Lord of the Flies
By Admin
•
January 05, 2019
•
1,572 views
Official Curriculum Resource Document
Read the Novel
Free download for SLIATE HNDE Students • National exam notes partner: Notes.lk
Advertisement
Lord of the Flies is an allegory (essentially a story with a moral), about…well, something. People can't seem to decide exactly what. It's either about the inherent evil of man, or psychological struggle, or religion, or human nature, or the author's feelings on war (Golding was in the Navy during WWII), or possibly all of the above.
Just as Lord of the Flies wasn't the last kids-stuck-on-an-island story, it wasn't the first. Golding was responding to another novel, The Coral Island, written by R.M. Ballantyne in 1857. In The Coral Island, some white, European boys end up on an island and use Christianity to "conquer" the "heathen ways" of the Polynesian natives.
Naturally, this was a huge success in Victorian England—but Golding wasn't so impressed. His Lord of the Flies, which uses many of the same character names that Ballantyne did, shows almost the opposite scenario: instead of the boys conquering the heathen wild, the heathen wild conquers the boys.
Yep, it's about as creepy as it sounds.
When Lord of the Flies opens, a plane carrying a group of British boys ages 6 to 12 has crashed on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. Oops.(Also, apparently the world is at war. This matters.) With no adults around, the boys are left to fend for and govern themselves. Things start out okay. The boys use a conch shell as a talking stick, and Ralph, one of the older boys, becomes "chief."
And then trouble begins. They're afraid of a "beast" somewhere on the island, and then they decide to build a signal fire using the glasses of a boy named Piggy (who is a portly fellow, and also the most loyal friend to Ralph). But Jack, jealous of Ralph's power, decides the boys should devote their energies to hunting food (namely pigs) instead of maintaining the fire. The longer they're on the island, the more savage he becomes. Meanwhile our other key player, a wise and philosophical boy named Simon, works with Ralph to build shelters.
Eventually these latent conflicts become not so latent, and the boys who are supposed to be tending the fire skip out on their duties to kill a pig. The blood and gore of the hunt is all very exciting until they realize that, while they were out being bloodthirsty boys, the fire went out and a ship passed by without noticing them. Jack has also managed to punch Piggy in the face and break one lens of his glasses. Not good.
Right about this time a dead man attached to a parachute blows in Mary-Poppins-style to the island. The mysterious parachuting creature is mistaken for the beast, and the boys begin a massive hunt to kill it. Only Simon (and, let's face it, the audience) is skeptical, believing instead they're really just afraid of themselves. He goes off into the woods to contemplate the situation while Jack and Ralph ascend the mountain and find the beast—but don't stick around long enough to see that it is in fact only a dead man.
Back in the group, Jack decides Ralph shouldn't be chief anymore. He secedes and invites whoever wants to come with him and kill things (like more pigs, and maybe some people if they feel like it). Most of the older kids go with him, and Simon, hiding, watches Jack and Co. hunt a pig. This time, they slaughter a fat mother pig (in a scene described somewhat as a rape), cut off her head, and jam it onto a stick in the ground. Nice.
Simon stares at the head, which he calls "the Lord of the Flies" as it tells him (he's hallucinating, by the way) that it is the beast and that it is part of him (Simon). Simon passes out, gets a bloody nose, and wakes up covered in sweat, blood, and other generally disgusting things. Despite all this, he decides to continue up the mountain to face the beast, i.e. dead guy. Then he vomits and staggers down the mountain.
By now, Ralph and Piggy (both rather ravenous) are attending (with all the other boys) a big feast/party that Jack (decorated like an idol) is throwing. It's all a frenzied reenactment of the pig hunt until Simon, still bloody, sweaty, and covered in puke, stumbles down into the center of the crazed boys. He tries to tell them about the beast, but he is unrecognizable and the boys jab at him with their spears until he's dead. Oops. Simon's body is washed out to sea that night, and the wind carries off the body of the dead parachuting man, while Ralph and Piggy convince themselves they didn't take part in murdering Simon.
It's all downhill from here. Jack's crew attacks Ralph and Piggy and steals Piggy's eyeglasses to make fire on their own. When Ralph and Piggy decide to calmly talk it out with the "savages," Roger pushes a huge boulder off a cliff, killing Piggy. Ralph ends up running for his life, finds out that there's a head-on-stick future planned for him, and at last makes it to the shore of the island where he runs into… an officer of the British Navy. The boys are rescued from their mock war, but we're left with the image of the Navy's "trim cruiser" from the real war of the adults.
CHAPTER 1 SUMMARY
The Sound of the Shell
- When our story begins, "the fair boy" makes his way out of a jungle and toward a lagoon.
