Cummings Study Guide

Date of Publication and Source
..
The Lord of the Flies was published in 1954. In writing the novel, Golding drew upon his experiences as a British naval officer during the Second World War. He based much of the plot and several of his characters on an 1858 book, The Coral Island, by Robert M. Ballantyne. Ballantyne's story recounts the adventures of three British boys—Ralph, Jack, and Peterkin—who survive a shipwreck and create their own little society on an island where pigs run wild. Film versions of the The Lord of the flies appeared in 1963, 1990, and 2008. 
 

Setting
..
The action takes place on a tiny coral island in the South Pacific during a war in which an atomic bomb may have been used. The weather is hot and sunny. Although the island is uninhabited except for the boys who survived the plane crash, it offers necessities to support life, including fresh water, fruit, and game in the form of pigs. The island, which is shaped like a boat, has a forest, two small mountains, and a sandy beach. The boys form their own society on the island, with a leader and a rudimentary form of government. Their little world becomes a microcosm symbolizing the world of adults. 

Characters
.
Protagonist: Ralph
Antagonists: Jack, the Imagined Beast, the Evil Inside the Boys
..
Ralph: Handsome, athletic twelve-year-old elected leader by the boys. He is sensible and self-confident but gradually becomes disheartened under the burden of leadership, and Jack plots to overthrow him. Note: Many British pronounce the name Ralph as Rafe.
Jack Merridew: Aggressive older boy who envies Ralph and vies with him for leadership. He leads the choirboys.
Piggy: Fat, clumsy, asthmatic older boy who befriends and advises Ralph. Piggy is an orphan.
Simon: Timid, highly sensitive older boy who respects everyone and learns a dark secret.
Sam and Eric: Twins who support Ralph in his struggle with Jack. 
Roger: Cruel older boy who seems to enjoy harming others. 
The Choirboys: Singers led by Jack. They remain loyal to him in his struggle with Ralph. 
Naval Officer: British seaman who arrives at the end of the novel to rescue the boys. 
 

Plot Summary
By Michael J. Cummings...© 2004
.
British schoolboys ages six to twelve survive a plane crash on a small coral island in the South Pacific during a world war. There are no adult survivors. The boys are intelligent, well-to-do children—the sons of aristocratic families that run society and government—who had been evacuated from a battle zone. Under a hot sun, two older boys—one fat and clumsy and the other handsome and athletic—are on a beach getting acquainted as they discuss their plight. They are uncertain whether there are other survivors. The fat boy confides that his school chums call him Piggy, a nickname he despises. The other boy later introduces himself as Ralph. Ralph says his father will rescue them when he learns that their plane is missing, but Piggy rejects this possibility: “Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all dead.”  While they get their bearings, Piggy continually urges Ralph to go with him to look for other survivors. But rather than taking this advice, Ralph goes swimming in a lagoon near a slab of pink granite. There, he finds a conch about eighteen inches long. Piggy recognizes it as a valuable find, telling Ralph that blowing into it will make a sound loud enough to be heard a long way off. If there are other survivors, they might come running.

Intrigued, Ralph tries it out and surprises himself at the deep, booming sound he produces. Within a short time, a small boy comes toward them. Then others arrive, including a group of choir singers led by a boy of superior bearing barking commands. His name is Jack Merridew. When the boys introduce themselves, Piggy pipes up, asking that a name be repeated. But Jack says, “You’re talking too much. Shut up, Fatty.” There is laughter all around. Meaning well but further embarrassing the fat boy, Ralph says, “He’s not Fatty, his real name’s Piggy.” There is more laughter, louder this time. 

Using the rules of civilization taught at school, the boys assemble to choose a leader. Jack nominates himself, and all of his choirboys vote for him. But Ralph—who seems bright and sensible and who is, moreover, the holder of the conch, which is perceived as a symbol of authority—gets the majority of votes. To pacify Jack, Ralph appoints him and his choirboys as hunters. Of course, there is plenty of fruit on the island, the boys have discovered. But they hunger for more substantial fare: meat.

When Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, explore the inland forest, Jack carries an invaluable tool: a long, sharp knife—ensconced in a sheath—that he brought with him from the plane wreckage. They climb a summit from which they observe the entire island, which is boat-shaped. On their way back, they hear rustling and squeals. The source of the sounds is a baby pig caught in a tangle of plant growth. Food! Jack has an opportunity to stab it with his knife, but he hesitates and loses his chance. The next time, he says, he will show no mercy.

