Summary

Plot summary The story begins with a large number of young boys, ages 6 to 12, being stranded on a tropical island. They were being evacuated from a war and their plane had been shot down. The first two characters introduced are Ralph, an athletic and charismatic boy with fair hair, and "Piggy," a fat boy with glasses who also suffers from [|asthma]. The two boys obtain a [|conch] shell and use it to call the other boys from across the island. The boys begin to discuss who should be their leader. Ralph is chosen by vote, but one other potential leader arises — Jack Merridew. Jack was a [|choir] leader and still acts as leader of all the other castaway members of his choir. Ralph is elected as leader but because Ralph senses the threat, he elects Jack to be the leader of the hunters (his choir). Piggy is the least popular of the boys but is intelligent and becomes Ralph's "[|lieutenant]," having civilized values but no way to carry them out. However, it is evident that Jack covets the leadership position. Then, Ralph takes Jack and Simon to explore the island. During their exploration they find a trapped piglet. Jack pulls out a knife but hesitates to kill the piglet, and it escapes. Jack vows never to hesitate again. Early on, the boys are full of [|optimism] and expect the island to be fun, despite the fact that many of the boys are scared of a "Beast" — allegedly some kind of dangerous wild animal on the island seen by one of the younger boys with a [|birthmark] on his face. The boys then make their first attempt at being rescued by starting a signal fire, lit by Piggy's glasses. The fire burns without control and scorches a good portion of the island. The boy with a birthmark on his face who saw the Beast goes missing during the fire and is never seen again. The major characters Jack and Ralph have conflicting aims for the island; life on the island begins to deteriorate and becomes more and more disorganized. The island's descent into chaos starts, ironically, with the potential for rescue by a passing ship. Jack had led a group off hunting and took with him the boys who were tending to the signal fire,so the fire died out, resulting in the the ship sailing past without knowing of the boys on the island. An intense argument ensues in which one [|lens] of Piggy's glasses is broken. Although the signal fire is maintained along with a false sense of security, the order among the boys quickly deteriorates as Jack and Ralph continue to struggle for power. Jack has a way to tell people what they want to hear, and Ralph soon loses control over his friends. As the novel takes place during a war, a dogfight between two planes occurs over the island. One of the pilots parachutes out of his plane but dies upon or before landing. Sam and Eric assume that the pilot is the Beast when they see him in the dark, causing mass panic. An expedition to investigate leads to Ralph, Jack, and Roger ascending the mountain, but they eventually run away from what they believe is the Beast. Jack denounces Ralph as a coward and calls for another election for chief but does not receive a single vote. He leaves the group to create a new tribe. Most of the older boys eventually leave Ralph's tribe to join Jack's tribe. Jack's becomes a [|tyrant] on "Castle Rock" with his followers, whom Ralph thinks of as "the savages." The new tribe hunts down and slaughters a pig, and Jack decides to host a feast. Before that, they sever the pig's head and place it on a stick as an "offering" to the Beast. Flies swarm around the head of the pig. Simon comes across it, only to have a hallucination. He hears the dead pig speaking to him and telling him to do things. Discovering that the "beast" is the dead pilot, he runs down from the mountain to break the news. However, when he arrives, it is raining terribly, and while the little ones are screaming and running around, the other boys, who were worked up in their war dance, mistake Simon for the beast and tear, bite, and claw him to death. Ralph's tribe dwindles in number. Jack's larger, less civilized tribe, however, needs to steal from them to maintain their existence. They steal Piggy's glasses to light a fire. Piggy demands his glasses back but is killed by a boulder Roger launches at Ralph, which crushes him and the conch shell and sends him off a cliff. Jack's tribe captures Sam and Eric and force them to join their tribe. Jack tries and fails to kill Ralph, and the next day, his tribe tries to hunt him down. In doing this, they set a [|forest fire], which is seen by a passing naval vessel, and one of the ship's officers comes ashore in a boat and rescues Ralph and the boys. Ralph declares to the captain of the ship that it is he who is the leader of the children and for the first time on the island, Ralph cries. The marine officer turns his face away from Ralph and all the weeping children and stares at the horizon of the sea, where his naval vessel shines in grey and silver.