1. Chapters and Major Moments The Beast/Lord of the Flies
Key Characters
1. The sound of the shell
Ralph and Piggy enter and find the conch. They blow it and gather the rest of the children on the beach. ‘Something dark’ arrives on the beach: Jack and his choir. Ralph is elected chief; the boys try to re-enact society and are excited. Jack is frustrated when he fails to kill a piglet. The boys bully Piggy.
2. Fire on the mountain
Key event!
The boys establish rules based on school. The conch is introduced as a symbol for democracy. Jack is excited by the idea of punishments. There are the first signs of fear. A signal fire gets out of hand and a littlun is killed. There are the first hints that they are in real danger.
3. Huts on the beach
Jack is shedding his schoolboy identity and is determined to kill a pig. He throws a spear but misses, showing he is becoming more savage. The tension between Ralph and Jack grows, symbolising the tension between civilisation and barbarity. Simon goes off on his own.
4. Painted faces and long hair
Roger and Maurice foreshadow the violence to come in the novel when they destroy the littluns’ sandcastles. Jack’s hunters let the fire go out; Ralph and Jack’s tension is brought into the open. Jack feels ashamed and hits Piggy in frustration. Ralph restores order.
5. Beast from water
The island is descending into savagery: the fire’s gone out, everyone is a mess and the shelter’s are half-built. The littlluns are terrified of ‘the beast’ and the rules of the conch are being ignored.
6. Beast from air
The body of a dead airman lands on the island while everyone sleeps. Sam and Eric exaggerate and give the boys a real ‘beast’ to focus on. Ralph and Jack clash on plans to deal with the beast and Castle Rock, highlighting their different leadership styles.
7. Shadows and tall trees
Ralph begins feeling trapped and his authority begins to slip. He joins the pig hunt; the boys re-enact the hunt and get carried away, almost stabbing Robert with sticks. Ralph, Jack and Roger find the dead airman and mistake him for the beast.
8. Gift for the darkness
Jack tries to take over as chief. He fails but boys begin to secretly join him after he promises protection from ‘the beast’. Jack’s new group savagely chase down and kill a female pig. Simon, weak and dehydrated, finds the pig’s head and realises it represents the evil inside them all. He decides to warn the others.
9. A view to a death
Simon finds the dead airman. He understands it is ‘the beast’ and plans to tell the others it’s harmless. Jack’s power has grown. The others are drawn to his feast. Ralph points out a storm is coming. The tribe dance. Simon appears and is murdered in the chaos.
10. The shell and the glasses
The boys are reacting to Simon’s death in different ways. Ralph realises there is evil in everyone, including himself. Piggy tries to get some comfort from the conch. Jack and his hunters attack in the night and steal Piggy’s glasses, foreshadowing Piggy’s murder.
11. Castle rock
Ralph and Piggy realise the conch has lost its authority. They go to Jack, hoping to get back Piggy’s glasses. The hunters are hostile and try to ‘defend’ the entrance to Castle Rock. Piggy points out how savage they’ve become. Roger calmly and deliberately levers a rock off the cliff onto Piggy. Piggy is killed and the conch is destroyed.
12. Cry of the hunters
Ralph panics as Jack and his hunters begin to chase him down. Sam and Eric tell Ralph that Roger has ‘sharpened a stick at both ends’. Ralph is saved by a naval officer and weeps for the loss of innocence.
Ralph
The elected leader. Represents civilisation. Struggles with his conscience and emotions at times.
Roger
A bully. Involved in most important action. His vicious nature grows. Is the only one to commit intentional murder.
Piggy
An outsider. Civilised, kind, loyal to Ralph. Represents the logical side of civilisation. Relies heavily on the conch.
The littluns
Automatically obey Ralph. Lose their identities and civilised values quickly. Seen as a pain and represent fear.
Jack
Power-hungry and barbaric. Sees violence as fun. Becomes obsessed with hunting. Has a strong sense of pride. Opposes Ralph & Piggy.
The Beast/Lord of the Flies
The imagined source of the boys’ fear. Represents the evil in all. Simon speaks to the pig’s head, or ‘Lord of the Flies’.
Simon
Shy & weak but kind and perceptive. Often described in spiritual terms. His murder changes everything
Sam and Eric
Identical twins. Loyal to Ralph. Find the dead airman first. Regret joining Jack’s tribe. Are tortured by Roger.
Key Themes
The darkness of human nature
Death
Violence
Savagery/barbarity vs. civilisation
Fear
Power and leadership
Context
WW2
Democracy
Adventure stories
Set during an imagined nuclear war – represents tensions between USSR & USA
Social class and British ideals – schooling and middle/upper class upbringings
Lord of the Flies
Writer’s Methods
Symbolism (eg.: the conch, the pig’s head etc.)
Foreshadowing
Very little sense of time structure – nobody knows how long the boys have been on the island
Viewpoint of the novel changes from the whole group to sometimes individuals
Character’s speech - accent and dialect
Imagery
Pathetic Fallacy
Irony (eg.: just as Simon tries to tell the boys the beast doesn’t exist, he is mistaken for the beast and killed)
Quotations
“Acting like a crowd of kids.”
“I ought to be chief.”
“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”
“We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting.”
“We’re English; and the English are best at everything.”
“there was a mildness about his mouth that proclaimed no devil”
“there was a space around Henry… into which he dare not throw”
“Boys armed with sticks.”
“Only Piggy could have the intellectual daring to suggest moving the fire from the mountain.”
“..the hunters followed, wedded to her in lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood.”
“Right up her ass!”
“Can’t they understand? Without the smoke signal we’ll die here?”
“He was safe from shame or self-consciousness behind the mask of his paint…”
“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.”