Analysis on Lord of the Flies

     Piggy and Ralph meet up in an island. They soon realize their plane was attacked and they crashed down on the island where no one lives. Wondering rather other children survived, Piggy spots a conch shell, and tells Ralph how to use it to make a noise. Ralph does so in order to call other boys who might be there on the island who crashed down with the plane. Jack and his Choir, Simon, Sam and Eric and many other boys join in an Piggy and Ralph. Rules are set down, and Ralph became the chief. There is no one else on the island but the young boys, so Jack decides to take his choir out to hunt for wild pigs, although he is unsuccessful in killing a small pig with his knife. Ralph calls another group of children, and reminds everyone that they are
completely alone on the island, and there are no grown ups. Jack recounts his failure in killing the pig, and reiterates the need for skilled hunters. Several rules are made up. Unexpectedly, an unnamed littl'un with a birthmark on his face tells about a "beastie" that he saw somewhere on the island. The general consensus from the others is that there is no such thing, and it must be his imagination. Ralph then suggests making a signal fire, which would be necessary if they hope to get rescued. The boys gathered wood to build a fire. Unsure of how to light it they couldn’t start a fire. Thinking for quite a long time, they finally grab Piggy's specs and focus the sunlight on the gathered wood to ignite their fire. They were not careful, they couldn’t control the fire and soon the fire engulfed half the forest near the mountain. The little boy with the birthmark is noticed to be missing, swallowed up by the raging fire.

     Jack was busy tracking a pig and trying to catch it. But he fails to do it. While he was doing that, Simon and Ralph were constructing huts for home. On the beach Ralph complains no other boys are helping them making their shelters, but Jack tries to argue that hunting is more important. Again Ralph talks about the importance of signal fire in order to be rescued. Still, Jack argues the importance of hunting. Ignorant to the other boys, Simon picks some fruit for the littluns and makes his way into the jungle. He goes deeper and deeper and finds the place comfortable. Roger was knocking down the sand made by littluns and was intentionally missing the target. Jack ask for help in order to paint his face for pig hunting. Ralph and the other boys are swimming in the bathing pool later on. Smoke from a ship is spotted in the distance, the signal fire was out and was not watched. They missed their chance to be rescued. Later on Jack and his hunters come proudly marching carrying their first kill, trying to convey their excitement to Ralph. When Ralph yells that a ship passed them by and there was no signal fire going, excuses were made and Jack tries to say that hunting is the most important. The fight broke out and Jack punched Piggy. Finally, the fire is lit again, the pig is roasted, and everyone eats. The hunters celebrate the success of hunting, with a wild tribal dance and one boy acting like the pig. The Chapter three and four kind of make the reader think about the means of home. A safe shelter from beastie and others. Also it makes me question about the primaries. Jack and Ralph keep fighting upon the primaries they should do. Huntings and other things like making a shelter or lighting up the fire.

       
     Ralph mentions that work isn’t quite getting done, and the rules they set were not being followed. He worries that they might not survive before they go back home. However, all the young children weren’t that much interested in what Ralph says. They were rather interested in the beast, which they believed in as some kind of animal living on the island. Jack says that he's been everywhere, and there was no beast, and Piggy says that a beast can't exist scientifically. However, a littl'un still argues that he saw something horrid in the forest, which was, actually Simon returning in the dark from his peaceful area. Another littl'un says that there's a "Beast from the water,". Simon finally tries to settle the matter by saying that there may be a beast, but that "it's only us." However, they responded by mocking and joking. A dead man from the shot down plane falls down from the sky. The man was already dead, however, and the body and parachute float up to the island, eventually snagging on rocks. The wind continually grabs the parachute, lifting the body up and down was seen by Samneric. Terrified, they ran to tell about this "Beast from the Air," and an assembly is called. Almost everyone thought they were in big danger. Then Jack suggested hunting the beast down. Jack, Ralph, and a group of hunters set out to get the Beast, while Piggy stays at the beach with the littl'uns. They first checked Castle Rock, where they had never been before. Although they find nothing, Jack thought the place would work as a great fort. They keep on searching for the beast in the mountain.

     The beast takes the one of the most important part of developing the story. The beast at first seemed like just a representative of fear. The symbol of fear everyone was scared about due to lack of information. However, the beast in the story was not just a symbol of fear. It more importantly took a role as the trigger of human’s instinct of violence and rage. The beast didn’t exist, but children set the character in the island as a beast, and even they were scared of it, at the same time they were trying to hunt it down, and they slowly lost the judgment and they started to not care about what is the beast. Hunting the beast down became the primary problem. And it able us to guess that something tragic would happen because of lack of judgment such as killing one of themselves thinking that he was a beast.

