trouble
remembering hope and comfort. As a last-ditch effort to bring order back to the
island after the hunters steal Piggy’s glasses, the only way they can make fire,
Ralph and Piggy decide to try to reason with Jack. They go to Castle Rock to plead
for Piggy’s glasses and for fire, essentially pleading for hope, for rescue, and for a
return to civilization. Jack and his hunters are painted like savages and have turned
into savages themselves. They refuse Ralph’s request as they do not want to be
rescued. The hunters have been liberated by the paint, which conceals their
civilized natures and allows them to turn to savagery. Even the conch has little
power over them. When Roger releases the rock, shattering the conch and killing
Piggy, their descent into savagery is complete.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 Summary: “Cry of the Hunters”

After fleeing the hunters, Ralph hides in the bushes not far from Castle Rock. When
night falls, he climbs up the cliff to where Sam and Eric are on watch and tries to
reason with them. He says he only wanted to be rescued. Sam and Eric tell him he
needs to leave. They say the hunters will be coming after him in the morning. He
wakes to the sound of their calls and hides in a thicket, but Sam and Eric tell Jack
where Ralph said he would be hiding. Jack has the other boys push great rocks
down on the thicket, then start a fire to smoke Ralph out. Ralph flees, stabbing one
of the hunters on his way. He runs to the far end of the island, then doubles back
when the pursuit comes close. The whole island is on fire now. Ralph hides again,
but Roger finds him, and Ralph stabs Roger, fleeing all the way down to the beach,
where he looks up to see a naval officer standing on the beach. After hearing some
of the story, the officer says he will rescue them.

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 14

Chapter 12 Analysis

The fire on the island symbolizes the war. The hunters—everyone but Ralph—has
descended into savagery. They have become a military, and their warlike ways
burn the island, much the way the world they left behind became consumed by
atomic war. Ralph symbolizes the futility of government and the helpless attempts
at order and civility in an increasingly savage world. The two smartest of the bunch,
Piggy and Simon, are dead. Their deathsindicate that intelligence leads nowhere
because in a savage world, only the strong survives. When the military officer
shows up, he seems to understand instinctively what has happened, perhaps
because he has seen it before in “Coral Island” (202) or perhaps because he
knows war. In contrast to the boys, the officer wears an impeccable uniform. He
stands dignified, even embarrassed by their show of emotion. Fundamentally, the
officeris no better than the boys because behind him, his ship is heavily armed with
machine guns. He will lead the boys back into the world war. While the marooned
boys have been “playing” (178) war, the officer is a part of a civilization where a real
war is destroying the world, just as the boys have destroyed the island.

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 15

CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Ralph

Ralph is first described as “fair” (7). However, without grownups or rules, he is

suddenly free from the burden of society. He makes fun of Piggy and is delighted
there are no grownupsbecause he has “ambitions” (8) and now he can realize
them. However, he soon comes to see the value in rules. He blows the conch to
call an assembly and begins to set rules: they must keep a fire for rescue; they
shouldn’t use the bathroom everywhere; they should build shelters. Cast into a
primitive way of live, Ralph decides they do indeed need rules. He represents the
civilizing instinct of humans, the need for law and order, and the need for hope.

Jack

Jack is Ralph’s foil. He represents power and the corruption it causes. He becomes
increasingly barbaric the longer they stay on the island, and he increasingly resents
Ralph’s attempts to maintain civility. Jack also represents the military, or organized
arms. He first says that his hunters are soldiersbefore calling them hunters, and his
followers march in uniform. They become Jack’s army, and with them, he takes
over the island in destroying the conch, killing Simon and Piggy, and hunting Ralph,
his only opposition.

Piggy

Piggy represents intelligence and science. It is his glasses—his ability to see—that

gives them hope in the form of fire. Piggy is also weak, however. He can’t run or
work because of his asthma. He is fat whereas the other boys are slim. Because of
this, he is seen as an outsider. The others instinctively shun him because of his
weakness, the way the runt of the litter would be left to die. Piggy tries constantly
to remind the others of civility, of the need for law and order, but his voice is
weak—he struggles to talk with asthma—and so he is not heard.

