d speeches. "Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down." (p. 156) Suspicion arises that there may be a beast on the island and Jack the main choir boy, who is Ralph’s chief rival for leadership, forms a tribe and begins to encourage the other boys to ignore Ralph’s rule. Gradually many of the boys turn into savages and treat the island like their own playpen, with an incremental build up of evil in their behaviour. Another major character, Simon, is a deeply good individual, who performs many acts of thoughtfulness and kindness. Simon sees visions but is very frail. Simon becomes the first victim of what the boys of as the beast, ‘the Lord of the Flies’ or ‘Beelzebub’, when he goes to his sanctuary and finds there a pig’s head on a stick, with which he starts to have an imaginary conversation. When he tries to tell the boys the truth about there situation and that the beast is in all of them, he is beaten to death by the other boys. Ralph tries to face up honestly to what has happened and admits that Simon’s death is murder, while Piggy argues it was an accident. Jack’s tribe now claim that Simon was the beast. The society now becomes split into two gangs, Jack’s tribe and Ralph’s now much smaller group. Jack’s tribe begin to intimidate Piggy and he too eventually dies as the result of an accident. Eventually Ralph is left completely on his own. He learns that Jack’s tribe are planning to hunt him and he sets fire to the forest and runs towards the beach. The huge fire has, however, attracted a ship and the sailors come onto the island and rescue Ralph and two of his former friends. The sailors have no idea of the savagery to which the boys have descended and think that they are just playing a game. Ralph is an attractive, fair-haired and athletic young boy, in contrast to...