- A red and yellow bird flashes upward with a witch-like cry (eerie, isn't it?) just as another youngster, "the fat boy" who is wearing "thick spectacles" follows behind.
- The two boys meet and discuss the fact that, holy smokes, their plane has crashed.
- The fat boy wonders where the man with the megaphone is, which we should all keep in mind for the next few paragraphs.
- Also, there are no grown-ups.
- Also, they can't find the plane or the pilot. The fair boy concludes that both must have been dragged out to sea by a storm. He makes the dire statement that "There must have been some kids still in it," "it" being the plane that went out to sea.
- The fat boy (seriously, that's what he's called) asks the fair boy (again, that's what he's called) what his name is.
- It's Ralph. Ralph has no interest in learning the fat boy's name.
- But, the pair assumes others have survived and are around here somewhere, maybe hiding in the copious foliage or something.
- The fat boy lags behind Ralph because of his "ass-mar," which is probably "asthma." Also, the fat boy has to poo. (English major-y people called this kind of thing "realism.")
- Ralph races ahead to the water, and we get a detailed description of the shore, the palm trees, the coarse grass, and the decaying coconuts. This is all in contrast to "the darkness of the forest."
- Ralph decides the thing to do is have a swim. So he gets naked. Many more naked boys to come, by the way, so be prepared.
- While we're busy getting a description of Ralph, the fat boy shows up and joins in the nude swimming fun. The water is "warmer than [their] blood [. . .] like swimming in a huge bath." (So, a delightful hot tub, if you ignore the blood imagery.)
- We get a nice description of Ralph; he is twelve and has the build of maybe being a boxer someday when he's older, but you can also plainly see that there is "no devil" in him. Lastly, he has "bright, excited eyes."
- The fat boy admits to Ralph that most people call him "Piggy," and asks Ralph not to tell anyone.
- Ralph is not the nicest guy to Piggy ("They call you PIGGY!?" sort of thing), but we're holding out judgment on him since he is, after all, a twelve-year-old boy.
- Ralph claims that his father, who is in the Navy, is going to come rescue them.
- Piggy, however, says the pilot told them (before the crash) that an atomic bomb had gone off and everyone was dead.
- This, combined with the earlier megaphone comment, suggests that perhaps the boys were being evacuated, maybe even from some kind of war zone, when the plane crashed.
- Anyway, Piggy asserts that they're probably going to have to "stay here till [they] die."
- On this cheerful note, they decide to put their clothes back on. In doing so, they find a large white conch shell, which Piggy remembers is a faux, MacGyver-style megaphone.
- Ralph makes several efforts before an amazing sound comes out of the shell, "a deep, harsh boom."
- As you might expect, man has ruined the peaceful stillness of the virgin island.
- Amidst the squawking birds and scurrying furry things, the other boys come out of the woodwork. Some are small. Many are naked.
- While Ralph continues to revel in the "violent pleasure" of blowing the conch, Piggy goes to great lengths to ask and learn everyone's name, among them a young child named Johnny and a pair of twins named Sam and Eric.
- Ralph sees a dark, fumbling creature, but concludes that it is only a group of boys wearing black choir robes. There is a redheaded boy at the head of the pack "controlling them."
- The boy commands them all to stand in a line. We're thinking it must be rather uncomfortable in the sun to be wearing heavy, black cloaks, and our suspicions are confirmed when one of the boys faints, face-first, in the sand.
- The boys ask the redheaded leader (Merridew) "But can't we, Merridew…" which we think means "Please let us take off these absurd cloaks."
- Merridew ignores the boy who's fainted.
- Piggy doesn't ask names of this group, since they're kind of scary. But he does remind everyone that names are oh-so-important.
- About this time, Ralph tells everyone that Piggy's name is Piggy. Nice.
- And now we meet the rest of the cast. We've got Maurice, who smiles a lot; Jack Merridew, the tyrant you already met and the largest of the choir boys; Roger, who is "slight" and "furtive" and has an "inner intensity of avoidance and secrecy"; Simon, who has recovered from his fainting spell; and then Bill, Robert, Harold, and Henry.
- Guess which one is evil incarnate.
- Jack says they should work out the getting rescued part.
- Ralph's response is "Shut up." He decides they need a chief.
- Jack declares that, most sensibly, he should be chief because he's the head boy of the choir and can sing a C sharp, which everyone knows will come in handy later when negotiating with foreign peoples.
- Because they are good British boys who know how to follow parliamentary procedure, they decide to vote. Amazingly, they pull this off without the aid of an electoral college, and Ralph becomes chief (although the choir boys did vote for Jack out of obligation).
- Interestingly, Piggy hesitated to vote for Ralph, probably because Ralph screwed him over with the whole name thing.