Simon

Simon may be the only morally good character. He has neither the imposed civility
of Ralph nor the savagery of Jack. He helps take care of the others and works for
the good of the community. It is Simon who recognizes the innate evil of humanity
when he presents the idea that maybe the beast is them. He sees the fears they all

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 16

carry with them, and he worries those fears will turn them against one another, as
eventually happens. He names the pig head, the symbol of Jack’s savagery, “Lord
of the Flies” (138) and is beaten to death shortly after.

Roger

Roger is Jack’s second-in-command. Even early on, Roger shows a sense of

brutality. He throws rocks at Henry, and although he doesn’t try to hit him, the
suggestion of cruelty shows what he is capable of, if he only goes one step further
toward savagery. Near the end he sharpens a stake at both ends to spit Ralph’s
head on, much like they did with the boar’s head. It is Roger who kills Piggy, by
pushing a large rock on him, the most primitive weapon available to them, showing
how far they have reverted to savagery.

Littluns

The littluns are the younger children, most of them never named, which is
important in itself. They eat whenever and wherever they want, they use the
restroom whenever and wherever they want, and they play whenever and
wherever they want. They represent society in general, going along without any
worries except their human fears, expecting to be taken care of. Their lack of
involvement in their own well-being allows them to be forgotten and allows those
in power to do whatever they want, including destroying the world.

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 17

THEMES
The Human Beast

Simon tries to say that the beast is the boys themselves, but he can’t get the words
out. At first, the beast is only a fear of the littluns, a nightmare conjured from their
circumstances of fleeing a war and crash-landing on an island. The beast could
also be an animal like a boar or a snake, or even something they’ve never seen. It
is the darkness at night, the unfamiliar surroundings, the sudden recognition they
are on their own.

The beast is also the fears of man. The boys allow these fears to get inside them.
They begin to fear each other. The split between Ralph and Jack grows and grows.
Jack wants to hunt—he thinks the best way of staying alive is to arm themselves, to
hunt and kill, while Ralph wants to keep hope alive and wait for rescue. The beast
comes before either thing happens. When the pilot parachutes onto the island, the
boys don’t recognize it as a man. In the darkness—not just the darkness of night,
but the darkness of all their fears—they don’t recognize humanity any longer.

“[M]aybe it’s only us” (89), Simon tries to muster, and so it is. The boys allow fear to
get inside them and become the very thing they fear—the darkness, the hatred, the
teeth and claws of a beast.

Survival of the Fittest

Ralph and Jack, as the two biggest boys, become the leaders. The boys separate
themselves by size. They name themselves by size: bigguns and littluns. The
littluns sit together while the hunters stay together: “On his left the larger boys who
had not known each other before the evacuation; before him small children
squatted in the grass” (32). Ralph is chosen for his size:

Jack started to protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a
chief to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have
found good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was traceable
to Piggy, while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness
about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size (22).

Intelligence isn’t valued, nor is leadership. They vote on Ralph’s animal nature, not
what they would choose in a traditional government.

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 18

The reason for this is they are already, from the moment they land on the island,
turning into animals, or“savages” (91), as they are described later. Jack’s hunters
finally do away with any traditional form of government.The break the conch and
kill Piggy, the voice of reason, and later kill Simon via ruling by mob mentality, on
the basis of their strength. At the end, when any of them disagree with Jack, he
beats them. He overpowers them, ties them up, and beats them, a way of asserting
his strength. When Ralph tries to reason, Jack attacks him, like an animal that relies
only on strength.

The Individual Versus Society

The littluns refuse to work, and the hunters let the fire go out. Jack and Ralph
become embroiled in a power struggle. The bigguns fail to watch after the littluns
and lose one of them. Piggy and Ralph try to maintain order, but their rules are
disobeyed. Each person acting out of his own interest breaks down the society.
The charactershighlight how easily society breaks down when each individual
looks after his own interests. Jack wants to kill a pig, so he removes his hunters
from the fire and misses a chance to be rescued. This in turn causes the schism
between Jack and Ralph. The littluns would rather play than build shelters, which
contributes to their fear of the beast because they sleep out in the open. They
can’t even be bothered to use the bathroom in the designated places, so they drop
their waste everywhere. In the end, because Jack wants Ralph to be killed, the
boys end up burning down the entire island, which is essentially their entire world.

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 19

SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS

The Fire

The fires represent rescueand, therefore, hope. It also represents light, and a
pushing back of the darkness. The darkness here is the savagery that threatens to
overwhelm the marooned boys. With the fire, they have both light and hope.
Without it, they are cast into the darkness.

