The story opens ontwo boys, Ralph and Piggy, as they come to the realization that their plane has crash landed on a deserted tropical island. As they explore their surroundings – the wide beach, the tall granite mountain, the jagged rocks, the “scar” where their plane crashed – they discuss what has happened. Piggy is concerned but Ralph is excited at the possibility of not having any grown-ups around. They find a lagoon and go for a swim. WHOOSH!
While Piggy and Ralph swim, they spot a conch shell. Ralph digs it out and Piggy suggests they use it to call anyone else on the island. When Ralph blows the conch, boys start appearing out of the forest and from farther down the beach. WHOOSH!
A group of boys arrives, all dressed in heavy black robes despite the hot tropical sun. The group is led by Jack Merridew, who shouts orders at the group of boys and bosses them around. He announces that he should be the leader because he is head chorister and can sing a C# but, after Ralph suggests they have a vote, everyone picks him, not Jack to be their chief. Ralph appoints Jack and the choir to be the hunters – they will search for food for the entire group. WHOOSH!
Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. They trek across the beach and enter the dense forest where they have to slash through thick vines. At last they find a path that leads them up the steep, treacherous slope to the top of a mountain. From here, the boys can see that they are indeed alone on an island. Ralph and Jack both look at their new domain with excitement and a sense of power. WHOOSH!
When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. Without waiting for further instructions, the boys begin running up to the top of the mountain. Jack snatches Piggy’s glasses off his face and they succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of the eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngestboys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death. WHOOSH!
At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. TheRalph joins Jack and thehuntersas they go out to look for a pig, butfail in their attempt to catch a one when Jack cannot bear to bring down the knife to cut its throat. Jack becomes increasingly preoccupied with the act of hunting. He begins to study the forest, getting down on the ground to sniff for the pig’s trail. He also paints his face to better hide in the trees and begins carrying a barbed spear. WHOOSH!
One day, as Jack and his hunters are out in the woods, stalking a wild pig,Ralph and Piggy see a ship passing by on the horizon. They rush to the top of the mountain, but discover, to their horror, that the signal fire—which had been the hunters’ responsibility to maintain—has burned out. Furious, RalphconfrontsJack, but he does not really think he’s done anything wrong. The hunters have just returned with their first kill, and they all seem gripped with a strange frenzy. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. The hunters carve up the pig and cook it around a large fire. Reluctantly, even Ralph and Piggy join the meal. At the end, Ralph blows the conch shell and announces that they must have a meeting immediately. WHOOSH!
At the meeting, Ralph reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. It quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid. The littlestboys, known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on the island. The olderboys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entiregroup. Ralph takes a vote to determine who believes in ghosts, and, when almost every hand is raised, he realizes that he may not be able to ease the fears of all the boys and bring order to their camp. WHOOSH!
Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth and lands on the signal-fire mountain, dead. The next morning, Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. They think it is the beast, and they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them. WHOOSH!
The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. The travel to the far side of the mountain and climb the steep boulders to “Castle Rock.” Jack thinks this would make a “wizard” fort, but Ralph realizes the signal fire has gone out, and he makes them all go to the other side to relight it. Jack thinks they should hunt instead, so they decide to hunt on their way to relight the fire. They manage to corner a pig, and Ralph chucks his spear. It sticks in the pig’s snout, but the pig gets away. Overcome with the exitement of the hunt, Jack, Ralph and the other boys reenact the chase in a kind of wild dance, circling around Robert and chanting “Kill the pig! Cut his throat!” They get a little out of control and Robert is hurt, then Ralph reminds them they have to go to the top of the mountain to light the fire. WHOOSH!
Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, argue, Jacktells Ralph he’s going to the mountain to catch the beast, challenging Ralph to join him. Ralph accepts the challenge, and when they get to the top of the mountain, he goes to investigate the beast on his own. Ralph cautiously treks up the mountain, but returns almost immediately, claiming that he saw and heard something. Ralph and Roger investigate and, seeing the pilot and parachute from a distance, think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. They all three run down to the beach to call a meeting and report that they have seen the beast. WHOOSH!
At the meeting,Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from the position of Chief, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, inviting anyone who wants to hunt to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack. WHOOSH!
Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to celebrate the occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, as Simon is hiding in his secret place, experiencing one of his “times” with a headache, sweating, and hallucinations, he sees the bloody, fly-covered head. Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that the Beast is within them all, and that they can never escape him. He warns Simon not to interfere and to just let the boys have fun, or they’ll kill him. Simon faints. WHOOSH!
