Lord of The Flies
by William Golding
Author : William Golding
Country : United Kingdom
Genre : Allegorical Novel
Publisher : Faber and Faber
Publication Date : 17 September 1954
ISBN : 0-571-05686-5 (first edition, paperback)
Synopsis
During
an unnamed time of war, a plane carrying a group of British schoolboys is shot
down over the Pacific. The pilot of the plane is killed, but many of the boys
survive the crash and find themselves deserted on an uninhabited island, where
they are alone without adult supervision. The first two boys introduced are the
main protagonists of the story: Ralph is
among the oldest of the boys, handsome and confident, while Piigy, as
he is derisively called, is a pudgy asthmatic boy with glasses who nevertheless
possesses a keen intelligence. Ralph finds a conch shell, and when he blows it
the other boys gather together. Among these boys Jack is Merridew, an
aggressive boy who marches at the head of his choir. Ralph, whom the other boys
choose as chief, leads Jack and another boy Simon, on
an expedition to explore the island. On their expedition they determine that
they are, in fact, on a deserted island and decide that they need to find food.
The three boys find a pig, which Jack prepares to kill but finally balks before
he can actually stab it.Chapter
1Ca
When the boys return
from their expedition, Ralph calls a meeting and attempts to set rules of order
for the island. Jack agrees with Ralph, for the existence of rules means the
existence of punishment for those who break them, but Piggy reprimands Jack for
his lack of concern over long-term issues of survival. Ralph proposes that they
build a fire on the mountain which could signal their presence to any passing
ships. The boys start building the fire, but the younger boys lose interest
when the task proves too difficult for them. Piggy proves essential to the
process: the boys use his glasses to start the fire. After they start the fire,
Piggy loses his temper and criticizes the other boys for not building shelters
first. He worries that they still do not know how many boys there are, and he
believes that one of them is already missing.
While
Jack tries to hunt pigs, Ralph orchestrates the building of shelters for the
boys. The smallest boys have not helped at all, while the boys in Jack's choir,
whose duty is to hunt for food, have spent the day swimming. Jack tells Ralph
that he feels as if he is being hunted himself when he hunts for pigs. When
Simon, the only boy who has consistently helped Ralph, leaves presumably to
take a bath, Ralph and Jack go to find him at the bathing pool. But Simon
instead is walking around the jungle alone. He finds a serene open space with
aromatic bushes and flowers.
The boys soon settle
into a daily pattern on the island. The youngest of the boys, known generally
as the "littluns," spend most of the day searching for fruit to eat.
When the boys play, they still obey some sense of decency toward one another,
despite the lack of parental authority. Jack continues to hunt, while Piggy,
who is accepted as an outsider among the boys, considers building a sundial. A
ship passes by the island but does not stop, perhaps because the fire has
burned out. Piggy blames Jack for letting the fire die, for he and his hunters
have been preoccupied with killing a pig at the expense of their duty, and Jack
punches Piggy, breaking one lens of his glasses. Jack and the hunters chant,
"Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in" in celebration of the
kill, and they perform a dance in which Maurice pretends to be a pig and the others
pretend to attack him.
Ralph
becomes concerned by the behavior of Jack and the hunters and begins to
appreciate Piggy's maturity. He calls an assembly in which he criticizes the
boys for not assisting with the fire or the building of the shelters. He
insists that the fire is the most important thing on the island, for it is
their one chance for rescue, and declares that the only place where they should
have a fire is on the mountaintop. Ralph admits that he is frightened but says
that there is no legitimate reason to be afraid. Jack then yells at the
littluns for their fear and for not helping with hunting or building shelters.
He proclaims that there is no beast on the island, as some of the boys believe,
but then a littlun, Phil, tells that he had a nightmare and when he awoke saw
something moving among the trees. Simon says that Phil probably saw Simon, for
he was walking in the jungle that night. But the littluns begin to worry about
the beast, which they conceive as a ghost or a squid. Piggy and Ralph fight
once more, and when Ralph attempts to assert the rules of order, Jack asks
rhetorically whether anyone cares about the rules. Ralph in turn insists that
the rules are all that they have. Jack then decides to lead an expedition to
hunt the beast, leaving only Ralph, Piggy and Simon behind. Piggy warns Ralph
that if Jack becomes chief, the boys will never be rescued.