Fire also represents destruction, if left unchecked. Twice the boys let the fire get
away and burn the island. The mention of the atomic bomb back in civilization is
another example: the fire, i.e. the hope of humanity, has gotten away from
them.The fire becomes destructive, representing how the best intentions of men—
or boys—can become corrupted if not guarded carefully.

The Conch

The conch shell represents civility and order. Whomever speaks must hold the
conch. Ralph calls them all together with the voice of the conch. Even in the
beginning, the boys shout over whomever is holding the conch. Piggy, as the
intelligent voice of reason, constantly reminds them to speak only with the conch.
When Jack and Ralph begin to split apart, Ralph is afraid of blowing the conch to
call Jack back. He is afraid that Jack will not listen, and their government—their
civility and order—will break down. By the time the conch is shattered, their civility
has been shattered as well.

Face Paint and Spears

Jack begins painting his face early on. He also carries a spear. His face paint is
ostensibly to camouflage him so that the pigs won’t see him, but several times the
paint is referred to as a mask, concealing who he really is: “They understood only
too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought” (172). The
spears were supposed to be used to kill boars, but by the end they are weapons to
use against Simon and Ralph. The rocks that Roger threw at Henry without hitting
him become a giant rock he kills Piggy with. The weapons of savages—rocks and
spears—have become the weapons of choice for Jack and his hunters, which
means Jack and his hunters have become savages.

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 20

IMPORTANT QUOTES
1. “The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition
overcame him. In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at
the reversed fat boy.

‘No grownups!’” (Chapter 1, Page 8)

Their world is turned upside down, but the fair-headed boy (Ralph) is
delighted. He has ambitions, and now they will be realized. The implication
here is that grownups have thwarted his ambitions. This is a foreshadowing
of what is to come: without grownups, the fair boy will realize his ambitions. It
is ironic that he is called “fair” here. Nature is fair in that the fittest survive, but
humanity, the author is saying, should rise above such animal thought. The
fair boy, however, does not think so, at least at this point in the novel.

2. “The fat boy waited to be asked his name in turn but this proffer of
acquaintance was not made; the fair boy called Ralph smiled vaguely, stood
up, and began to make his way once more toward the lagoon. The fat boy
hung steadily at his shoulder.” (Chapter 1, Page 9)

In the beginning, Ralph doesn’t care about Piggy. Piggy, however, needs
Ralph. He tethers himself to Ralph because he sees Ralph as a leader. Piggy
is weak: he is fat and has asthma, which Ralph constantly makes fun of:
“Sucks to your ass-mar!” (13). In the early pages of the novel, Ralph isn’t a
leader, and he isn’t fair to Piggy. He is delighted that there are no grownups.
Later, when he sees that he needs Piggy, he will be kind. In this passage, he
does not yet know that he will have to be the one to grow up. He will see the
responsibilities of leadership, and when he does, he will consider giving up
his ambitions.

3. “He jumped down from the terrace. The sand was thick over his black shoes
and the heat hit him. He became conscious of the weight of clothes, kicked
his shoes off fiercely, and ripped off each stocking with its elastic garter in a
single movement. Then he leapt back on the terrace, pulled off his shirt, and
stood there among the skull-like coconuts with green shadows from the
palms and the forest sliding over his skin. He undid the snake-clasp of his
belt, lugged off his shorts and pants, and stood there naked, looking at the
dazzling beach and the water.” (Chapter 1, Page 10)

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 21

Even after only a time on the island, Ralph is changing. He is becoming less
civilized and more animal-like. He sheds his clothing and stands naked as an
animal. His clothing is a mark of the civilization he has left behind, and
already he sheds it, in the same way a snake sheds its skin to become
something new. The shadows of the jungle color him green, like the jungle
itself, and the skull-like coconuts and snake-clasp of his belt illustrate that
inside every civilized boy are animal parts and likenesses.

4. “He patted the palm trunk softly, and, forced at last to believe in the reality of
the island, laughed delightedly again and stood on his head. He turned
neatly on to his feet, jumped down to the beach, knelt and swept a double
armful of sand into a pile against his chest. Then he sat back and looked at
the water with bright, excited eyes.” (Chapter 1, Page 10)

Instead of being scared or worried as Piggy is, Ralph delights in this new
world. He pats the trunk of the tree almost as someone would pinch
themselves because he does not want to wake from this dream. For him, it is
a dream: a world without grownups, without any rules or regulations, where
he can do whatever he wants, without anyone stopping him. Ralphsoon
learns, however, that they can’t just do whatever they want, not if they are to
survive.