     Ralph began pondering about their dirtiness and appearance while climbing up to the mountain. He would love to cut his hair. Simon sees Ralph and assures him that they would safely get back to home. Unlike before, Ralph actively participates in the dance, and their acts became overly realistic actually striking and hurting Robert. Finally, they move on towards the mountain. Jack found a moving creature on the mountain. When they see what they believe to be the beast they make haste to attack. Jack calls assembly and point out that Beast is something that must be hunted. Ralph was upset and called the hunters coward. Enraged Jack asks people about Ralph being chief. Since their signal fire is blocked by the beast they decide to move the fire to the shore. When they got there, they noticed that most of the older boys decided to abandon Ralph. After hunting, Jack realizes that they'll need fire to cook the meat so they steal fire log from Ralph’s camp. Ralph maintains that the fire is more important. Simon meets the lord of the flies. The black cloud of flies coating the head called "The Lord of the Flies." The Lord of the Flies says I’m part of you, we are going to have fun in this island. It continues to say that if Simon tries to talk to the others about the Beast, that he will be killed by everyone, including Ralph and Piggy. After all this situation Simon collapses.

     As we also talked about it in the class before the midterm test, Ralph ponders about their dirtiness, and desire to cut his long hair. Hair which represents civilization, has grown and it means that distance between boys and civilization has been increased. Beside that, Lord of the flies finally appears in the story. Lord of the flies saying “I’m part of you” can be inferred that those brutality of the hunters, their fears about the beast and all the other things something that was inside of them. Also from saying that “we are going to have fun in this island” it can be easily expected more brutality, more fears, and more severe incidences will happen in the story. Also every incidences are showing the civilization is diminishing really fast. For example the fall of Ralph means democracy which is part of modern civilization is fallen. Only Simon remains mystery. He only does not belong to the boys who are being more separated from civilizations. He also have the role of messenger, meeting lord of the flies.

    

     When Simon finally woke up, giant storm was raging in the island. Piggy and Ralph decided to check the pig, but there, Jack asked them to show loyalty. Ralph tries to persuade the group however he fails, and the group starts the ritual. As they were playing the ritual, someone comes out from the jungle. Everyone starts to attack it saying that it is the beast. Rather than the beast Simon is beaten to death. Jack keeps his seat and others show loyalty to him. Jack has a boy tied up and beaten, for no reason except to show what happens if anyone gets in his way. Later Ralph, Piggy, and twins finally leave the fire and go to their shelters. They woke up by some noises, fearing it is the beast. But it was Jack, and his group looking for the fire. They break into the shelter and begin to fight to get the piggy’s glasses.

      

     First, as expected Simon came to death after encountering the lord of the flies. Lord of the flies promised to have some fun with him meaning that Simon would get into some trouble. Some trouble came out to be the death. Also, death of the Simon means that the last civilization and ability to reasoning completely faded out from those boys. Boys are now completely savages, and acts as their instincts tell them to. It seems like violent giant storm represents the situations of the island and the behaviors of boys. Giant storm also plays a roll as erasing the evidence of Simon’s death by carrying his body away. Not only that, the last remnants of rules, and civilizations are destroyed or lost power. Conch shell which represented the rules, had lost it’s power completely. Also, Piggy’s glasses which represented the intelligence and the civilizations is also broken. The island is completely away from civilization.

    

     Ralph and his crews went to the Castle Rock to get Piggy's glasses back. However Jack denies their request of giving the glasses back. During their argument, Roger pushed a giant rock on Ralph but Ralph avoids it. However, the great rock landed on Piggy destroying the conch and Piggy fell from the cliff and died. Then Jack captured Sam and Eric. Ralph runs away and Jack tortures Sam and Eric to join his troop. Ralph found the skeletons of the Lord of the Flies. He grabbed a stake from its head. He went to the Castle Rock and saw Sam and Eric who were guarding the Castle Rock. Sam and Eric told Ralph that Jack tries to find him and kill him so Ralph hides in the thickets. In the morning, Ralph started to escape from the thickets because he smelled fire from the jungle. Jack had set the fire to burn the forest and fire Ralph out from the thickets. Ralph ran away from Jack's crew and faints in the beach. When Ralph woke up, he saw a naval officer who was staring at him and told him that he saw the island on fire and he thought there were people in the island. Ralph and the other boys cried with joy and got rescued. However, Ralph cried with grief unlike other boys. Naval officer first thought they were having fun and joy but were disgusted after he heard what happened.

     To start off, symbols of civilizations are all destroyed. Roger’s rock not only killed piggy who was the most smart and civilized kind of guy, but also destroyed the conch shell which represented the rules, and civilizations. Moreover, Lord of the Flies is also destroyed. By destroying those things, symbols that were left representing civilization are all gone. Now Jack’s troop acts more like savage. They killed the piggy, tortured Sam and Eric, and try to hunt Ralph at last. When Ralph hides in the bush, they even set fire to hunt him down. There is one more interesting thing I found in the novel. Reminding that those kids are survivors from crashed airplane, they were in war time. Keeping this in mind, the naval officer who was disgusted at their acts is probably a soldier. This is quite ironical, while he is the one who kills people like savage, he is disgusted and shocked how those kids could turn like savages so quickly. The boys in the island were kind of miniature of real world of adults.