Lord of the Flies Summary

In Lord of the Flies by John Steinback a group of young boys are stranded on an island. To survive the boys decided to vote who should be their leader, Ralph or Jack. Piggy is a smart, fat boy who is not respected by the boys. Ralph is the face of leadership but not the best for the job compared to Piggy. Piggy is the brains behind Ralph who gives the essential idea to further progress the island.

The final push that drives the young boys over the edge is when the hunters kill Piggy. Ralph, Piggy, and a few others try to reclaim Piggy’s glasses at Jack’s camp. When Ralph arrives he is met by Jack and his hunters. The boys start to argue and a fight breaks out. Roger, one of Jack’s violent hunters, shoves Piggy over the cliff side. “Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea” (Golding 181). Roger had not shown Piggy any mercy. They all used to be good boys until the island took their innocence away from

He often compares Piggy to pigs and tells everyone how irrelevant and silly he is. When Piggy gets the conch and tells how he has a right to speak just like everyone, Jack shuts him up with rude comments about his intelligence and appearance. As a result, he punches Piggy leading to the fall and break of his glasses. ‘You would, would you? Fatty! … He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountaintop with awful wings.” [Page: 75] Jack snatches the conch from Piggy and starts to talk about his own ideas and opinions to the assembly. When Piggy finds Ralph alone, he explains how he thinks Jack doesn’t like him. He says how he spends most of his time thinking about it. As Jack respects Ralph and his ideas as a chief, he won’t hurt him. They also understand each other and appreciate their ideas and help. However, certain times, Jack hates Ralph too when he listens to Piggy’s ideas and try to follow according to it. Once if Ralph is out of Jack’s way, the next person he will want to kill is Piggy. “He [Jack] hates me. I dunno why. If he could do what he wanted-you’re all right, he respects you. Besides-you’d hit him…. ‘I been in bed so much I

Lord of the Flies has been considered a literary classic throughout many generations, in spite of it’s perplexing and depressing aspects. Written in 1954 with the timeframe of the next world war, a novel such as this is bound to have some out-dated concepts,language, and elements. The characters are a great example of this.

In chapter 3 an argument breaks out between Ralph and Jack over the group's priorities. Ralph is trying to build shelters and an SOS fire while Jack and his hunters are craving some meat. I agree with Ralph wanting the priority to be on getting rescued and staying alive, but I disagree with him complaining about it because he is the leader and it's his job to get everyone working. With Jack I understand and agree that people will get tired of eating fruit and other foods similar to that, but I dislike how he's complaining when he's the one that is responsible for hunting. The argument that these two boys have are what I believe to be purely because of laziness. However if they don’t set things right, this problem is only going to

Simon fainted and when he woke up, he went to the mountain and found that there was no beast just a man in a parachute. He rushed back to tell the others, who were at the feast, but was ambushed and killed. The next day Ralph, Piggy, Sam and Eric discuss what they had done and they all feel remorse. Later that night Jack and his hunters attacked Ralph and his followers and stole Piggy’s glasses. The next day the boys went to retrieve the glasses and in a fight between Ralph and Jack, Piggy was killed and Sam and Eric were captured. That night Ralph was told by Sam and Eric that he would be hunted the next day and most likely killed as a double-sided sharpened stick has already been made. That morning Sam and Eric told Jack that Ralph was hiding. Jack then set the forest on fire in the hope of bringing out Ralph. The novel concluded when Ralph, running for his life, confronted a British naval officer who came ashore to check out the smoke on the island.

The theme from chapter 5 tells that Ralph is losing his innocence quickly, but gaining an understanding of natural processes not available to him in the sheltered society he came from. “With a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay”. At that moment, he began to trot toward the platform and the civilization it represents, in a physical reaction to the abstract truth newly present within him. Ralph is sick of the savagery he sees around him, but this savagery is characterized by accumulated dirt. The physical filth on the surface becomes a symbol of the metaphorical filth of evil residing in each boy, that itself will soon struggle to be unleashed on the

In this chapter we are introduced again to Eliza and George on their journey to Canada. They are still at Rachel’s home but will be picked up soon by a man named Phineas. Eliza encouraged George to become a christian again, but George is having a hard time believing in God at the moment, do to everything he and his wife have gone through. All in all, they agree that their main focus is getting to Canada for Harry and their family, and soon Phineas arrives to take them to their next stop. As they’re going, Phineas tells them that their are people looking for them and they’re very close by. A man named Michael soon tells them that the people are coming for them and are extremely close by. Phineas takes them up a hill and they take shelter in the rocks on the top of the hill, but sure enough they’re spotted by Tom Loker and Marks (with some

