Fire and Knowledge

Introduction

What would it be like to live in a world where there was only corruption in the human heart and no redemption?  Lord of the Flies by William Golding gives us a vivid picture of it.  British schoolboys are stranded on an uninhabited island.  They must elect a leader, create and conform to rules, and attempt to survive the haunts of the island while the reader watches them slowly slide into to their naturally depraved state.  Full of rich symbolism about morality, government, and the human heart, Lord of the Flies gives a healthy dose of reality against a corrupted world that believes hearts are innocent and good.

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1: The Sound of the Shell

Ralph meets Piggy and they find a conch to blow which they use to find others and call meetings.  Ralph, defeating Jack, is made chief.  Jack is appointed over the Choir, whose division of labor is to hunt.  The boys are all cruel to Piggy.  Ralph, Simon, and Jack leave to see if they are really on an island.  It is confirmed.  On their way back, they find a piglet but are too afraid to kill it.

Chapter 2: Fire on the Mountain

After Ralph explains to the others that they are on an uninhabited island, the “conch speaking rule” is made and the need for a smoke signal is decided.  The boys rush up to the mountain to make a fire, forgetting they don’t know how to light one.  Jack snatches Piggy’s specs and they are used to light the fire.  The fire spreads uncontrollably and they realize one of the little boys is missing.

Chapter 3: Huts on the Beach

Jack hunts but kills nothing.  Ralph labors for days building shelter, but is discouraged by the lack of help and the result.  Jack attempts to convey his bloodlust, and also admits he feels like he is being hunted.  Jack and Ralph are beginning to disagree more.  Simon goes off by himself to his hiding place.  No mention of the missing little boy.

Chapter 4: Painted Faces and Long Hair

Cruelty begins to become more prominent. Roger and Maurice kick over the littluns’s sand castles and throw sand in their eyes.  The other littluns follow suit and begin throwing sand at Percival as well.  Roger follows Henry and throws stones at him—but dares not hit him yet.  Jack paints his face to help him sneak up on the pig.

Smoke is seen on the horizon from a boat, but the fire was unattended and the opportunity to be rescued is missed.  Jack and his hunters appear with a slaughtered pig and think lightly about the fire until Ralph tells them about the boat.  Jack is provoked to anger, hits Piggy, and slaps his specs to the ground, breaking one of the lenses.  The pig is roasted, the story of the hunt is told, and is ended with Maurice playing the pig and the hunters pretending to beat him.

Chapter 5: Beast From Water

Ralph has an awakening, and adjusts his values accordingly.  He recognizes Piggy can think and he cannot.  He calls an assembly.  The first half is about using the rocks for a lavatory, keeping the fire going, and only having one fire on the island.  The second half is a debate regarding the beast (which a littlun says comes out of the water) and ends in lawlessness.  Ralph considers giving up his position as chief, but Piggy is afraid what Jack will do to him without Ralph’s protection.

Chapter 6: Beast From Air

The twins are on watch at the fire when a dead man with a parachute comes drifting down.  They hear the flapping of the canvas and see something moving, so they run down and tell Ralph that they saw the beast.  Ralph gets everyone together and they decide to go up and find the beast.  Jack leads and they find a “nice place for a fort” but no beast.  The sway in power begins as the group refuses to follow Ralph back to the fire.

Chapter 7: Shadows and Tall Trees

The boys go towards the mountain but it grows dark.  They decide to hunt on the way, and almost catch a pig.  Robert pretends to be a pig and they begin to beat him until he squeals in real pain.  They stop short of killing him.  Simon goes to tell Piggy they will be back after dark.  Jack, Ralph, and Roger journey up the mountain, see the beast, and flee back to the shelters for safety.

Chapter 8: Gift for the Darkness

Ralph insults Jack’s hunters so Jack blows the conch for a meeting.  He challenges Ralph’s leadership but fails.  He “won’t play any longer” and retreats into the forest.  The boys decide to light a fire where they are and they all join in and help.  But some of the boys are missing now, including Simon.

Meanwhile, Jack goes on the hunt (with his hunters) and they “fulfill themselves” on a sow by killing her brutally.  After realizing they have nothing to make a fire with, they decide to raid Ralph’s camp and steal fire from them.  They sharpen a stick on both ends, driving one end into the ground and the other into the sow’s head, creating the Lord of the Flies.

