Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lord of the Flies opens with Ralph meeting Piggy. Their conversation provides the background of their situation: In the midst of a nuclear war, a group of boys was being evacuated to an unnamed destination. Their plane crashed and was dragged out to sea, leaving the boys stranded on an unfamiliar island. Because of the atom bomb’s devastation, it’s likely that no one knows the boys’ whereabouts.

Ralph is delighted to be on a pristine tropical island without adults, but Piggy is less pleased. The two boys make their way out of the jungle and onto the beach. Ralph is not much interested in Piggy and does not request an introduction in turn when Piggy asks Ralph’s name. Piggy confides his hope that the boys on this island won’t call him Piggy as they did back home.

On the beach, Ralph investigates a large platform of pink granite overlooking a long pool that had formed in the beach. After demonstrating his swimming skills, Ralph spies a conch, which Piggy identifies as a valuable shell that can be blown as a trumpet. Piggy urges Ralph to blow into the shell, using it to summon any other survivors to the beach.

Soon boys between ages 6 and 12 come streaming out of the jungle onto the beach, assembling on the platform near Ralph. Last to arrive are Jack and the choirboys. Despite the tropical heat and their own exertions in following the conch blasts, the boys from the choir still wear their black caps and long black cloaks and are clearly overheated when they reach the platform.

The assembled boys discuss their situation and vote on a chief, choosing Ralph over Jack. Ralph suggests that Jack remain in charge of the choirboys, designating them hunters. Jack is mollified by this seemingly small gift of command. As the assembled boys identify themselves, Ralph reveals Piggy’s nickname before Piggy can establish his real name.

Ralph forms a search party to establish that they are, in fact, on an island. In agreeing to go along, Jack reveals with a flourish that he owns a large sheathed knife. Piggy is hurt to be excluded from the search party, and Ralph placates him by giving him the job of taking the names of all the boys who remain behind at the platform.

Ralph, Jack, and Simon confirm that the island is uninhabited. They enjoy their jaunt into the wild, experiencing the thrill of adventure and the new friendship forming between them. On their return, they encounter a piglet trapped in jungle vines, testing Jack’s hunting skills and nerve. Jack pulls his knife but falters, and the pig gets away; he vows fiercely that next time he will follow through.

Commentary

In Chapter 1, Golding introduces the novel’s major characters as well as its theme: that evil, as a destructive force in man, society, and civilization, is present in us all. To illustrate this theme, Golding uses several major motifs: civilization versus savagery; humanity versus animality; technology versus nature; hunters versus gatherers; men versus women; adults versus children; and the intellect versus physicality. As the characters interact with each other and with their environment, so do the forces they represent. Using the characters to embody these forces allows Golding the opportunity to compare and contrast with rich shadings of meaning rather than with simplistic oppositions.

The novel opens with a description of the “long scar smashed into the jungle,” a reference to the snake-like damage done by the plane as it crashed into the island. Here civilization with its technology has dealt a blow to nature; nature counters by sweeping the wreckage out to sea. Yet the conflict is not so simple. While the jungle may represent nature, the beach provides the conch and the platform, both of which symbolize institutionalized order and politics (civilization).

True to the dynamics of democratic politics, Ralph is elected leader for superficial reasons. He is a personable and handsome boy who appears to be in charge because of his use of the conch, which functions for him at the moment of his election (and throughout the novel) as the symbol of authority. Although it was Piggy’s quick thinking to use the conch to summon the others, hampered by asthma, he must allow Ralph to do the summoning. And while Jack clearly has some experience in exerting control over others, making his choirboys march to the assembly through the tropical heat in floor-length black cloaks, the sheer arrogance of his open grab for power probably puts off some of the boys, raised as they have been in a society that values politeness and decorum. Therefore, the boys choose Ralph for his charisma and possession of the compelling conch over Piggy, who lacks the physical stature or charsima of a leader despite his intelligence, and Jack, who is “ugly without silliness” and possesses a less civil manner.

