Chapter 1: The Sound of the Shell

All round him [Ralph] the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. Chapter 1

… he might make a boxer, as far as width and heaviness of shoulders went, but there was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil. (Ralph) Chapter 1

‘My auntie told me not to run,’ he explained, ‘on account of my asthma.’ (Piggy) Chapter 1

‘My auntie wouldn’t let me blow on account of my asthma …’ (Piggy) Chapter 1

‘I don’t care what [you] call me … so long as [you] don’t call me what they used to call me at school.’ (Piggy) Chapter 1

The children gave him the same simple obedience that they had given to the men with megaphones. (Piggy) Chapter 1

The two boys, bullet-headed and with hair like tow, flung themselves down and lay grinning and panting at Ralph like dogs. They were twins, and the eye was shocked and incredulous at such cheery duplication. They breathed together, they grinned together, they were chunky and vital. (Sam and Eric) Chapter 1

The creature was a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines and dressed in strangely eccentric clothing. Chapter 1

Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger. (Jack) Chapter 1

‘He’s always throwing a faint,’ said Merridew. (about Simon) Chapter 1

He was intimidated by this uniformed superiority and the offhand authority in Merridew’s voice. (Piggy about Jack) Chapter 1

There was a slight, furtive boy whom no one knew, who kept to himself with an inner intensity of avoidance and secrecy. (Roger) Chapter 1

For the moment the boys were a closed circuit of sympathy with Piggy outside: he went very pink, bowed his head and cleaned his glasses again. (Piggy) Chapter 1

… what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy while the most obvious was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out … Chapter 1

Ralph, looking with more understanding at Piggy, saw that he was hurt and crushed. He hovered between the two courses of apology or further insult.
‘Better Piggy than Fatty’, he said at last, with the directness of genuine leadership …’ Chapter 1

A kind of glamour was spread over them and the scene and they were conscious of the glamour and made happy by it. They turned to each other, laughing excitedly, talking, not listening. (Ralph, Jack and Simon on their first exploration of the island) Chapter 1

The pause was long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be. (Jack’s first attempt at killing a wild pig) Chapter 1

Chapter 2: Fire on the Mountain

‘This is our island. It’s a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we’ll have fun.’ (Ralph) Chapter 2

‘We want to be rescued; and of course we shall be rescued.’ …
The simple statement, unbacked by any proof but the weight of Ralph’s new authority, brought light and happiness. (Ralph) Chapter 2

He had to wave the conch before he could make them hear him. (Ralph) Chapter 2

‘There’s another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.’ (Ralph) Chapter 2

Then, with the martyred expression of a parent who has to keep up with the senseless ebullience of the children, he picked up the conch, turned toward the forest, and began to pick his way over the tumbled scar. (Piggy) Chapter 2

Now the twins, with unsuspected intelligence, came up the mountain with armfuls of dried leaves and dumped them against the pile. Chapter 2

‘Here–let me go!’ His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched the glasses off his face. ‘Mind out! Give ’em back! I can hardly see! You’ll break the conch! (Piggy) Chapter 2

‘We used his specs,’ said Simon, smearing a black cheek with his forearm. ‘He helped that way.’ (to Jack about Piggy) Chapter 2

‘I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything’. (Jack) Chapter 2

‘I got the conch,’ said Piggy, in a hurt voice. ‘I got a right to speak.’ Chapter 2

‘How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?’ (Piggy to the group) Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Huts on the Beach

Then dog-like, uncomfortably on all fours yet unheeding his discomfort, he stole forward five yards and stopped. (Jack) Chapter 3

A sharpened stick about five feet long trailed from his right hand, and except for a pair of tattered shorts held up by his knife-belt he was naked. (Jack) Chapter 3

He passed his tongue across dry lips and scanned the uncommunicative forest. (Jack) Chapter 3

The silence of the forest was more oppressive than the heat … Chapter 3

‘Meetings. Don’t we love meetings?…’ (Ralph) Chapter 3

He tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up. (Jack) Chapter 3

‘There’s nothing in it of course. Just a feeling. But you can feel as if you’re not hunting, but—being hunted, as if something’s behind you all the time in the jungle.’ (Jack, to Ralph and Simon) Chapter 3

Jack had to think for a moment before he could remember what rescue was. Chapter 3

They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling, unable to communicate. (Jack and Ralph) Chapter 3

He was a small, skinny boy, his chin pointed, and his eyes so bright they had deceived Ralph into thinking him delightfully gay and wicked. (Simon) Chapter 3

‘He’s queer. He’s funny.’ (Ralph, about Simon) Chapter 3

Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands. Chapter 3

The candlebuds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that pricked down from the first stars. Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island. Chapter 3

Chapter 4: Painted Faces and Long Hair

Nevertheless, the northern European tradition of work, play, and food right through the day, made it possible for them to adjust themselves wholly to this new rhythm. Chapter 4