That night, during an
aerial battle, a pilot parachutes down the island. The pilot dies, possibly on
impact. The next morning, as the twins Sam and Eric are adding kindling to the fire, they
spot the pilot and mistake him for the beast. They scramble down the mountain
and wake up Ralph. Jack calls for a hunt, but Piggy insists that they should
stay together, for the beast may not come near them. Jack claims that the conch
is now irrelevant. He takes a swing at Ralph when Ralph accuses Jack of not
wanting to be rescued. Ralph decides to join the hunters on their expedition to
find the beast, despite his wish to rekindle the fire on the mountain. When
they reach the other side of the island, Jack expresses his wish to build a
fort near the sea.
The
hunters, while searching for the beast, find a boar that attacks Jack, but Jack
stabs it and it runs away. The hunters go into a frenzy, lapsing into their
"kill the pig" chant once again. Ralph realizes that Piggy remains
with the littluns back on the other side of the island, and Simon offers to go
back and tell Piggy that the other boys will not be back that night. Ralph
realizes that Jack hates him and confronts him about that fact. Jack mocks
Ralph for not wanting to hunt, claiming that it stems from cowardice, but when
the boys see what they believe to be the beast they run away.
Ralph
returns to the shelters to find Piggy and tells him that they saw the beast,
but Piggy remains skeptical. Ralph dismisses the hunters as boys with sticks,
but Jack accuses him of calling his hunters cowards. Jack attempts to assert
control over the other boys, calling for Ralph's removal as chief, but when
Ralph retains the support of the other boys Jack runs away, crying. Piggy
suggests that, if the beast prevents them from getting to the mountaintop, they
should build a fire on the beach, and reassures them that they will survive if
they behave with common sense. Simon leaves to sit in the open space that he
found earlier. Jack claims that he will be the chief of the hunters and that
they will go to the castle rock where they plan to build a fort and have a
feast. The hunters kill a pig, and Jack smears the blood over Maurice's face.
They then cut off the head and leave it on a stake as an offering for the
beast. Jack brings several hunters back to the shelters, where he invites the
other boys to join his tribe and offers them meat and the opportunity to hunt
and have fun. All of the boys, except for Ralph and Piggy, join Jack.
Meanwhile, Simon finds
the pig's head that the hunters had left. He dubs it The Lord of the Flies because of the insects that swarm
around it. He believes that it speaks to him, telling him how foolish he is and
that the other boys think he is insane. The pig's head claims that it is the
beast, and it mocks the idea that the beast could be hunted and killed. Simon
falls down and loses consciousness. After he regains consciousness and wanders
around, he sees the dead pilot that the boys perceived to be the beast and
realizes what it actually is. He rushes down the mountain to alert the other
boys about what he has found.
Ralph
and Piggy, who are playing at the lagoon alone, decide to find the other boys
to make sure that nothing unfortunate happens while they are pretending to be
hunters. When they find Jack, Ralph and Jack argue over who will be chief. When
Piggy claims that he gets to speak because he has the conch, Jack tells him
that the conch does not count on his side of the island. The boys panic when
Ralph warns them that a storm is coming. As the storm begins, Simon rushes from
the forest, telling about the dead body on the mountain. Under the impression
that he is the beast, the boys descend on Simon and kill him.
Back
on the other side of the island, Ralph and Piggy discuss Simon's death. They
both took part in the murder, but they attempt to justify their behavior as
motivated by fear and instinct. The only four boys who are not part of Jack's
tribe are Ralph and Piggy and the twins, Sam and Eric, who help tend to the
fire. At Castle Rock, Jack rules over the boys with the trappings of an idol.
He has kept one boy tied up, and he instills fear in the other boys by warning
them about the beast and the intruders. When Bill asks Jack how they will start
a fire, Jack claims that they will steal the fire from the other boys.