Late in the afternoon, Ralph blows the conch, summoning all the boys for a meeting. First, he tells them that he, Jack, and Simon found no signs of other human life on the island; they are alone. They did discover, however, that there are pigs on the island to enliven their diet. Next, he makes a rule: Whenever anyone speaks at a meeting, he will hold the conch, signaling that no one must interrupt him. When another person wishes to speak, he will raise his hand and the conch will be passed to him. 

A little boy, crying, says he has seen a “snake-thing.” The other boys doubt his story, suggesting he had a nightmare. There are no “beasties” on the island, they assure him. To further hearten everyone, Ralph says his father, a navy man, will rescue them. The British, after all, have maps of every island everywhere; one day, rescuers will come. When Ralph suggests that they build a fire on a nearby mountain, everyone jumps up and carries leaves and dry wood to the site. No one has any matches, so Jack snatches Piggy’s eyeglasses and gives them to Ralph, who kneels down and holds the lenses over the wood pile until the concentrated sun rays start the fire. There is applause. 

When it is decided that someone must maintain the fire and continually create smoke visible at a distance, Jack volunteers to have some of his hunters take on this task. While the boys are talking, the fire burns out of control. Piggy—annoyed that the others have been acting hastily—“like a pack of kids,” says they should have put more planning into how to maintain the fire; instead, everyone just jumped up and built it without deciding what to do next. What’s more, he says, “The first thing we ought to have made was shelter down there by the beach. How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?” 

A while later, an explosion from the fire sends vines into the air. Some little boys shout “Snakes! Snakes! Look at the snakes!” Before sunset, Piggy discovers that one of the little ones is missing. He is never found. 

When the boys build huts, they all pitch in enthusiastically at first. Then many of them—mostly the “littluns,” as the youngest children are called—gradually drop out to swim, play games, or forage for fruit. 

“All day I’ve been working with Simon,” Ralph tells Jack, who has just returned from an unsuccessful hunting expedition. “No one else. They’re off bathing, or eating, or playing.”

Ralph then asks Jack to help, but Jack says he has to pay attention to hunting. “We want meat.” The boys are on the brink of an argument when they change the subject and talk amiably. Ralph confides to Jack an unsettling thought: When he was in the forest, he felt that something was hunting him. The conversation then returns to pigs and shelters—then the fire. Ralph reminds Jack several times not to forget about the fire.

The next day, Jack and his boys smear clay on their faces as a sort of camouflage, then go off on another hunting expedition. On the beach, Piggy suggests to Ralph that they plant a stick in the ground to make a sun dial. But Ralph, preoccupied with the burden of leadership, turns away. By and by, he spies a silhouette on the horizon. A ship! He turns to check the signal fire, but sees no smoke. Maybe the fire is out. Frantically, he tears up the mountainside, then stops. Piggy’s glasses! If the fire is out, he will need them. But if the fire is still alive—. No time to waste. He keeps running up the mountain. At the top, he discovers the worst: The fire is dead. As the ship begins to disappear, he shouts at it—“Come back! Come back!” No use. In moments, it is gone.

A while later, Jack returns triumphantly from the hunt. Two of his boys are carrying a pig on a pole resting on their shoulders. All of the hunters are chanting: “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”

Ralph, livid with anger, shouts at Jack, “You let the fire go out!” When Piggy also rebukes Jack, the latter doubles him over with a punch to the stomach. Then he slaps at Piggy, and his eyeglasses go flying. One of the lenses shatters on rocks. Ralph and Jack argue, but after tempers cool the boys build a new fire, roast the pig, and eat. When Jack doesn’t offer any meat to Piggy, Simon gives Piggy a portion. 

That evening, Ralph calls a meeting to restore discipline and respect for the rules, presenting the following grievances: (1) The boys neglect to refill coconut shells used to hold fresh water for everyone; (2) they shirk their duty to work on shelters; (3) they do not use the rocky area designated as a “lavatory” but, instead, excrete their waste wherever they please; (4) they make separate fires, causing them to neglect the signal fire on the mountain.

From now on, he says, everyone must abide by the rules—and there will be only one fire, the signal fire. To allay growing fears, Ralph declares that there are no beasts to be afraid of; there are only overactive imaginations. Jack seizes this opportunity to ridicule the small boys for believing in such creatures, calling them crybabies and telling them they must learn to live with their fears. But a boy named Phil nevertheless swears he saw something “big and horrid” in the forest. Another boy, Percival, claims that a beast hides in the sea and comes out at night. There is also talk of ghosts. Then boys start talking out of turn; confusion and disorder result. Piggy asks, “What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?”