In his other life Maurice had received chastisement for filling a younger eye with sand. Now, though there was no parent to let fall a heavy hand, Maurice still felt the unease of wrongdoing. Chapter 4

Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Chapter 4

Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins. Chapter 4

He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness. (after Jack applies war paint to his face) Chapter 4

The rock-pools which so fascinated him were covered by the tide, so he was without an interest until the tide went back. (Piggy) Chapter 4

They were chanting, something to do with the bundle that the errant twins carried so carefully. Chapter 4

Simon looked now, from Ralph to Jack, as he had looked from Ralph to the horizon, and what he saw seemed to make him afraid. (witnessing the hunters return with the slaughtered pig) Chapter 4

‘You should have seen the blood!’ (Jack, referring to the killing of the pig) Chapter 4

The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense. (Jack and Ralph) Chapter 4

He took a step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy’s stomach. (Jack) Chapter 4

Piggy cried out in terror: ‘My specs!’ He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there first, found them for him. Chapter 4

Not even Ralph knew how a link between him and Jack had been snapped and fastened elsewhere. Chapter 4

Simon, sitting between the twins and Piggy, wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who grabbed it. The twins giggled and Simon lowered his face in shame. (When Jack wouldn’t share any meat with him) Chapter 4

Jack looked round for understanding but found only respect. Chapter 4

The twins, still sharing their identical grin, jumped up and ran round each other. Then the rest joined in, making pig-dying noises and shouting. (Sam and Eric) Chapter 4

Chapter 5: Beast from Water

He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s waking life was spent watching one’s feet. (Ralph) Chapter 5

He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again. (Ralph) Chapter 5

… The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise. … This made you think; because thought was a valuable thing, that got results.
Only, decided Ralph as he faced the chief’s seat, I can’t think. Not like Piggy. Chapter 5

‘… fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream … There aren’t any beasts to be afraid of on this island … Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of cry-babies! (Jack) Chapter 5

‘Life . . . is scientific … I know there isn’t no beast … but I know there isn’t no fear, either … Unless we get frightened of people.’ (Piggy to Ralph) Chapter 5

To Ralph, seated, this seemed the breaking up of sanity. Fear, beasts, no general agreement that the fire was all-important: and when one tried to get the thing straight the argument sheered off, bringing up fresh, unpleasant matter. Chapter 5

‘Maybe … there is a beast … maybe it’s only us.’ (Simon) Chapter 5

The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Chapter 5

‘Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong—we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat—!’ (Jack) Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Beast from Air

But a sign came down from the world of grown-ups, though at the time there was no child awake to read it. Chapter 6

In theory one should have been asleep and one on watch. But they could never manage to do things sensibly if that meant acting independently, and since staying awake all night was impossible, they had both gone to sleep. (Sam and Eric, on keeping the fire alive) Chapter 6

The twins shared their identical laughter, then remembered the darkness and other things and glanced round uneasily. (Sam and Eric) Chapter 6

Even the sounds of nightmare from the other shelters no longer reached him, for he was back to where he came from, feeding the ponies with sugar over the garden wall. (Ralph) Chapter 6

By custom now one conch did for both twins, for their substantial unity was recognized. (Sam and Eric) Chapter 6

The bright morning was full of threats and the circle began to change. It faced out, rather than in, and the spears of sharpened wood were like a fence. Chapter 6

‘Conch! Conch!’ shouted Jack. ‘We don’t need the conch any more. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us.’ Chapter 6

Simon, walking in front of Ralph, felt a flicker of incredulity—a beast with claws that scratched, that sat on a mountain-top, that left no tracks and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric. Chapter 6

However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick. Chapter 6

He sighed. Other people could stand up and speak to an assembly, apparently, without that dreadful feeling of the pressure of personality; could say what they would as though they were speaking to only one person. (Simon) Chapter 6

He noticed that the sweat in his palm was cool now; realized with surprise that he did not really expect to meet any beast and didn’t know what he would do about it if he did. (Ralph) Chapter 6

Chapter 7: Shadows and Tall Trees

Ralph talked on, excitedly. ‘I hit him all right. The spear stuck in. I wounded him!’ He sunned himself in their new respect and felt that hunting was good after all. Chapter 7

All at once, Robert was screaming and struggling with the strength of frenzy. Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife. Behind him was Roger, fighting to get close. (Robert, pretending to be a pig) Chapter 7

Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering. Chapter 7

Ralph sighed, sensing the rising antagonism, understanding that this was how Jack felt as soon as he ceased to lead. Chapter 7

Ralph . . . would treat the day’s decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player. Chapter 7

Astonished, he heard his voice come out, cool and casual, so that the bitterness of Jack’s taunt fell powerless. (Ralph, acquiescing to Jack’s challenge to look for the beast in the dark) Chapter 7