Meanwhile, Ralph, Piggy and the twins work on keeping the fire going but find
that it is too difficult to do by themselves. They return to the shelters to
sleep. During the night, the hunters attack the four boys, who fight them off
but suffer considerable injuries. Piggy learns the purpose of the attack: they
came to steal his glasses.
After the attack, the
four boys decide to go to the castle rock to appeal to Jack as civilized people.
They groom themselves to appear presentable and dress themselves in normal
schoolboy clothes. When they reach Castle Rock, Ralph summons the other boys
with the conch. Jack arrives from hunting and tells Ralph and Piggy to leave
them alone. When Jack refuses to listen to Ralph's appeals to justice, Ralph
calls the boys painted fools. Jack takes Sam and Eric as prisoners and orders
them to be tied up. Piggy asks Jack and his hunters whether it is better to be
a pack of painted Indians or sensible like Ralph, but Roger tips a rock over on Piggy, causing him to fall
down the mountain to the beach. The impact kills him and, to the delight of
Jack, shatters the conch shell. Jack declares himself chief and hurls his spear
at Ralph, who runs away.
Ralph
hides near Castle Rock, where he can see the other boys, whom he no longer
recognizes as civilized English boys but as savages. He crawls to the entrance
of Jack's camp, where Sam and Eric are now stationed as guards, and they give
him some meat and urge him to leave. While Ralph hides, he realizes that the
other boys are rolling rocks down the mountain. Ralph evades the other boys who
are hunting for him, then realizes that they are setting the forest on fire in
order to smoke him out-and thus will destroy whatever fruit is left on the
island.
Running
for his life, Ralph finally collapses on the beach, where a naval officer has
arrived with his ship. He thinks that the boys have only been playing games,
and he scolds them for not behaving in a more organized and responsible manner
as is the British custom. As the boys prepare to leave the island for home,
Ralph weeps for the death of Piggy and for the end of the boys' innocence.
Chapter 1 "The Sound of the Sell"
The
opening chapter of Lord of the Flies establishes the novel as a
political allegory. As a whole, the novel explores the need for political
organization and dramatizes the clash in human nature between instinctual and
learned behavior. In Chapter One, Golding depicts the deserted island as a
place where the abandoned boys have a choice between returning to a
pre-civilized state of humanity and re-imposing social order upon the group.
Thus, the situation tests a Hobbesian hypothesis by throwing the children
almost fully into a state of nature. The first chapter of the novel confirms
that the boys have no society, no rules, and no concerns beyond personal
survival. All they have is a set of histories. The narrative thrust of the
novel traces how the boys develop their own miniature society and the
difficulties that inevitably arise from this development. Chapter One
foreshadows these events by depicting the boys as alternately frightened,
ignorant, and exhilarated in the face of their newfound freedom.
Accordingly,
Chapter One immediately establishes the tension between the impulse towards
savagery and the need for civilization that exists within the human spirit.
Freed from adult authority and the mores of society, Ralph plays in the beach
naked, a practice that at the time of Golding's writing was commonly associated
with pre-industrial cultures believed to be "uncivilized" or
"savage." Yet if Ralph's nudity is an uncivilized practice, it is
also a reference to another popular conception of pre-civilized life, that of
the Garden of Eden. Ralph does not panic over the children's abandonment on the
island, but he approaches it as a paradise in which he can play happily. The
reader, aware of the outcome of the Biblical Eden, should treat the boys'
"paradise" with similar skepticism. Like Eden, the island paradise
will collapse; the questions are how and why.
Characterization
emphasizes the tension Golding establishes between anarchy and political
organization. The first sign of disturbance on the seemingly tranquil island is
the appearance of Jack and his choir. Golding describes Jack and his
compatriots as militaristic and aggressive, with Jack's bold manner and the
choir marching in step. They are the first concrete example of civilization on
the island, with a decidedly negative feel. Jack seems a physical manifestation
of evil; with his dark cloak and wild red hair, his appearance is ominous, even
Satanic. Accordingly, Jack is militaristic and authoritarian. He gives orders
to his choir as if they were troops, allowing room for neither discussion nor
dissent.