5. “‘I expect we’ll want to know all their names,’ said the fat boy, ‘and make a
list. We ought to have a meeting.’

Ralph did not take the hint, so the fat boy was forced to continue.” (Chapter 1,
Page 11).

The “fat boy,” who will soon be named Piggy, is the voice of order. He wants
to make lists and account for everyone. This would be the beginning of
government. Ralph, however, is not interested in lists, accounting, or
government at this point. He revels in the freedom, as the littluns will, until
their fears get the better of them. Piggy also wants Ralph to acknowledge
him. He is trying to get Ralph to ask his name, but Ralph is uninterested in
knowing it. He will come to rely on Piggy’s intelligence, but he hasn’t learned
yet that he needs others—which will be the major change for Ralph in the
novel.

6. “‘They used to call me Piggy.’

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 22

Ralph shrieked with laughter. He jumped up.

‘Piggy! Piggy!’

Piggy clasped his hands in apprehension.

‘I said I didn’t want—’

‘ Piggy! Piggy!’” (Chapter 1, Page 11)

Ralph’s true nature is revealed here. He is introduced as “fair” (7), and later
he tries to force order and civility, but his true nature is not that different from
Jack’s. He delights in Piggy’s unfortunate nickname, ignoring Piggy’s request
not to be called that. Ralph is also naming Piggy an animal, but one obviously
not as strong as Ralph, as a pig is an animal to be hunted.

7. “‘Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all
dead.’” (Chapter 1, Page 14)

Piggy’s quote implies that the children on the island are the last remaining
people in the world. Humanity has ended itself with war, and these children
are the last—the last alive, the last hope for civilization to continue. While
some like Piggy use this notion to drive the concept of a civilized island,
others revel in the freedom from oppressive order.

8. “Ralph grasped the idea and hit the shell with air from his diaphragm.
Immediately the thing sounded. A deep, harsh note boomed under the
palms, spread through the intricacies of the forest, and echoed back from the
pink granite of the mountain. Clouds of birds rose from the treetops, and
something squealed and ran into the undergrowth.” (Chapter 1, Page 17)

Ralph here uses an ancient, primitive horn to call the others. There are
shades of the hunt being sounded here, as well as a reverting back to primal
technologies. There is alsothe idea that Ralph will lead them, that he has the
power to summon others, and that in the summoning, he can force them to
his will. However, the use of the tool is Piggy’s idea. It was his idea to sound
the conch, and his idea to call the others. Piggy represents civilization and
knowledge, but Ralph has the breath to execute the idea. He is stronger,
louder, and more fit.

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 23

9. “This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to
protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a chief to an
election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found
good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was traceable to
Piggy, while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness
about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive
appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch.
The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with
the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.” (Chapter 1, Page 22)

The act of voting replicates a form of government or civilization. The children

eschew the traditional means of choosing a leader.They don’t recognize
Piggy’s intelligence or Jack’s leadership abilities, but instead rely on the
intangible: the good looks of Ralph, the quiet yet self-assuredness of his
stature, and his voice, the primal calling of the conch. They are voting for his
animal nature, not what might lead them in traditional government. They are
voting for who they see as the strongest among them.

10. “The great rock loitered, poised on one toe, decided not to return, moved
through the air, fell, struck, turned over, leapt droning through the air, and
smashed a deep hole in the canopy of the forest. Echoes and birds flew,
white and pink dust floated, the forest further down shook as with the
passage of an enraged monster.” (Chapter 1, Page 28)

The boys, right before this passage, claim they are explorers, but here they
become destroyers. They push the rock off the cliff for no reason other than
to see it fall. They inherently want to see the explosion of rock, the
destruction of the forest, the upsetting of animals, and the loud noise of the
crash. Figuratively, there is an enraged monster in the forest, and it is their
nature. This passage also serves as foreshadowing of the beast inside them,
and of the murder of Piggy.

