Lord of the Flies: Summary, Analysis, Symbols

Chapter 1

• Ralph- fair hair, taller than fat boy, reasonably skinny, leader, strong-willed
• Piggy- big glasses, shorter than Ralph, fat, follower, talkative, somewhat annoying, smart
• Jack- Young, a leader, tall, demanding, arrogant
• Simon- skinny, vivid, black, and coarse hair
• Sam n’ Eric- young, twins, talkative
• The cause of the plane crash was the fact that the plane was attacked/shot down.
• The adults died because they weren’t in the passenger tube.
• The children were on the plane because they were getting transferred to a different country to get away from the war.
• The boys are called to their first meeting by a conch that Ralph blew into.
• Three decisions made at this meeting were:
  • they needed to have a chief
  • they had to find food
  • they had to find out if it was an “island” they were on and if it was inhabited
  • Five details of the island given in the first chapter are:
    • beautiful water
    • coral reef
    • lots of vines
    • mountains
    • boat-shaped island
    • This is an ideal location to be marooned because there is water, food, it is in the middle of the ocean, no war (isolated), hot weather, and swimming
    • The conflict that began at the first general meeting was both Ralph and Jack are the leader type and although Ralph was voted the ultimate leader Jack is the leader of the hunters. Because these boys share the same personality traits this foreshadows a possible clash between their personalities and therefore causing trouble in the “community.”
    • The symbol of authority that is preventing conflict at this point is the conch.
    • Their exploring to see if it was an island and if it was inhabited represents a concrete effort to be rescued

Chapter 2

• The littlun with the birthmark indicated the island wasn’t a perfect paradise because he was getting scared of creatures hidden in the forest that might do them harm, the (“beastie”).
• The boys build a fire to signal a rescue but the fire spreads uncontrollably, destroying acres of jungle.
• A. The voice of reason- Piggy, (wants order, so the littluns can be kept under guardianship)

B. The popular leader-Ralph (voted as chief, attractive)

C. The littl’uns are getting tired of working; “They’ve been working on shelter for days”

D. It says the littl’uns scream at night, so they must have been there a couple of nights.

• Piggy knows of a littlun who aren’t present.  Last time he saw him, he was wondering down in the burning forest.  The one who was scared of the “beastie”, who had a mark on his face, is missing and most likely dead.
• Jack’s statement is ironic because if the British were the best at everything and did ‘everything right,’ their plane wouldn’t have gotten shot down and they wouldn’t be stranded. They think they’re going to be good at being marooned!

Chapter3

• Jack is frustrated because he can’t catch a pig to kill for meat. Ralph is frustrated because the huts he building aren’t very stable, and Simon is the only one helping him. The rest are playing in the water. Ralph’s priorities differ from Jack’s. He pits shelter first, whereas Jack wants meat more than shelter.
• Indications time has passed on the island are:
  • Ralph is getting tired of meetings already
  • Ralph and Jack are starting to disagree and fight
  • The littluns are getting tired of working, “They’ve been working on the shelter for days”
  • It says the littluns scream at night, so they must have been there a couple of nights.
  • The quote indicates growing tension between Ralph and Jack. They don’t think alike, and both feel strongly about different things. Both don’t know how to make the other see things their way. They like each other because they have the same qualities a leader. They don’t like each other because two leaders don’t mix well.  Different strengths complement each other, similar ones don’t. Jack and Ralph clash, and in the future it could get worse.
  • Golding describes Simon as a “queer” in that he’s strange and unusual. Unlike all the other boys, he works hard, and hoes off by himself lots, away from the other boys, into the forest.

Chapter 4

• The littluns eat most of the day and pick fruit. They often have stomachaches and chronic diarrhea.  At night they suffer from terrifying fears and nightmares.  They play but the water in the sand when they aren’t eating or sleeping.  They enjoy the assemblies Ralph holds. They build castles and decorate them with shells and stones. The littluns live a distinct life from the biguns.
• Roger shows that he’s a “forbidding” character by following Henry under the palms and standing to watch him. Roger starts picking up stones and throwing them at Henry, (he’s dangerous). Earlier, Roger also destroys the sandcastles the littluns built.
• “Painted Faces and Long Hair” describes the chapter perfectly because half of the boys are interested in Jack’s hunting antics,(painting their faces with masks), and half of them are interested in getting home because it’s been so long, (shown by their long hair). The ones that are interested in going home follow Ralph around and concern themselves with the signal fire.
• Simon and Jack leave with he gives Piggy his piece of meat because Jack wanted to bully Piggy and leave him without meat, but Simon ruined his plan.
• The game that develops out of the successful hunt is a re-enactment where someone plays the squealing pig, and hunters surround and pretend to beat him, while dancing and singing, “Kill the pig, cuts its throat, bash it in.”