Significantly, the role that he first chooses for his choir is that of
hunters-he selects that task which is most violent and most related to military
values. Yet, as his inability to kill the pig demonstrates, Jack is not yet
accustomed to violence. Golding indicates that Jack must prepare himself to
commit a violent act, for he is still constrained by his own youthful cowardice
or by societal rules that oppose violent behavior. While his authoritarian
attitude indicates a predisposition to violence, Jack must shed the lessons of
society and conscience before he can kill.
In both
temperament and physical appearance, Ralph is the antithesis of Jack. Golding
idealizes Ralph from the beginning, lavishing praise on his physical beauty. In
the island sun he immediately achieves a golden hue, a physical manifestation
of his winning charisma. Ralph's value is not intellectual; importantly, he behaves
somewhat childishly in his first encounter with Piggy. Still, Golding suggests
that Ralph has a gravity and maturity beyond his years. He is a natural leader,
a quality that the other boys immediately recognize when they vote him leader.
The vote for chief establishes a conflict between the different values espoused
by Jack and Ralph. Jack assumes that he should assume the role automatically,
while Ralph, who is reluctant to accept leadership, achieves it by vote. Ralph
therefore comes to represent a democratic ethos.
In contrast
to the violent Jack and charismatic Ralph, Piggy is immediately established as
the intellectual of the group. Although he is physically inept, clumsy, and
asthmatic, he has a rational mind and the best grasp of their situation. It is
his knowledge of the conch shell that allows Ralph to summon the rest of the
boys together and he who shows the most concern for some sort of established
order in meetings and in day-to-day life. He has a particular interest in
names, immediately asking Ralph for his and wishing that Ralph would
reciprocate the question, as well as insisting that a list of names be taken
when the boys assemble. This emphasis on naming is one of the first indications
of the imposition of an ordered society on the island (it also recalls the
naming of the animals in Genesis). For Piggy, names not only facilitate
organization and communication but also mark one's position within a social
hierarchy. It is significant that Piggy is forced by the others to keep his despised
nickname from home, which re-inscribes his inferior social status from the Home
Counties in the new dynamic of the island. We may also note that Piggy's name
symbolically connects him to the pigs on the island, which in subsequent
chapters become the targets of many of the boys' unrestrained violent impulses.
As the boys turn their rage against the pigs, Golding foreshadows Piggy's own
murder at the close of the novel.
The
reinforcement of Piggy's nickname, which clearly humiliates him, also indicates
that the boys have imported to the island the cruelty of human social life.
Ralph's mockery of Piggy is the first instance of inequality on the island, and
it foreshadows the gross inequities and injustices to come. We may also note
here Piggy's background (as an orphan who lives with an aunt) and his poor
diction ("can't catch me breath," "what's yer
name?")-details that indicate that, unlike Ralph and Jack, Piggy is a
child from a working-class background. His immediate ostracizing on the island
suggests another way in which the social hierarchies of the boys' home lives
are reproduced in island life. Golding suggests that Piggy's marginalization is
due not only to his unfortunate appearance and poor health but also because he
is of a lower class status than the other boys, who have brought with them to
the island the class prejudices of the Home Counties.
It is also
significant here that Golding emphasizes the establishment of property and
subtly critiques the concept of ownership by discovery. Ralph gains status from
his possession of the conch shell, which gives him the authority to speak when
the boys come together. Also, when he surveys the island from the summit of the
mountain he states that it "belongs" to them, almost as an act of
colonization or conquering. The invocation of colonial rhetoric suggests the
struggles to come over ownership of the key resources on the island (such as
the conch and Piggy's glasses) and over the power to rule one another.
The novel's
first chapter establishes another theme that recurs throughout the novel: the
corruption of innocence. Golding emphasizes the childish nature of the boys
from the outset of the narrative, and he suggests that many of the struggles
that mark their time on the island have less to do with either the natural
brutality of the human spirit or the corruption of political society than with
the boys' young age and incapacity for responsibility. Ralph's first reaction
to the abandonment is to play in the water, and Jack's impulse to
"kill" falls flat when he is confronted with an opportunity to do so.