WhenSimon wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees the dead parachutist. He cuts the cords free of the trees. Simon finally knows for sure that the beast does not exist externally but rather within each individual boy, He travels to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic ritual —even Ralph and Piggy have joined. The boys are all dancing in a circle, chanting “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” Their frenzy increases to the point that, when they see Simon’s shadowy figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth. As Simon’s body drifts out to sea, the wind lifts the parachutist off the island and blows it out to sea.WHOOSH!
The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Ralph knows that they have committed murder, but Piggy tries to say they didn’t participate and that it was just an accident. When they are joined by Samneric, all four boys pretend not to have any knowledge of the past evening’s events. At Jack’s camp, his leadership has been clearly established – he sits on a “throne” and the other hunters bring him reports. Jack plans to hunt another pig and have a feast, being sure to invite Ralph and the other boys in the hopes of converting them to his camp. When one of the hunters points out that they have no way to start a fire,Jack has a plan. The hunters attack Ralph and the others in a midnight raid and steal Piggy’s glasses. WHOOSH!
The next morning, Ralph, Piggy, and Samnerictry to light the fire in the cold air, but the attempt is hopeless without Piggy’s glasses. Piggy, squinting and barely able to see, suggests that Ralph hold a meeting to discuss their options. Ralph blows the conch shell, and the boys who have not gone to join Jack’s tribe assemble on the beach. They decide that their only choice is to travel to the Castle Rock to make Jack and his followers see reason. WHOOSH!
Ralph decides to take the conch shell to the Castle Rock, hoping that it will remind Jack’s followers of his former authority. Once at Jack’s camp, however, Ralph’s group encounters armed guards. Ralph blows the conch shell, but the guards tell them to leave and throw stones at them, aiming to miss. Suddenly, Jack and a group of hunters emerge from the forest, dragging a dead pig. Jack and Ralph immediately face off. Jack commands Ralph to leave his camp, and Ralph demands that Jack return Piggy’s glasses. Jack attacks Ralph, and they fight. Ralph struggles to make Jack understand the importance of the signal fire to any hope the boys might have of ever being rescued, but Jack orders his hunters to capture Sam and Eric and tie them up. This sends Ralph into a fury, and he lunges at Jack.Ralph and Jack fight for a second time. Piggy cries out shrilly, struggling to make himself heard over the brawl. As Piggy tries to speak, hoping to remind the group of the importance of rules and rescue, Roger shoves a massive rock down the mountainside. Ralph, who hears the rock falling, dives and dodges it. But the boulder strikes Piggy, shatters the conch shell he is holding, and knocks him off the mountainside to his death on the rocks below. Jack throws his spear at Ralph, and the other boys quickly join in. Ralph escapes into the jungle, and Roger and Jack begin to torture Sam and Eric, forcing them to submit to Jack’s authority and join his tribe. WHOOSH!
Ralph hides in the jungle and thinks miserably about the chaos that has overrun the island. He thinks about the deaths of Simon and Piggy and realizes that all vestiges of civilization have been stripped from the island. He stumbles across the sow’s head, the Lord of the Flies, now merely a gleaming white skull—as white as the conch shell, he notes. Angry and disgusted, Ralph knocks the skull to the ground and takes the stake it was impaled on to use as a weapon against Jack. WHOOSH!
That night, Ralph sneaks down to the camp at the Castle Rock and finds Sam and Eric guarding the entrance. The twins give him food but refuse to join him. They tell him that Jack plans to send the entire tribe after him the next day. Ralph hides in a thicket and falls asleep. In the morning, he hears Jack talking and torturing one of the twins to find out where Ralph is hiding. Several boys try to break into the thicket by rolling a boulder, but the thicket is too dense. A group of boys tries to fight their way into the thicket, but Ralph fends them off. Then Ralph smells smoke and realizes that Jack has set the jungle on fire in order to smoke him out. Ralph abandons his hiding place and fights his way past Jack and a group of his hunters. Chased by a group of body-painted warrior-boys wielding sharp wooden spears, Ralph plunges frantically through the undergrowth, looking for a place to hide. At last, he ends up on the beach, where he collapses in exhaustion, his pursuers close behind. WHOOSH!
Suddenly, Ralph looks up to see a naval officer standing over him. The officer tells the boy that his ship has come to the island after seeing the blazing fire in the jungle. Jack’shunters reach the beach and stop in their tracks upon seeing the officer. The officer matter-of-factly assumes the boys are up to, as he puts it, “fun and games.” When he learns what has happened on the island, the officer is reproachful: how could this group of boys, he asks—and English boys at that—have lost all reverence for the rules of civilization in so short a time? For his part, Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he has been rescued, that he will escape the island after coming so close to a violent death. He begins to sob, as do the other boys. Moved and embarrassed, the naval officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure. WHOOSH!