Simon, while alone, discovers a severed pig’s head on a pike. He begins a dialogue with the head, who he dubs the “Lord of the Flies.” The head explains that the Beast exists in all of the boys, and that it isn’t an actual entity at all. Simon climbs Castle Rock and discovers that the “Beast” is merely a dead pilot. He runs to tell the other boys, who are feasting. They mistake Simon for the beast and beat him to

Ralph, a boy who just survived a plane crash, meets a very fat kid who was also on the plane. The fat kid tells Ralph that he could call him anything except for Piggy, so Ralph starts calling him Piggy. They are stranded on what they presume to be an island. They begin to realize that there were other kids and want to find a way to gather the kids and have a meeting. Ralph finds a big lagoon and starts swimming in it. Piggy says that he cannot swim and Ralph makes fun of him for it. Ralph finds a conch shell and uses it to gather all of the kids who were on the plane when it crashed. Lots of boys come to the beach and introduce themselves

They return to the group and tell them the news. The group decides that if they want to be rescued they'll have to make a fire on the top of the mountain. Jack suddenly leads the boys to the mountain where they build a ginormous pile of branches and sticks. They use Piggy's glasses to light the fire before they can think things through. The fire quickly spreads, burns, and dies out, leaving a major part of the forest charred. Piggy tries to talk some sense into the group but is shunned and laughed at, making him feel even more disconnected from the group. Jack tries to hunt pigs but is too scared, so he returns to the beach where only Ralph and Simon are unsuccessfully trying to build a shelter. Ralph and Simon have a small squabble about their priorities. The group becomes accustomed to the island and are beginning to understand how to cope with their new lives. Jack is becoming more crazed and is going to further measures to try to capture a pig for meat. He paints his face and makes a spear as well as recruiting other boys to help him. While swimming in the lagoon, Ralph spots a ship on the horizon and looks up at the mountain. The fire is out. Ralph sprints up the mountain to try to signal the ship but to no

Meanwhile Simon stumbles upon the pigs head that the hunters left outside of his secluded hideout. He refers to it as The Lord of the Flies because the insects that swarms around the grotesque lump of rotting meat. He believes that it speaks to him telling him how foolish he is and that the other boys think he’s insane. The Lord of the Flies claims many horrific truths, such as being an undying beast lurking deep within each of them. Simon comes crashing to the ground in a fit much like a seizure and ultimately loses all consciousness. After he regains his senses, he wanders amongst the jungle finding himself at the peak of the mountain where he spots the dead pilot that the boys first concluded to be the retched beast and realizes the truth. Next Simon hurries down the mountain to detail the other boys in his findings on the reality of their tormenter, the supposed beast. Simon rushes from the forest babbling about the dead body on the mountain. Under the impression that he is the beast the boys trap Simon

The boys are in the forest in search of more pigs to eating and the "beast". During the search, the boys find pig droppings. Jack tells them that they should hunt the pigs instead of the "beast". A pig comes out to the open and the boys see it. Ralph, who has never hunt, is excited by the chase and quickly gets caught up in the adventure. He throws his spear at the pig, but it only hits his snout. Jack gets a wound on his left arm by the boar's tusks. He proudly shows off his wound to the others and Simon tells him he should suck the wound so it will not get an infection. The hunters go back to chanting "kill the pig." While they are chanting and dancing, they are carelessly waving their spears at Robert. Robert drags himself away from the

2. Identify the basic elements of the book: setting, conflict, main characters (with a brief description). The setting takes place on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. The main character in the book is Ralph who is an intelligent and simple 12 year old boy who is a natural leader.

The book begins with Ralph hiding in a bush and trees. He has wounds and cuts everywhere around his body from running through the trees and bushes. He wants to clean the cuts and the words but he can't because if he makes any noises the savages or jacks' tribe will hear him and kill him. Ralph gets somewhat close to the castle rock and sees that there was a smoke. But he knows that it was not a signal fire rather it was a cooking fire. He sees that jack’s tribe are having a feast. One of the savages gives a piece o a meat to Robert who was on guard duty. His alerts to Ralph that the savages are too busy eating they wouldn’t notice Ralph going to get some fruits from the fruit trees to eat. After eating Ralph feels better and walked where the shelter’s were.