Chapter 5

• There’s a lack of commitment to staying organized causing discipline to fall apart. Water is no longer kept in coconut shells, people didn’t stick to helping build the shelters, they don’t pee in the right places, and most of all, the fire is not monitored closely enough.
• Jack encourages fear of the beast, destroying Ralph’s control by talking more about the animal, and all the fear the littluns have of it. He challenges it and says he’ll hunt it down. He destroys control by talking without the conch and going against the rules.
• Simon tries to explain the source of their fears with man’s essential illness. He thinks their fears are their own creation. They’ve created a beast in their own mind, and imagination. It’s all in their head, really.
• The boys perform the same ritual as when they kill the pig, chanting, “Kill the pig, cut its throat, bash it in.” This symbolizes a breakdown in Ralph’s leadership, and a breakdown in the island society.
• The end paragraph suggests that the boys’ future society will be in terrible fear of the beast and the older ones will have to put an end to the littluns fears. There’ll be a division between Jack’s camp, and Ralph’s camp, too, because Jack is continually trying to take control of the boys from Ralph, the chief.

Chapter 6

• As perceived by Sam n’ Eric, the beast has wings, eyes, teeth, and claws. It sort of slinks behind the trees.
• In fact, the beast is the dead soldier in the parachute. The man’s parachute appeared to be a pair of wings, and the dark morning hid the man’s true features. The soldier must have been shot down in an aerial ‘dog fight’.
• Castle Rock is very square with pink, tumbled boulders with guano layered on them like icing. It’s a small half-cave, which is bear and open and connected to the island by a ledge of rock.  There’s a steep slope up to the shattered rocks that crowned the bastion. To the right is the lagoon. Below is a narrow causeway with a stony ground.
• At first, Castle Rock symbolizes the home of the beastie to the hunters. It also symbolizes the division between Ralph and Jack. Jack thinks of Castle Rock as an awesome place for a fort and exploration, but Ralph sees it as a repulsive area.  He points out all the bad pointers about the area. He thinks it’s a rotten place.  The Castle can also symbolize where the hunters may stay.
• As the boys explore the caves, they remember the first day on the island when they were climbing around the mountain to see if the island was really an island. Ralph, Simon, and Jack had explored the island. With this memory, came all the bad times Ralph and Jack have between them since.
• Ralph ruins the fun the boys are having rolling the rocks over into the sea by urging them to go to the mountain because there is no signal showing.  Ralph reminds them he’s chief, and the boys must do as he says.  They need to relight the signal fire because a ship could pass by any minute.

Chapter 7

• The view of the open sea on the far side of the island makes Ralph feel helpless and condemned. Rescue seems impossible with how much area a search party would have to cover, and the small chance a ship would pass by.
• Simon helps Ralph by giving him hope. Simon has faith that Ralph will be rescued because Ralph is smart.
• Ralph, suddenly changed because of the boar hunt.  The excitement and rush of adrenaline in the hunt make him more like Jack momentarily. He’s less worried about the practical things like being rescued and is caught up in the fun of hunting. Suddenly Ralph is concerned about the attention he gets for his accomplishment, (hitting the boar with his spear). He was “self-conscious in public thinking.”
• The suggested additions to the hunting ritual were a drum, fire, and a costume for the one acting as the pig in the middle.
• These refinements to the ritual suggest the boys are getting more enthusiastic about the game, and the game is getting frighteningly close to being real. Someone may get hurt soon while the hunters are ‘pretending’ the jab the ‘pig’ with their spears.
• Ralph postpones the search for the beast until the morning because they couldn’t leave Piggy alone all night with the littluns, and the darkness was closing in. They can’t search for the beast in the night if they can’t see.
• Jack made Ralph change his mind. He played a word trick on him and ‘silently dared’ Ralph to climb the mountain. If Ralph turned back towards the shelters and Jack went on, he would be considered a ‘coward’, and appear a weak leader to the boys, losing control. In order to keep the support of the boys, Ralph went with Jack to search the mountain for the ‘Beastie’ in the dark so Jack wouldn’t appear braver than he.
• The result of the climb to the hilltop in the dark is that now Ralph, Jack, and Simon all believe in the beast because in the dark they couldn’t see the bulging creature was only a parachute. The other boys will be even more frightened by the three biguns discovery.  The boys’ fear of the beast will increase so that no one will venture in the direction of the mountain anymore, and the truth will be hidden. Any doubt that the beast is real will be shattered with Sam n’ Eric’s, Roger’s, Jack’s, and Ralph’s testimonies.