The chatter of the younger boys-who fear a "beastie" and a
"snake thing," as well as Piggy's constant mention of his
"auntie" at home who gave him candy, are narrative details that
underscore the boys' youth and their essential innocence. As the brutality and
violence among the boys increase in later chapters, Golding suggests that
childhood is a neutral, formative state in which children can either be guided
towards morality or corrupted by savagery when they are unguided by conscience
or society. The emphasis on the boys' childishness in Chapter One establishes
important questions that the subsequent action seeks to answer: is human nature
essentially good, bad, or neutral, and how do early childhood experiences
inform individual character.
Chapter 2 "Fire on the Mountain"
In the novel's second chapter, Golding uses the progress of the
boys on the island as a metaphor for early human development. The boys' first
achievement on the island is to build a fire, which like the conch shell brings
the entire group of boys together in awe and wonder. According to Piggy, the
next step should be for the boys to build some sort of shelter, again a mirror
of the historical development of early human society. The
"government" established by Ralph also develops during this chapter.
Golding uses these developments to signal that the island is becoming a society
with rules that mirror Western democratic culture. The conch shell, which
authorizes its holder to speak and is available to all, is a particular symbol
of the ideal of democratic freedom and equality. But, since Ralph decides who
gets possession of the conch, the freedoms of the island are decided by
authority. Though Ralph is a benevolent leader, the implication here is that
democracy still depends on its leaders for justice.
Also like a
democratic system, the makeshift government on the island sparks debate and
dissent. Jack and Piggy have differing perspectives on what particular end
Ralph's rules will serve. Ralph takes a rational perspective based on ideas of
justice: the rules will allow the boys to live fairly with one another, a
belief that fits well with his democratic sensibility. Jack relishes the idea
of rules as a means for control and for punishment, a reflection of his
dictatorial ethos and tendency toward violence. Piggy, as the most intelligent of
the three central characters, views the rules as useful tools for survival. He
views all aspects of the boys' behavior on the island in terms of whether they
will contribute to their eventual rescue.
Golding continues to present Ralph as a calming, authoritative presence among
the boys. When fear sets in among some of the younger boys, only Ralph has the
presence to restore order and hope. Despite Piggy's clear thinking and
appraisal of their situation, his contentious manner and rude dismissal of the
younger boys unfortunately causes his ideas to be dismissed. Even more
importantly, he is a cynic who can do nothing to comfort the others, instead
instilling in them a sense of fatalism. Piggy, whose pessimism and sadness make
him a likely martyr, is established in this chapter as a prophet whose words
are not heeded until it is too late. Golding uses Piggy's advice as
foreshadowing: failure to heed Piggy, however absurd he may sound, leads to
dire consequences. Chapter Two contains the first example of Piggy's prophecy:
after the trip to the mountain, one of the boys seems to be missing. The
implication is that if the others had heeded Piggy's advice and allowed him to
keep track of the number of boys and their names, there would be no confusion
over whether one is missing.
Despite the
boys' dislike for Piggy, they appear to recognize that he is an important
presence on the island. His glasses enable them to start a fire on the
mountain. In particular, Piggy is useful for Jack, who remains more interested
in hunting and causing pain and disorder than in contributing or constructing
anything of use. It is significant that the development he is most supportive
of is building a fire, which is by nature destructive even though it can be
used for good. In this chapter, Golding also establishes Jack as a boy who
tends to dominate. Jack's statement about the English being the "best at
everything" also suggests his nationalistic impulses. Jack adheres to the
colonial English position that depended on the perceived superiority of the
British to justify the colonization and forced development of other peoples,
foreshadowing his brutal behavior in subsequent chapters. His statement that
they are "not savages" will, by the end of the novel, appear deeply
ironic as Jack and his tribe devolve into unthinkable depths of brutality and
self-destruction.