- "But why was Ralph elected?" you ask. Actually, Golding tells us. He says Ralph has a stillness, is attractive, and most importantly has the conch.
- Ralph feels bad and gives Jack a consolation prize. No, not a useless vice presidency, but rather control over the choirboys.
- Jack decides his group (the choir-boys) will act as the hunters. Apparently, he's power-hungry AND bloodthirsty.
- Ralph, Jack and Simon go off to explore the uninhabited island for the purpose of discovering if it is, in fact, uninhabited.
- Piggy offers to go, but Jack tells him he's not suited for a job like this (with all the walking and such). Piggy protests, but Ralph sends him back to take names.
- They do find tracks and wonder aloud what made them. Ralph asks "Men?" and Jack answers "Animals." Hmm!
- Like all good exploring banter, their dialogue is filled with such British wonders as "wacco," "wizard" and "sucks to you!"
- The boys find a large rock poised near the edge of the cliff and do the only thing that pre-teen boys could be expected to do in such a circumstance: push it over the edge. It falls "like a bomb."
- They finally climb to the top of this big mountain they've found and look all around at the island. Ralph says "This belongs to us."
- They make some cartographic observations of the land, noting the large coral reef and the gash in the trees where their plane hit.
- On their way back to the lagoon, they find a small pig, tangled in the creepers. Jack raises his knife to kill it, but can't quite bring himself to, and the pig escapes.
- Jack makes lots of excuses, but he thinks, "Next time there [will] be no mercy."
CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY
XFire on the Mountain
- Ralph blows the conch and calls another meeting. By now, thank goodness, the choir boys have removed their cloaks.
- Using his authority as the newly elected chief, Ralph tells the boys that they need to get organized.
- Apparently that means rules. Now all boys have to raise their hand to talk. Oh, and no one can speak unless they're holding the conch shell.
- The boys are excited about having rules, but mostly so that they can punish those who break them. This notion elicits cries of "Whee-oh!" "Wacco!" "Bong!" and "Doink!"
- Piggy takes the conch to raise a few points: (1) they might never get off this island and (2) assuming they don't, they should figure out how to go about the process of not dying.
- Ralph agrees with the whole "we might be here until eternity" thing, but he declares quite clearly that "this is a good island." Go ahead and sticky-note this page.
- (But in case you forget to sticky-note it, you have another chance several paragraphs later when he again says "It's a good island.")
- One small boy with a mulberry-colored birthmark, the reason for which will be shortly explained, requests the conch and everyone laughs until Piggy demands he be allowed to speak.
- He's afraid of a mysterious snake-thing in the jungle.
- He describes it as a "beastie" and says it comes only in the dark. (So apparently the boys must have been on the island for at least one night before they found each other and began to organize.)
- The other boys snicker and decide that the beastie is just the ropey-looking creepers that hang in the trees.
- Jack says of course there isn't a beast, but just in case they're all going to go hunt for it anyway.
- Ralph is forced to concede, but he insists on making a signal fire so when his father comes to rescue them on a ship, the men on board will see the smoke and know where to find them.
- Also, burning things is fun.
- Everyone tears off, and Piggy remarks that they're all acting "like a bunch of kids." Because they are a bunch of kids.
- Everyone excitedly piles up the wood before realizing they have no way of starting the fire. Jack very helpfully mumbles something about rubbing two sticks together (Eagle Scout Lesson #2, if you've been counting.)
- They use Piggy's glasses to start the fire after many hurrahs and much gathering of wood.
- Piggy is not happy about the use of his glasses for this purpose. What we mean is: "[Piggy's] voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched the glasses off his face."
- Ralph says that they need to choose certain, responsible people to keep the fire going at all times—in case a ship passes by.
- Jack declares: "We're English, and the English are best at everything."
- Piggy, rather blind without his glasses, grabs the conch from Ralph and complains about how no one pays attention to his ideas.
- While the boys argue, the fire spreads…like wildfire.
- As the smoke drifts through the air, Piggy rants about all these things they should have done, like build shelters and show him some respect. Then, most likely because of the smoke, his asthma flares up and he can't breathe.
- Yet, it seems he has enough breath to point out that the small children, a.k.a. "the littluns," seem to be missing, especially that one who complained about "the beastie" and had a mulberry-colored birthmark, the better to distinguish him by when he's gone.
- He seems to be the most missing of all.
The kid is too scared to talk in front of everyone, so Piggy acts as translator:
CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY
Advertisement
Share with Classmates & Study Groups:
Help fellow students
5.0 / 5.0
Found this study material helpful?
Rate our website service and free notes repository on Google Reviews!
Discussion & Study Inquiries (0)
Ask questions, request missing past papers, or share revision tips
No comments yet. Be the first student to start the discussion or request past papers!