11. “‘This belongs to us.’” (Chapter 1, Page 29)

As Ralph, Simon, and Jack climb to the top of the mountain in the center of
the island, Ralph immediately lays claim to all he sees. He must name it
captured; he must stake his claim to the land. He is, in a way, marking his
territory, drawing lines on a map, proclaiming his ownership of everything.
Ralph is replicating what humans traditionally do—even in a world where

COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 24

ostensibly no one else is alive after an atom bomb, Ralph feels the need to
claim ownership of land, even land where no one else lives.

12. “Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of
the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before
the evacuation; before him small children squatted in the grass.” (Chapter 2,
Page 32)

In less than a day, the children are already arranging themselves by size.
Ralph, the leader, and the larger boys all have seats among the fallen logs.
The larger boys didn’t know each other before, but now they recognize their
shared attribute: size, which equals strength. Here, on this island, strength is
the greatest attribute, and all of them recognize this without acknowledging
it. The smaller boys then are left to squat below Ralph, to look up at him, and
to follow his orders because they have no other option.

13. “‘I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re
not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve
got to do the right things.”” (Chapter 2, Page 42)

Jack here claims that rules and obeying rules is what differentiates them from
savages. They’ve just been evacuated from a nuclear war, which means that
the rules of the English, whom Jack claims are the best of people, have
failed. This only implies that they will fail, with or without rules, because they
are inherently savages. All men are savages, by nature and by choice.

14. “He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they
were.” (Chapter 3, Page 54)

No one is what they seem to be. Piggy isn’t a pig; he is one of the most
intelligent children. Ralph isn’t a leader; he is only a boy thrust into a
leadership position. Jack isn’t a hunter; he is the former head of a boys’ choir
who now carries a spear. The grownups who the boys keep thinking will
rescue them could not even rescue themselves from the savagery of their
human nature.

15. “The decrease in size, from Ralph down, was gradual; and though there was
a dubious region uninhabited by Simon and Robert and Maurice,
nevertheless no one had any difficulty in recognizing the bigguns at one end
and littluns at the other.” (Chapter 4, Page 59)
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 25

This is another reference to size equaling leadership. Ralph, the biggest, is

the leader, whereas all the others are below him. The other boys all
recognize size as importance, and they segregate by size: the bigguns are
and the littluns. It’s significant that the boys do not distinguish themselves by
intelligence, wisdom, charisma, or any other quality. Size is used throughout
the novel to characterize the boys: “Henry was a bit of a leader this
afternoon, because the other two were Percival and Johnny, the smallest
boys on the island” (60). Even among the smaller boys, size equals
leadership.

16. “Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into
which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old
life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and
policemen and the law. Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that
knew nothing of him and was in ruins.” (Chapter 4, Page 62)

The boys have started their descent into savagery. Their hair has grown long,
which would have been unacceptable for English schoolchildren in that time,
they have shed their clothing, and their skin has grown dark under the sun.
Even still, the laws they’ve known, the careful raising and adherence to rules
instilled in them by their parents and police, hold sway over them. They have
not fully descended yet. The last line implies that they will spiral into
savagery because all the old laws they knew have been destroyed. The old
world has fallen into war and savagery, and soon they will as well.

17. “There had grown up tacitly among the bigguns 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.” (Chapter 4, Page
65)

Piggy is an outsider because he is weak. His accent is lower-class, but that

doesn’t matter here. What matters is strength. Piggy’s eyes are weak, his
body is fat—even his breath is weak because of his asthma. He can’t work
hard because of his weaknesses, and the bigguns sense it in an animal way.

18. “So Ralph asserted his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way
if he had thought for days. Against his weapon, so indefinable and so
effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time
the pile was built, they were on different sides of a high barrier.” (Chapter 4,
Page 73)
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 26

Jack and his hunters, who are supposed to be minding the fire, let it go out.
Ralph, on the beach, sees a ship, but with the fire out, there is no way to
signal it. Jack claims he needed the fire-minders to hunt.He has, in effect,
turned away from a desire for rescue to a desire to kill. Although originally
Ralph was pleased to be in a world away from grownups, he now wants to
be rescued. This puts the two of them at odds with one another—one longing
for the safety of civilization, the other reveling in the savagery of blood.