With his calm, self-assured manner and the poise with which he allows Jack to retain control of the choir and places Piggy in charge of names, Ralph is much more of a diplomat than Jack or Piggy. While allowing Jack control of the hunters turns out to be political (and almost personal) suicide ultimately, Ralph himself is still under the spell of polite society, looking more to make friends than to lead strategically. In later chapters, he learns that, as a leader, he must be prepared to take a hard line with his friends if he is to achieve his goals for the group. In Chapter 1, however, Ralph engages in play—standing on his head, blowing jets of water while swimming, rolling a boulder downhill, gleefully scuffling with Simon—which he has no time for once he is leader of the group.

Note that the talents that set Ralph apart from the others (acrobatics and swimming) serve no practical purpose in the jungle, while Jack’s recreational activity as choir leader serves him as a leader in training. Jack’s warlike nature is evident from the start, as a choirboy who carries a knife and volunteers his choir to be the army, amending its role to hunters at Ralph’s direction. While Ralph entertains others with his trick of standing on his head, Jack successfully practices authority: “With dreary obedience” his choir votes for him as chief. He uses to his advantage here his authority, not his ability to sing a C sharp.

From his first appearance as a dark creature, leading his group from the jungle, making them march in columns until Simon faints, Jack is represented as evil. When the creatures turn out to be “a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines and dressed in strangely eccentric clothing,” Golding is connecting not only the uniformed military with the frightening dark side of humanity but tacitly identifying Jack as an outspoken representative of aggression.

Naturally Jack has a strong and vocal aversion to Piggy, who represents thorough domestication in contrast to the savagery lying just beneath Jack’s surface. Piggy is no fan of Jack’s, being “intimidated by [Jack’s] uniformed superiority and the offhand authority in [his] voice.” With his poor eyesight, weight problem, and asthma, Piggy is a boy who could survive only in a civilization that offers the dual protection of medical treatment and cultural affluence—a society wealthy enough to provide food, shelter, and purpose for its physically weaker members. In England, Piggy would be valued ultimately for the contribution of his intelligence, despite his lack of physical ability or social skills. On this uninhabited island, however, Piggy is the most vulnerable of all the boys, despite his greater mental capabilities.

Although Ralph treats Piggy badly because Piggy lacks a spirit of adventure, he understands that Piggy has a realistic grasp of their situation. Piggy points out that the atom bomb killed everyone who might know of the boys’ whereabouts. While Ralph still speaks of his father in the present tense, telling Piggy that his father will come rescue them soon, Piggy describes his aunt in the past tense, realizing that she is gone. Her voice lives on in his head, however, as the voice that ordered his world and represents the protected domesticity he needs to survive and thrive. His frequent invocations of “my auntie says” provide the only female voice in the book, although he never gets to finish the phrase and reveal what his auntie did say. With only Piggy as her ineffectual mouthpiece, from this first chapter, the auntie’s perspective is rendered invalid among the primitive conditions of the environment and the savage demagoguery of Jack.

By quoting his aunt, Piggy also establishes himself as a representative of the adult world. The boys have an ambivalent relationship to adults, viewing them sometimes as providers and protectors and sometimes as punishers and limiters. While Ralph is initially delighted at the lack of grownups on the island, he is at the same time relying on his father’s naval expertise to facilitate their rescue. As the adult voice, Piggy tries to communicate the reality that his father is probably dead, a concept that twelve-year-old Ralph has difficulty grasping. Events later in the book reveal Piggy as the voice of reason again—his adult logic contrasting with the other boys’ childishly emotional responses, such as in Chapter 2, when he scolds them for starting the fire before building shelters. Yet his logic holds no ground when confronted with the emotions running high in this primitive environment.

Jack and Ralph hold another, more fundamental election between themselves in this chapter. While exploring, they encounter a distinct trail in the jungle. In guessing what made the trail, Ralph offers “‘Men?’ Jack shakes his head. ‘Animals.’” Without realizing it, each boy is casting a vote for who and what they will ultimately represent.

Glossary