Lord of the Flies (Golding)
Short Summary
On an uninhabited Pacific island during an unspecified wartime period, a group of English schoolboys were stranded after a plane crash. They began by setting up order, electing Ralph as their leader, a fair-haired, athletic, and rational boy who embodied civilized values. Ralph advocated for rescue and maintained hope in the creation of a signal fire.
The boys loosened their initial cooperation as Jack Merridew, the aggressive and power-hungry leader of the choir-turned-hunters, challenged Ralph's authority. Jack became obsessed with hunting and embraced brutality, leading his followers into savagery and violence. As tension rose, Jack's tribe turned against the hope of rescue, focusing solely on hunting and feasting.
Piggy, overweight, asthmatic and highly intelligent, was Ralph's adviser and represented rational thought. Over time, Piggy experienced constant bullying and ridicule, yet retained faith in reason and order. With stolen glassesānecessary both for clear vision and to make fireāhe went with Ralph and the twins to confront Jack. Amid the confrontation, chaos erupted:
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's death marked the point of no return, eradicating the symbol of order and rationality. Ralph, hunted relentlessly by Jack's tribe who ignited the entire island to flush him out, desperately evaded capture. When discovered, he charged out to the beach and fell at the feet of a naval officer who arrived to investigate the smoke. Realizing the grisly truth about the children's descent into violence, the officer was stunned. As Ralph, overcome by grief, wept bitterly for his lost innocence and friends, the survivors stood silent, exposed finally to the darkness of human nature.
Detailed Summary by Chapters
Chapter 1. The Sound of the Shell
A fair-haired boy made his way through the jungle toward a lagoon on an uninhabited tropical island. He was soon joined by a fat boy wearing glasses. They discussed their situation, realizing they had survived a plane crash during an evacuation and that there were no adults present. The fair boy introduced himself as Ralph, while the fat boy revealed that others called him "Piggy," a nickname he disliked.
Ralph discovered a large pink and cream conch shell, which Piggy suggested using to call the other survivors. Ralph blew the conch, and boys of various ages began to gather. A group of black-clad choirboys marched to the meeting place, led by a tall, red-haired boy named Jack Merridew. When all the boys assembled, Ralph was elected chief over Jack, who was disappointed but accepted leadership of his choir, designating them as hunters.
Ralph, Jack, and a quiet boy named Simon set off to explore the island, confirming it was uninhabited and surrounded by reef and sea. They climbed the mountain and saw the entire island below them, feeling a sense of ownership and adventure. On their way back, they encountered a piglet trapped in creepers. Jack drew his knife to kill it but hesitated, allowing the piglet to escape. He vowed that next time, he would not hesitate to kill.
Chapter 2. Fire on the Mountain
Ralph called another meeting using the conch. He established rules about speaking and outlined priorities: having fun, getting rescued, and building shelters. A small boy with a birthmark on his face mentioned a "snake-thing" or "beastie" he had seen in the night. Ralph dismissed this fear, insisting there were no dangerous beasts on the island.
Ralph emphasized the need for a signal fire on the mountain to attract passing ships. Excited by this idea, the boys rushed off to gather wood, leaving Ralph behind. Using Piggy's glasses to focus sunlight, they lit a fire that quickly grew out of control. As the flames spread through the forest, Piggy scolded them for their recklessness. The boys realized that the littlun with the birthmark was missing, likely caught in the fire. This sobering realization dampened their spirits, but they did not dwell on it for long.
Chapter 3. Huts on the Beach
Time passed, and Jack became obsessed with hunting pigs, spending hours tracking them through the forest. Meanwhile, Ralph focused on building shelters on the beach, frustrated that only Simon consistently helped him while other boys played or wandered off. When Jack returned empty-handed from hunting, he and Ralph argued about priorities. Ralph emphasized the importance of shelters and maintaining the signal fire, while Jack was fixated on the thrill of the hunt.
Simon slipped away from the argument and ventured alone into the jungle. He helped the littluns gather fruit from high branches, then continued to his special placeāa secluded clearing with fragrant flowers and butterflies. There, he sat in peaceful contemplation as evening approached and the candle-buds opened their white flowers.