Roger, uncommunicative by nature, said nothing. Chapter 7

Chapter 8: Gift for the Darkness

Piggy was so full of delight and expanding liberty in Jack’s departure, so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood. Chapter 8

One piglet, with a demented shriek, rushed into the sea trailing Roger’s spear behind it. Chapter 8

The afternoon wore on, hazy and dreadful with damp heat; the sow staggered her way ahead of them, bleeding and mad, and the hunters followed, wedded to her in lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood. Chapter 8

He was safe from shame or self-consciousness behind the mask of his paint and could look at each of them in turn. (Jack) Chapter 8

Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down. Chapter 8

‘There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast… Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! … You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?’ (The Lord of the Flies to Simon) Chapter 8

Chapter 9: A View to a Death

Before the party had started a great log had been dragged into the center of the lawn and Jack, painted and garlanded, sat there like an idol. Chapter 9

Power lay in the brown swell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape. (Jack) Chapter 9

Piggy and Ralph … found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable. Chapter 9

‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’ Chapter 9

… the complementary circles went round and round as though repetition would achieve safety of itself. There was the throb and stamp of a single organism. Chapter 9

At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws. (the murder of Simon) Chapter 9

Chapter 10: The Shell and the Glasses

At length Ralph got up and went to the conch. He took the shell caressingly with both hands and knelt, leaning against the trunk. Chapter 10

‘What we going to do?’
Piggy nodded at the conch.
‘You could—’
‘Call an assembly?’ Ralph laughed sharply as he said the word and Piggy frowned. Chapter 10

‘I’m frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home.’ (Ralph to Piggy) Chapter 10

The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him. (Jack) Chapter 10

‘He came—disguised. He may come again even though we gave him the head of our kill to eat. So watch; and be careful.’ (Jack) Chapter 10

‘We’d better keep on the right side of him, anyhow. You can’t tell what he might do.’ (Jack about the beast) Chapter 10

Ralph tried indignantly to remember. There was something good about a fire. Something overwhelmingly good.
‘Ralph’s told you often enough,’ said Piggy moodily. ‘How else are we going to be rescued?’ Chapter 10

Chapter 11: Castle Rock

‘… They stole it. We’d have given them fire if they’d asked. But they stole it and the signal’s out and we can’t ever be rescued… ‘ (Ralph) Chapter 11

‘…I don’t ask for my glasses back, not as a favor. I don’t ask you to be a sport, I’ll say, not because you’re strong, but because what’s right’s right. Give me my glasses, I’m going to say—you got to!’ (Piggy rehearsing what he will say to Jack) Chapter 11

‘Well, we won’t be painted,’ said Ralph, ‘because we aren’t savages.’ Chapter 11

The twins were examining Ralph curiously, as though they were seeing him for the first time. Chapter 11

Roger took up a small stone and flung it between the twins, aiming to miss. Chapter 11

The tribe of painted savages giggled and Ralph’s mind faltered. He pushed his hair up and gazed at the green and black mask before him, trying to remember what Jack looked like. Chapter 11

He paused, defeated by the silence and the painted anonymity of the group guarding the entry. (Ralph) Chapter 11

Now the painted group felt the otherness of Samneric, felt the power in their own hands. Chapter 11

‘Which is better—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?’ (Piggy) Chapter 11

Someone was throwing stones: Roger was dropping them, his one hand still on the lever. Below him, Ralph was a shock of hair and Piggy a bag of fat. Chapter 11

The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Chapter 11

This time the silence was complete. Ralph’s lips formed a word but no sound came. (after Piggy’s death) Chapter 11

Chapter 12: Cry of the Hunters

But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill. This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt. Chapter 12

Samneric were savages like the rest; Piggy was dead, and the conch smashed to powder. Chapter 12

Memory of their new and shameful loyalty came to them. Eric was silent but Sam tried to do his duty. Chapter 12

‘Listen, Ralph. Never mind what’s sense. That’s gone—’ (Eric) Chapter 12

‘You don’t know Roger. He’s a terror.’
‘And the chief—they’re both—‘
‘—terrors—’
‘—only Roger—’ (SamnEric to Ralph) Chapter 12

Roger sharpened a stick at both ends. Ralph tried to attach a meaning to this but could not. He used all the bad words he could think of in a fit of temper that passed into yawning. Chapter 12

What was the sensible thing to do? There was no Piggy to talk sense. (Ralph) Chapter 12

The officer grinned cheerfully at Ralph. ‘We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?’ Ralph nodded. Chapter 12

‘I should have thought that a pack of British boys . . . would have been able to put up a better show than that.’ (naval officer) Chapter 12

‘Who’s boss here?’
‘I am,’ said Ralph loudly.
A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still. (Jack) Chapter 12

… Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy. Chapter 12