The boys'
childishness is again highlighted as the boys face the challenge of meeting
their basic needs for survival. The immediate dangers that the boys face are
few, for on the island there is fruit, plus the pigs, to eat, yet as children
they are overcome with irrational and diffuse terror. Golding suggests that
their own sense of fear is the greatest danger to these boys. It is fear over a
snake that causes the younger boys to panic and to exaggerate the dangers on
the island, causing disorder and commotion. Both Jack and Piggy contribute to
this sense of dread. Jack does so through his aggressive stance, which contains
the implicit notion that they are in danger and must defend themselves from
some unknown force. Piggy does so through his constant fatalism. It is here
that Ralph best demonstrates his superiority for leadership, displaying the
most calm of any of the characters and encouraging the others to be confident
in their rescue. Ralph is established here not only as a political leader but
also as a parental figure whose job is to reassure the scared boys and protect
them from their own fears and doubts.
As the narrative moves closer to dramatic conflict and tragedy,
Golding distinguishes Lord of the Flies from the romantic adventure
stories that were popular among boys of the mid-twentieth century. In the
second meeting, Ralph encourages the boys to have fun on the island and to
think of the experience as one that would happen "in a novel."
Immediately, the boys begin shouting out the names of their favorite island
adventures, including The
Coral Island. The
Coral Island (1857), written by R.M. Ballantyne, was a popular
nineteenth-century novel that followed the happy adventures of three
unsupervised boys on a tropical island. Golding, who found the narrative of The Coral Island naive
and unlikely, wrote Lord of the Flies partly as a response to this novel. The
mention of these idealized island narratives at the outset of Golding's
dystopian tale is thus ironic because the events to follow are nothing like the
entertaining experiences of the boys on The Coral Island.
Through the explicit comparison, the reader is encouraged to recognize
Golding's work as a critical commentary on popular adventure fiction on the
basis of its optimistic unreality.
Also in
Chapter Two, Golding introduces more symbols that will recur throughout the
novel and which highlight important developments in the dramatic action. The
fire that the boys build signifies the group's hope for their rescue and return
to the Home Counties. A powerful symbol of human civilization, the fire is a
marker of the imposition of human industry on wild, untamed nature; the boys'
inability to maintain the fire indicates the waning possibility of both rescue
and maintaining civilized order on the island. We may also note the
introduction in this chapter of the "beastie," or as it is later
known, the "beast." The idea of the beast is first mentioned by one
of the younger boys though it is dismissed by most of the older children. As
Ralph reassures them, he sees a glimmer of doubt in many of their expressions,
an observation that mirrors the group's eventual acceptance of the beast as a
legitimate if improbable reality. The beast becomes an important motif that
establishes the power and danger of group-think among the boys.
Chapter 3 "Huts on the Beach"
The main
focus of this short chapter is the developing conflict between Ralph and Jack.
The two engage in a verbal argument that indicates that each character is
clinging dogmatically to his own perspective. What is more, they represent
opposing ideologies. While Ralph is dedicated to building shelters for the
group, Jack is determined to become a successful hunter and establish himself
as a lone hero among the group. Ralph's orientation is towards the group, while
Jack is concerned with his own glory, which hinges again on militaristic
values. Jack seeks to dominate and conquer nature through hunting and killing
pigs, a goal that foreshadows the intensification of his violent impulses
throughout the novel and further identifies him as a symbol for totalitarian,
as opposed to democratic, political organization.
The
chapter's beginning follows Jack on a solitary hunt through the forest, which
underscores Jack's importance to the novel and explains his preoccupation with
hunting. For Jack, hunting is not an instinctive talent but a skill that he
continues to develop as the story unfolds. His motives for hunting are
disturbing. He hunts not for the ostensible purpose of gaining food to eat but
for his personal enjoyment. Golding indicates that there is something
tremendously dangerous in Jack's obsession; his expression is one of
"madness" when he speaks about his desire to kill. At this point in
the story Jack is not sufficiently prepared to kill, but he is approaching the
point at which he can inflict mortal violence upon another, whether a pig or a
person. Ralph cannily realizes this trait when he reminds Jack that the most
important thing that the boys must do is to build a shelter. He implicitly
tells Jack that his obsession with hunting does not help the boys' chances of
survival.