Chapter 4. Painted Faces and Long Hair
Life on the island fell into a rhythm. The younger boys (littluns) spent their days playing, while the older boys neglected their responsibilities. Roger and Maurice bullied the littluns, destroying their sandcastles. Roger threw stones near a littlun named Henry but deliberately missed, still constrained by the taboos of civilization.
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.
Jack, frustrated by his unsuccessful hunting, decided to paint his face with clay and charcoal as camouflage. The mask transformed him, liberating him from shame and self-consciousness. With his hunters, he tracked and killed a pig for the first time.
The mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness. The face of red and white and black swung through the air and jigged toward Bill.
Meanwhile, Ralph, Piggy, and Simon were at the bathing pool when Ralph spotted a ship on the horizon. They rushed to the mountain only to discover that the signal fire had gone outāJack's hunters had abandoned their duty to tend it. By the time they reached the mountain, the ship had passed. When Jack arrived with his hunters, proudly carrying the pig's carcass, Ralph confronted him about letting the fire die. Jack, caught between pride in his kill and shame at his neglect, punched Piggy, breaking one lens of his glasses. Despite this conflict, all the boys except Simon, Ralph, and Piggy eventually joined in eating the roasted pig.
Chapter 5. Beast from Water
Ralph called an assembly to address the deteriorating situation on the island. He criticized the boys for failing to follow established rules: not helping with shelters, not using designated toilet areas, and neglecting the signal fire. Most importantly, he wanted to address the growing fear of a beast or monster that was spreading among the littluns.
Jack insisted there was no beast, but if there were, his hunters would kill it. Piggy supported Ralph's rational approach, dismissing the beast as imaginary. When a littlun named Phil described seeing something moving in the night, Ralph explained it was just Simon walking around. Another littlun, Percival, claimed the beast came from the sea.
Simon stood up and suggested that perhaps the beast was only themselves, but the boys laughed at him and didn't understand his meaning. As the meeting descended into chaos, Jack challenged Ralph's authority and led most of the boys away to hunt, leaving Ralph feeling that his leadership was crumbling.
Maybe there is a beast... maybe it's only us... What I mean is... maybe it's only us.
After the meeting, Ralph, Piggy, and Simon discussed their situation. Piggy reminded Ralph that adults would know what to do, but they were on their own. As they talked, they heard the frightened cries of Percival, who had been traumatized by the day's events.
Chapter 6. Beast from Air
That night, as the boys slept, a battle was taking place high above the island. A parachutist, shot down in the sky battle, drifted down to the island, his parachute catching on the rocks at the top of the mountain. The dead man's body, moved by the wind, appeared to bow and rise in a grotesque imitation of life.
At dawn, twins Sam and Eric, who were tending the signal fire, saw the silhouette of the parachutist and mistook it for the beast. Terrified, they fled to tell Ralph. The boys organized an expedition to investigate this new threat. Ralph, Jack, and several others searched the island, first exploring a previously unvisited rocky area that Jack called Castle Rock.
As darkness approached, Ralph decided they should search the mountain the next day, but Jack challenged him, calling him afraid. Ralph, Jack, and Roger climbed the mountain in the dark. There, they saw the terrifying silhouette of the parachutist, which they believed to be the beast, and fled in panic.
Chapter 7. Shadows and Tall Trees
The boys made their way along the beach toward the mountain. Ralph, exhausted and disheveled, reflected on how much he longed for civilizationāa haircut, a bath, and clean clothes. Simon reassured Ralph that he would get home safely, showing his intuitive understanding and compassion.
The group encountered a boar, which Ralph wounded with his spear. Excited by this small success, the boys reenacted the hunt, with Robert playing the role of the pig. Their play-acting became increasingly violent and realistic, foreshadowing their growing savagery.
As evening approached, Ralph, Jack, and Roger decided to continue to the mountain while the others returned to the platform. In the growing darkness, they reached the top and saw the terrifying shape of the beastāthe dead parachutist swaying in the wind. Overcome with fear, they fled back down the mountain.
Chapter 8. Gift for the Darkness
The next morning, Ralph, Jack, and the others told the group about the beast on the mountain. Jack challenged Ralph's leadership, calling for a vote to remove him as chief. When no one supported him, Jack stormed off, declaring he was leaving to form his own tribe. Several boys followed him, while Ralph was left with Piggy, Simon, and the littluns.