Jack tries to declare himself the new chief, then storms off when he fails. Ralph begins to doubt his ability as a leader and speaks of resigning. Piggy and Simon urge him to remain the leader. 

Overnight, under shimmering stars and a bright moon, an explosion erupts in the sky, and an airplane goes down in the sea, leaving behind a spiral of smoke and a parachutist falling to earth. He lands in the island’s forest, his lines tangled and hung up between a tree and a rock. He is dead. But his body bobs and sways in the wind, and the parachute billows and flaps. Nearby, twins Sam and Eric, who are tending the mountain fire, hear strange noises. As dawn nears, they investigate and, in the dim light, perceive . . . the beast!

Tearing down the mountainside, they awaken Ralph and the other boys, crying out their tale of horror. There is an assembly at which the boys recite the details of their experience, describing the beast as furry and having wings. 

“There were eyes—”

“Teeth—”

“Claws—”

Ralph notices the cuts and tears the twins suffered in their rush down from the mountain through the heavy forest growth. He is now convinced that there really is a beast after all. The faces of the others are stricken with terror 

Although the boys are all genuinely frightened, they realize they must hunt the beast down. To remain confined to the beach, cut off from their food supply, is out of the question. So Jack, Ralph, and the rest of the older boys set out to track the creature while Piggy remains behind with the small boys. Jack leads the way. Simon, not far behind him, is the only one who doubts the existence of the beast. He regrets that he lacked the courage to speak up at the assembly. 

Their destination is a high point on the far side of the island where they believe the beast has his lair. After nearing the site, Ralph, as chief, decides to steal forward alone. The others observe from bushes. Moments later, however, Jack joins him. When they arrive at the site, they find nothing. Ralph then notices that no smoke is rising from their signal fire in the distance. Other boys, realizing that there is nothing to fear where they are, come out of hiding and begin to roll rocks down the hill. When Ralph orders everyone to leave, some of the boys want to stay and play. Ralph says, “There’s no signal showing. There may be a ship out there. Are you all off your rockers?”

They all then head back to the other side of the island. On the way, they discover fresh pig droppings. Jack says, “Ralph—we need meat even if we are hunting the other thing.” Ralph agrees. 

When a big boar crosses their path, Ralph hurls a spear that strikes it. The animal then changes directions and disappears into the forest. Ralph brags about his spear throw, and Jack shows a brush burn on his arm that he says the pig caused. The boys are excited now, and they reenact the scene, one boy, Robert, playing the charging pig, and the others jabbing at him. Later, as the afternoon merges into evening, they climb the mountain to the signal fire. There, like Sam and Eric before them, Jack, Ralph, and Roger hear noises and see the monster, a figure resembling an ape sleeping in a sitting position. (It is, of course, the dead parachutist, his body still lodged between the rock and the tree.)

The following day, Ralph tells Piggy about their sighting of the beast. Downcast, Ralph thinks there is no way to kill it and no way to maintain a signal fire, for the beast sits near the mountaintop as if ready to attack anyone who goes there.

“What about my hunters?” Jack says.

“Boys armed with sticks.” Ralph replies sarcastically.

Insulted, Jack goes off in a huff.

At an assembly, Jack informs everyone about the beast, then twists Ralph’s words, saying he accused his hunters of being cowards. He concludes that Ralph is not a “proper chief, ” then leaves, soon to be joined by his loyal followers. He believes he is the new chief. 

Piggy, glad to be rid of Jack, tells Ralph all is not lost; for they can build a fire on the beach. Ralph perks up, and so do the rest of the boys. They immediately gather wood and start the fire, although they realize it is a formidable task to keep a big fire going without the help of Jack’s boys. So they settle for a small one.

Meanwhile, Jack and his boys go on another hunting expedition, deciding to search only for pigs. If they kill one, they will leave part of it behind to appease the beast. In almost no time, they find and kill a sow in a bloody struggle. Simon, who had wandered into the forest, is observing everything from the cover of leaves. The hunters cut off the head of the pig and impale it on a stake, leaving it behind as a gift for the beast.  After they leave, Simon gazes intently upon the head and the flies buzzing around it. 