Jack and his comrades raid the camp for fire, and invite them to eat with them.  The desire for meat and play make the decision hard for the boys.  While all this is going on, Simon has a conversation with the Lord of the Flies.

Chapter 9: A View to a Death

Simon leaves the Lord of the Flies to view the beast.  Simon realizes the beast is really just a dead man and is compelled to tell the others as soon as possible.

Ralph and Piggy join the rest of the meat-eating party.  Everyone joins Jack’s camp other than Ralph and Piggy.  Storm clouds threaten, so Jack commands everyone to “do our dance.”  The dance is the pig-killing dance, with Roger playing the pig.  Even Piggy and Ralph join in.  Roger stops playing the pig, and everyone is psyched and ready to kill.  Simon comes out of the forest screaming about a dead man, but they beat him endlessly until he falls off the edge to the beach below.  They go down and finish him off.

Chapter 10: The Shell and the Glasses

Piggy and Ralph remember what was done the previous night but do not want to admit to the others they were involved.  Ralph recognizes it was murder.  Piggy disagrees in denial.

At Castle Rock, they are fortifying their fort and putting people on guard, military-like.  Wilfred is tied up on the whim of Jack’s power.  Jack, Maurice, and Roger decide to raid Ralph’s camp for fire at night.

Ralph and the others let the fire go out for the night due to exhaustion.  After a time, they wake up to noises and are attacked. Piggy’s glasses are gone.

Chapter 11: Castle Rock

Because they have no fire and Piggy has no specs, Ralph’s party goes to Castle Rock to demand the glasses back.  They meet Jack and Ralph fights with him.  Jack has Samneric tied up.  Roger begins throwing stones at Ralph, but outdoes himself by making an enormous rock fall onto Piggy that kills him.  Ralph flees for his life.

Chapter 12: Cry of the Hunters

Ralph sees the Lord of the Flies.  He goes back to Castle Rock, and talks to Samneric, who are on guard.  They warn him to go away and tell him he will be hunted tomorrow, and that Roger has sharpened a stick at both ends for him.

Ralph falls asleep in a thicket for safety, but they realize he is in there.  After attempting to crush him with boulders, they smoke him out—and set the island on fire.  Ralph runs away.  He decides to hide again, but is found.  He runs frantically until he runs into a Naval Officer.  Ralph declares he is in charge and all the boys have “spasms of grief.”

Memorable Quotes

“ ‘If you’re hunting sometimes you catch yourself feeling as if—’ He flushed suddenly.  ‘There’s nothing in it of course.  Just a feeling.  But you can feel as if you’re not hunting, but—being hunted, as if something’s behind you all the time in the jungle.” (pg. 56)

“ ‘People don’t help much.’

He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were.” (pg. 58)

“Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them.  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.” (pg. 67)

“He [Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling.  He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” (pg. 68-69)

“Piggy was a bore; his fat, his ass-mar and his matter-of-fact ideas were dull, but there was always a little pleasure to be got out of pulling his leg, even if one did it by accident.” (pg. 70)

“Kill the pig.  Cut her throat.  Spill her blood.” (74)

“His mind crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.” (76)

“Jack had meant to leave him in doubt, as an assertion of power; but Piggy by advertising his omission made more cruelty necessary.” (80)

“Jack looked round for understanding but found only respect.” (81)

“Kill the pig.  Cut her throat.  Bash her in.” (82)

“Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness.” (98)

“          ‘The rules!’ shouted Ralph. ‘You’re breaking the rules!’

[Jack:] ‘Who cares?’

Ralph summoned his wits.

‘Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!’ ” (101)

“The greatest ideas are the simplest.” (148)

“Power lay in the brown swell of his forearms; authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape.” (172)

“I’m frightened.  Of us.” (181)

“What’s right’s right.  Give me my glasses, I’m going to say—you got to!” (198)

“The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.  Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. . . .Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea.  His head opened and stuff came out and turned red.  Piggy’s arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed.  Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone.” (209)

“If it were light shame would burn them at admitting these things.  But the night was dark.” (218)

“He forgot his wounds, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear on flying feet, rushing through the forest toward the open beach.” (232)

“And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.” (235)