Piggy suggested moving the signal fire from the mountain to the beach, away from the beast. The remaining boys built a new fire, but Ralph worried about their dwindling numbers and the difficulty of maintaining it. Meanwhile, Jack and his followers painted their faces and hunted a sow, killing it brutally. After the kill, Jack decided to leave an offering for the beastāthe sow's head impaled on a stake.
Simon, who had slipped away to his secret place in the forest, observed the sow's head, now covered with flies. In his exhausted, possibly feverish state, he imagined the headāthe "Lord of the Flies"āspeaking to him, taunting him with the truth about the beast.
"Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!" said the head. "You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?"
Jack returned to Ralph's camp and invited everyone to join his tribe for a feast. Most of the remaining boys, including the twins, decided to go, leaving Ralph with only Piggy and Simon, who was still away in the forest.
Chapter 9. A View to a Death
Simon, recovering from his hallucination, climbed the mountain and discovered the truth about the beastāit was the dead parachutist, tangled in lines. He freed the body from the rocks, then headed down to tell the others the truth.
Meanwhile, Ralph and Piggy, hungry and lonely, decided to attend Jack's feast at Castle Rock. There, Jack ruled as chief, offering meat and asking who would join his tribe. When a storm began, Jack led the boys in their ritual dance and chant: "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!" In their frenzy, they mistook the emerging Simon for the beast and surrounded him.
Simon tried to explain about the dead parachutist, but the boys, caught up in their savage dance and unable to hear him over the storm, attacked him with their bare hands and teeth. Simon was killed and his body washed out to sea. The storm cleared the parachutist's body from the mountain, sending it out to sea as well.
Chapter 10. The Shell and the Glasses
The next morning, Ralph and Piggy were the only ones left at the original camp besides some littluns. They discussed Simon's death, with Piggy insisting it was an accident and that they weren't involved since they were on the outside of the circle. Ralph, however, acknowledged the truth of what they had done.
At Castle Rock, Jack ruled his tribe with increasing tyranny. He had Roger guard the entrance, punished a boy named Wilfred without reason, and kept the boys in a state of fear about the beast, suggesting they leave offerings for it. That night, Jack led a raid on Ralph's camp, stealing Piggy's glasses to make fire, leaving Piggy unable to see.
The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over the island like a vapor. These painted savages would go further and further. Then there was that indefinable connection between himself and Jack.
Chapter 11. Castle Rock
Ralph, Piggy, and the twins decided to go to Castle Rock to confront Jack about the theft of Piggy's glasses. They took the conch, hoping it would still give them the right to speak. When they arrived, Ralph called to Jack, who emerged painted and surrounded by his hunters. Ralph and Jack fought briefly, while Roger watched from above, holding a lever that controlled a large rock.
Piggy, holding the conch, tried to reason with the tribe about the importance of rules and rescue over hunting and savagery.
Which is betterāto have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
As Piggy spoke, Roger levered the large rock off the cliff. It struck Piggy, shattering the conch and sending him falling to his death on the rocks below. Jack threw his spear at Ralph, who fled as the tribe hunted him like an animal. The twins were captured and forced to join Jack's tribe.
Chapter 12. Cry of the Hunters
Ralph hid in the forest, wounded and terrified. He found the severed pig's head that Simon had confrontedāthe Lord of the Fliesānow a bleached skull. He knocked it over and took the stick as a weapon. From the twins, who were now guarding Castle Rock, he learned that Jack planned to hunt him down the next day by spreading out across the island.
The next morning, Jack's tribe began their hunt for Ralph. They flushed him out of his hiding place and set the forest on fire to force him into the open. Ralph fled toward the beach, desperately trying to evade his pursuers. Exhausted and cornered, he stumbled onto the beach and fell at the feet of a naval officer who had seen the smoke from the burning island.
The officer was shocked to learn that British schoolboys could descend into such savagery, naively comparing their experience to the adventure book "Coral Island." As the reality of rescue sank in, the painted hunters became children again. Ralph, overwhelmed by all they had lost, began to sob. The other boys joined him in crying for the darkness they had discovered within themselves.
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.