Chapter 8

• Two results of the meeting called by Jack were:

a.   Jack said he was leaving and anyone was welcome to come with him

b.  Jack’s hunters left to follow him

• Piggy restores Ralph’s hope but suggesting a signal fire on the beach rather than on the mountain.
• There is no one to help Ralph get food and build a signal fire because they all joined Jack’s group.  There are not enough people to do and help out with all the “chores”.
• They didn’t vote him out of “office” because they probably still thought of him as a good chief and wise, but they just thought that Jack’s idea was good at the time.  They also felt intimidated. Ralph’s rescue intentions were better.
• The killing of the sow is unappealing to the reader because the detail was gruesome, and the hunters were so blood-hungry it was gross.
• They left the pig head as a present for the ‘beast’.
• The purpose of Jack’s night raid was to get fire.
• Jack offered them to come feast on their pig with his tribe.
• It is fitting that they be called a tribe because they are hunters, they paint their faces, they all have the same chief, they are barbaric, savage, and act like wild animals.
• It is kind of foreshadowing how if Simon doesn’t start acting normal they might want to kill him because they think he is batty.
• Simon was kind of weird/batty. So at any random point in time, he would just go off and sit in his hideaway for hours at a time. He likes to be alone and think, he may feel safe.
• The fire in the novel symbolizes light, survival, help, common sense, rescue, hope, and optimism.

Chapter 9

• The sign from the adult world that Simon found at the beginning of this chapter is the dead parachutist.
• The finding of the parachutist might prove that there is outside life searching for them.
• Because it could be people from the war, might be a negative sign.
• The two reasons Ralph and Piggy decided to join Jack’s feast was because they were hungry and they wanted to try and talk some sense into the others.
• He didn’t do a very good job in reasserting his authority. Ralph didn’t do a good job because he didn’t bring the conch and they were only interested in what Jack has to say because his ideas sounded better.
• Jack’s response to Ralph’s sarcastic comment was commanding his tribe to do a rain dance.
• Simon being dead is a loss to them because he was wise and knew a lot of things.
• The author describing the building up of the storm is creating suspense. When he describes its breaking up and the tribe doing a rain dance, it displays the “power” of Jack’s tribe.

Chapter 10

• The only boys that have remained loyal to Ralph are Piggy, Sam n’ Eric, and a few littluns.
• Piggy’s version is that their involvement with the death of Simon was all an accident.
• Ralph feels sad, guilty, and responsible for the events of the night before.
• Jack is not treating his tribe well. He is ruling with absolute power and is beating his tribe members for absolutely no reason. He is keeping their loyalty by telling them they need to keep guard against the beast and they need to go to Ralph’s camp to steal their fire. He also promised they will go hunting again tomorrow.
• They lose interest in keeping the fire lit because they are tired and depressed.
• The purpose of the second hunt was to steal Piggy’s glasses so that they could make a fire whenever they wanted.
• These two attacks are the same. They both were set up in order to steal their fire.
• I think that Jack didn’t steal the conch because he didn’t believe in it anymore. He doesn’t believe in it anymore because he is in control of almost everything and everyone.

Chapter 11

• There is reason to bother with assemblies because if Jack’s tribe is out to get them then they need to talk about how they are going to be safe.
• They went to Castle Rock to try and pull things together and get back Piggy’s glasses.
• Piggy tries to remind Jack of the importance of their rules and rescue.
• Ralph and his party took the conch and Piggy’s glasses to Castle Rock.
• He means that he will be beaten or killed.
• Jack wasn’t pleased with Ralph so he attacked him.
• The potential evil in Roger in this chapter is he kills Piggy. The potential evil in Roger in past chapters when he throws rocks at Wilfred and giggles about Jack beating Wilfred for no reason.
• It is appropriate that Piggy and the conch are both destroyed at the same time because they were both a symbol of reason.
• The reasonable expectation is for them to get rescued or for Ralph to die.

Chapter 12

• The unwilling realization that came to Ralph was that, unless some miracle happened he was going to die.
• Ralph sees it all white sculled and disgusting. He is angry and disgusted with it and knocks it to the ground.
• He returned to Castle Rock after dark to hear their plans and see if Sam n’ Eric were still on his side.
• He finds out that Jack is sending the entire tribe after him the next day.
• Sam n’ Eric won’t run off with Ralph because Jack threatened them.
• They will decapitate him and put his head on a stick as a beast offering. Just like they did with the pig’s head, they will do with Ralph’s head.
• He would hide in the thicket and not be seen.
• His plan failed because he told Sam n’ Eric where he was going to hide.
• They set fire to Ralph’s hiding place forcing him out
• Ralph could climb a tree, he could run back, or he could hide well so that when they passed by him they wouldn’t see him.
• They found him so he screamed and ran fast and found himself on the beach.
• It isn’t very coincidental. No it isn’t a strong ending.