Golding also
elaborates on Ralph's character, which is presented as sympathetic, rational,
and focused on the group's welfare. Still, he is not a perfect leader. He
expresses regret and frustration that he cannot control the behavior of the
other boys. The major burden that Ralph faces is that he must deal with young
children unprepared to care for themselves or fulfill responsibility. As he
explains, Ralph cannot simply give them orders and expect them to be completed,
as Jack automatically assumes he can. Ralph alerts the reader to one of the
major obstacles that the boys must overcome: they must behave beyond their
years in order to survive and flourish long enough to be saved.
We may also
note in Chapter Three the changes in the characters' appearances and in the
language they use. There is a significant gap of time between this chapter and
the last, and the boys have grown farther from the conventions and values of
the Home Counties. Jack hunts in the forest half-naked, and many of the boys
wear "tattered shorts" or have bare feet, details that indicate that
they have abandoned the ways of home in favor of comfort and ease. Moreover,
the younger boys, referred to as "little ones" in the previous
chapters, are now called "littluns," Sam and Eric, the twins, have
become "Samneric," a compound that suggests that, in the eyes of the
group, the two characters are considered one. In the absence of external
authority, the boys have developed their own dress code and are beginning to
establish their own language. It is becoming an independent culture. Golding
reinforces the latter detail by reproducing the boys' own invented
words-"littluns" and "Samneric"-in his own third-person
prose. The implication is that the boys' civilization is less a mirror of their
upbringing than it is a reflection of the unique concerns and dynamics of life
on the island.
Chapter
Three provides the reader with more insight into Simon's character. Simon was
introduced in Chapter One but is not important until he interrupts Ralph's and
Jack's argument. Described as barefoot, long-haired, and alternately
"queer" and "funny," Simon is revealed as socially outcast
from the other boys. Yet, unlike Piggy, Simon seems content with his
difference and even cultivates it. When he, Ralph, and Jack decide to go look
at the signal fire, Simon abruptly abandons the mission without word in order
to wander off into the forest with a sense of "purpose." Ignoring the
usual rules of social interaction, which would require him to tell the others
of his plans out of politeness, Simon distinguishes himself as ruled not by
society but by an intense and even spiritual inner force. His long hair and bare
feet connect him not only to nature but to the stereotypical wandering prophet
or even Jesus Christ, a link that the novel will enforce further with his
murder.
Simon's
experience in the jungle, which we read in detail, emphasizes his spiritual and
peaceful character. The open space that he settles into in the jungle is an
indication that, for Simon, the island is indeed Edenic. Unlike Ralph, who
seeks to protect the group from nature, and Jack, who seeks to conquer and
control it, Simon views the natural landscape as a place of beauty and
tranquility. His excursion shows that he is the one character having an
affinity with the natural world. There are strong religious overtones in
Golding's description of the area that Simon finds. With its candle-buds, serene
stillness, and leafy walls, it recalls a place of worship.
While the
dialogue in Chapter Three highlights the ideological contrast between Jack and
Ralph, on a structural level, Golding also forces Jack and Simon into
comparison. The chapter begins and concludes in the forest, linking both
characters to the area (in contrast to Ralph, who is associated with the beach
and mountain areas that he has marked with symbols of civilization-the fire and
shelters). Jack and Simon are both anti-civilizing characters, attracted to the
wild, untamed environment of nature, which they prefer to experience in
solitude and silence. Nevertheless, their experiences of the forest are
markedly distinct. While Jack disturbs and disrupts his surroundings, causing
both birds and pigs to flee, Simon feels in complete harmony with the natural
world. He submerges himself in the rhythms of the forest not to disturb it, but
to appreciate its unique sounds, scents, and images. Jack and Simon thus
represent two different human approaches to the natural world: the desire to
subjugate nature and the desire to coexist in harmony with it. Within this
schema, Ralph and Piggy represent a third position, that which seeks to retreat
from but make use of nature with a distant but tangible respect.
Thank You For Reading :)