19. “In a moment the platform was full of arguing, gesticulating shadows. To
Ralph, seated, this seemed the breaking up of sanity. Fear, beasts, no
general agreement that the fire was all-important: and when one tried to get
the thing straight the argument sheered off, bringing up fresh, unpleasant
matter.” (Chapter 5, Page 88)

Ralph has called a meeting to make sure the rules are being followed, but
even in the meeting the boys can’t seem to follow the rules. Jack speaks
without the conch. The littluns keep interrupting. They are scared, and their
fear causes them to think only of themselves instead of everyone together.
Their form of government, like all governments, is breaking down. Left to its
own devices, man will break down into savagery, despite his good intentions.

20. “Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential

illness.” (Chapter 5, Page 89)

Simon has just said, “[M]aybe it’s only us” (89). He’s talking about the fear
that has come over them. They are afraid of a beast being on the island, but
Simon thinks they are only afraid of themselves. He’s saying that their human
nature—their turning toward savagery and away from civilization, is the
shapeless beast that they so greatly fear.

21. “‘We’ll raid them and take fire.’” (Chapter 8, Page 136)

Jack and Ralph’s feud has split them apart. Ralph and Piggy lead the littluns
while Jack leads the biguns. Jack’s men have no fire, so he proposes stealing
it from Ralph. His descent into savagery is almost complete. He has no
qualms about stealing, nor using deceit to accomplish the theft. Since fire
symbolizes light, safety, warmth, and a call for rescue, he is casting the
littluns into darkness. He is essentially leaving them only with the dreams of
beasts that they fear, signaling that the beast is in fact the boys themselves,
just as Simon proposed.
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 27

22. “‘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?’” (Chapter 8, Page 143)

Simon is the first to realize that the boys are only afraid of themselves. Now
he believes the pig head is talking to him. In reality, he is talking to himself.
The irrational part of his mind knows that they’ve raised the beast, so the
irrational part of him is telling the rational part of him that he always knew the
beast would take over.

23. “‘I’m frightened. Of us.’” (Chapter 10, Page 157)

The hunters have just killed Simon in the storm, and Piggy is trying to
convince Ralph it was an accident. Ralph, however, finally sees what Simon
himself saw earlier—that the beast is within them. The beast isman, andit is
them. The beast manifests from their fears, greed, and anger, the same thing
that happened to the world they left behind. The novel’s social commentary
suggests that even children carry the beast inside them.

24. “‘No. How could we—kill—it?’” (Chapter 10, Page 160)

The literal interpretation of this line is that they didn’t kill the beast. The boys
all know that they killed Simon, not the beast. Metaphorically,the line
suggests that they know the beast is them, and that they know there’s no
way to kill what’s inside them. The way the sentence is structured, the
pauses before and after kill, state that they know they can never kill the
beast; it can only kill them, by getting inside them and forcing them to act out
of fear.

25. “The others nodded. They understood only too well the liberation into
savagery that the concealing paint brought.” (Chapter 10, Page 172)

The key word here is “liberation.” The painting of the face conceals the
civilized side of them. They have just been discussing combing their hair and
washing their faces, but they’ve been on the island so long it won’t do any
good. The paint then is liberating in that it allows them to turn against the
civilized side and finally descend into savagery. Essentially, civilization is only
a thin skin that is easily concealed by war paint.
COPYRIGHT 2018
LORD OF THE FLIES SUPERSUMMARY 28

ESSAY TOPICS
1. Compare/contrast what happensin “normal” society with what happens on
the island. Is the society that the boys make more similar or different than the
society you know?

2. Why are there no girls on the island? Do you think that having both genders
represented would alter how the boys treat one another?

3. Why does the “Lord of the Flies” (138)—the pig’s head—tell Simon he is in
danger? How does this scene relate to the novel’s title?

4. What are the littluns afraid of? How do they describe the beast? How does
Simon describe it?

5. Why do the boys separate into “biguns” and “littluns,” and what role does
size play in leadership?

6. What characteristics of Ralph demonstrate why he is thechosen leader?

7. How does Golding use symbols to convey the overarching themes?

8. How are the characters of Ralph and Jack foils, and are there any other foils
evident throughout the novel?

9. Fire is an important symbol throughout the text. What duality is evident in

this symbol, and how does this duality represent civilization, both on a macro
and micro (the island) level?

10. Discuss three instances in which fear is used to progress the plot. How is
the concept of fear used to contrast the concept of hope?

COPYRIGHT 2018