The hunters now have meat but no fire and no means of starting one, so they storm Ralph’s beach site and steal burning sticks from his fire. Before leaving, Jack invites everyone to join him and his boys at his site for food and fun. He and his raiders then trot away. 

Ralph tells his followers they must remain at the fire to keep it going. There could be a ship. They could be rescued. But one of the boys, Bill, argues in favor of attending the feast, saying it would give them an opportunity to ask for help in maintaining their fire. Besides, there will be meat. Sam and Eric think it would fun to attend and, of course, they would have meat. Back in the forest, the impaled pig’s head—the Lord of the Flies—seems to speak to Simon:“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close!”

So there is no beast in the forest, Simon realizes; there is only the beast inside the boys—the evil that has been gradually corrupting them. Simon wanders off again, this time to the mountaintop—and verifies that what others thought was a beast is really something else, a dead parachutist. He must go down immediately and tell everyone. 

Storm clouds are gathering on the beach. It is hot. Ralph and Piggy are bathing in the pool while little ones play at the edge. Bill, Sam, and Eric have gone to Jack’s party. Piggy suggests that he and Ralph go too—“to make sure nothing happens.” Jack accepts the advice. Sam and Eric remain behind.

When they arrive at Jack’s site, boys are dancing and singing, their faces greasy with meat. There is also fruit, and coconut cups are full of water. There is a moment of silence and uneasiness when Ralph enters the camp. However, after Ralph and Piggy join in the laughter, merriment returns and Jack passes around meat. A short while later, Jack creates discord when he invites Ralph’s boys to join his tribe. When Ralph and Jack argue over who is chief, Ralph declares that he is the keeper of the conch, giving him the power to call assemblies. Jack says the conch means nothing to him.  Meanwhile, some of Ralph’s boys abandon him for Jack. 

Thunder booms. Raindrops fall. The flashes of lightning—followed by  cracks and rumbles—make the bigger boys uneasy and terrify the little ones. Jack rallies them by telling them to do their dance. Forming a circle, they dance and chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” Little ones form their own circles. Ralph and Piggy watch and, considering the storm and the darkness of the night, are only too willing to be part of the festivities.

Soon, the dancers work themselves into a frenzy—just as Simon walks out of the forest, a shadowy figure whom some of the boys say is the beast. In a moment, the dancers are upon him, poking sticks, clawing, biting, tearing. Simon dies.

The next day, Piggy and Ralph are back at their own beach site, disheartened. Piggy tells Ralph that the only other ones left in their group are Sam, Eric, and a few little ones; the rest have all gone over to Jack. When they talk about the night before, Ralph characterizes Simon’s death as murder. Piggy says it wasn’t so—especially because of the way Simon came out of the woods, taking everyone by surprise. Ralph says:

“You were outside. Outside the circle. You never really came in. Didn’t see what we—what they did.”

Piggy insists it was an accident. After they ruminate further over Simon’s death, they turn their attention to maintaining a fire started earlier by Piggy. 

During the next night, Jack, Maurice, and Roger attack Ralph, Piggy, and Sam and Eric. Piggy isn’t any use, but Ralph, Sam, and Eric give their adversaries a fierce fight and drive them off. However, Jack comes away with a prize—Piggy’s eyeglasses.

Ralph and Piggy, accompanied by Sam and Eric, go to Jack’s camp and, using the conch, attempt to call an assembly. When Jack orders them out of the camp, Ralph demands Piggy’s glasses. Jack refuses to return them. Ralph calls Jack a thief, and Jack lunges at him with a spear. Ralph parries it with own spear. They fight close in for a while, then break off. Ralph appeals to reason, saying their only hope for rescue is to join forces and maintain the fire. Some of Jack’s boys surround, capture, and tie up Sam and Eric. Ralph loses his temper and attacks Jack. They exchange blows.

Piggy holds up the conch and demands to speak. Out of curiosity, everyone listens. “Which is better,” he says, “law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?”

Jack and his boys form into a solid wall to launch an attack. From above, someone pushes a rock from a precipice. It strikes and kills Piggy. When Jack and his boys charge, Ralph runs and hides in the forest while the others track him down. They set a fire that forces Ralph onto the beach. Running for his life, he stumbles and falls. When he looks up, he sees a British naval officer, who tells him he has seen the forest fire.

Ralph breaks down, crying “for the end of his innocence,” author Golding writes,and for “the darkness of man’s heart,” and the death of “the true, wise friend called Piggy.”

In the distance, a cruiser waits to return the boys to civilization.

The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable. The whole book is symbolic in nature except the rescue in the end where adult life appears, dignified and capable, but in reality enmeshed in the same evil as the symbolic life of the children on the island. The officer, having interrupted a man-hunt, prepares to take the children off the island in a cruiser which will presently be hunting its enemy in the same implacable way. And who will rescue the adult and his cruiser? (E.L. Epstein. "Notes on Lord of the Flies." The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1954, page 204).

Plane Crash: Failure or breakdown of society in the world outside; spread of corrupting ideas.
Forest Scar: This path of destruction through the forest, caused by the crashing plane, appears to represent the encroachment of corrupt civilization on the pristine island.
Island: Before the arrival of the boys, the Garden of Eden; after the arrival of the boys, the corrupted world of humankind.
Conch: Civilized authority, democracy. 
Eyeglasses of Piggy and Piggy Himself: Insight, wisdom, knowledge.
Death of Piggy and Destruction of Conch: Failure or breakdown of society on the island.
Signal Fire: Hope.
Imagined Beast: Fear, superstition. (The boys imagine that a monster in the form of a snake, a sea monster, an ape, or other "beasties" that they dream about lurks nearby.) 
Dead Parachutist: The beast. (In fact, the parachutist is a beast, for he has taken part in a war to kill fellow human beings.) 
Chanting and Dancing of the Hunters: Blind emotion, loss of reason.
Logs on Which Ralph and Jack Sit: Seats of authority; thrones.
The Big Boys: The emerging generation of evil.
The Little Boys: The next generation of evil.
The Naval Officer: The present generation of evil.
The Killing of the First Pig: Original sin.
The Killing of the Second Pig, the Sow: Release of perverted, Oedipal urges.
Jack's Knife, Sticks Sharpened Into Spears: Weapons of war in the macrocosmic world; phalluses as representations of masculine aggression.
Jack and Ralph: Perhaps Cain and Abel (although Ralph does not die, as Abel did in the Bible).
The Impaled Pig's Head (Lord of the Flies): The evil in every person's heart.

Climax
.
The climax of a novel or another narrative work, such as a short story or a play, can be defined as (1) the turning point at which the conflict begins to resolve itself for better or worse, or as (2) the final and most exciting event in a series of events. The climax of The Lord of the Flies occurs, according to the first definition, when Jack rebels and forms his own tribe, resulting in a "war" between his boys and Ralph's. According to the second definition, the climax occurs when Ralph fights Jack and Piggy dies.
.
Irony
.
There are several types of irony. Usually, though, irony refers to an outcome or a circumstance that is the opposite of what one might expect. It would be ironic, for example, if the shortest basketball player on a team is the highest scorer—or if the most popular, most intelligent, and most attractive student in the senior class is unable to get a date for the prom. Examples of irony in The Lord of the Flies include the following:

1. The survivors of the plane crash are boys evacuated from a battle zone in a world war. However, the society they form eventually breaks down, and the children go to war with one another. 
2. Piggy's eyesight is weak, but his insight is strong. 
3. The British naval officer who arrives to rescue the boys at the end of the novel appears to represent civilization and sanity. But he and the society he represents are actually a mirror image, on a large scale, of the boys and their corrupt island society.    
4. When Jack sets a fire to roust Ralph from the forest, he unintentionally saves the lives of all the remaining boys. It was this fire that attracted the attention of the British ship.

There are two main types of conflict in literature: external and internal. External conflict pits a person against another human or against an animal, an object, the forces of nature, or any other thing or things outside of him. Internal conflict involves a struggle between a person and his emotions or negative attributes. Both types of conflict occur in The Lord of the Flies. Write an essay that identifies several of them and explains how they affect the course of events.

Study Questions and Essay Topics 

1. If Jack had been elected leader and Ralph appointed hunter, would the story have ended differently? 
2. Was Ralph wise to appoint Jack the chief hunter?
3. Why does Jack hesitate at his first opportunity to kill a pig?
4. Why does Jack pick on Piggy?
5. What devices does author Golding use to build suspense?
6. Jack and his hunters become less civilized after killing a pig. What activities in everyday life seem to make people less civilized? For example, do video games or movies depicting violence make people more prone to committing violent acts? Does participation in certain sports? Does possession of guns or other weapons? 
7. Which character in the story do you most admire and why?
8. Write an essay telling what you believe happens after the boys leave the island with the naval officer.
9. Write an essay explaining the extent to which Golding based the novel on his own experiences.