Lord of the Flies Chapter 1 Summary
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Setting
The novel is set in a thick jungle on a deserted island.
Main Characters
Ralph – is the largest and most physically powerful boy on the island. Despite his size and strength, Ralph shows no signs of wanting to dominate others and is preoccupied with being rescued.
Piggy – he is the smartest boy on the island. Due to his obesity and asthma, Piggy is also the weakest of the biguns.
Jack – he is the head boy of his chorus back in civilization. Jack becomes the leader of the hunters on the island.
Simon – he is a dreamy, dark-haired boy prone to fainting spells and occasional fits
Roger – he is a quiet, brooding member of Jack's chorus. Roger is at first little more than a mystery, a quiet, intense boy who seems to hide from the other boys.
Samneric – they are identical twins; Sam and Eric who do everything together. They so closely resemble each other that the other boys use just one name to refer to both of them.
Plot Summary
An English schoolboy of about twelve years old explores a jungle. A second boy soon joins the first. The first boy is tall, handsome, and athletic. The second is fat and wears glasses. The boys discuss what happened and how they got to the jungle. They are fairly sure the plane they were in was shot down and crash-landed on an island, and that all the adults on the plane were killed. They wonder if any of the other schoolboys on the flight survived.
The fat boy asks the tallboy his name. The tall boy answers, Ralph. But instead of asking the fat boy's name, Ralph wanders off. The fat boy follows, but can barely keep up because of his asthma. When the fat boy starts eating some fruit, Ralph slips away and finds a beautiful beach. Eventually, the fat boy finds Ralph and proposes they call a meeting and make a list of everyone who survived. He lets slip that in school people called him Piggy. Ralph laughs. Piggy begs Ralph not to tell anyone.
The boys keep exploring. Ralph finds a perfect swimming hole and says his father, who is in the Navy, will come to rescue them. But Piggy is fairly certain that no one knows where they landed. Piggy says they have to do something. Just then, Ralph spots a huge conch shell. Piggy realizes they can use it as a trumpet. Piggy cannot blow it himself, because of his asthma, but shows Ralph how to do it. Ralph blows, and a huge blast sounds.
All the boys gather on the beach: they range in age from six to twelve. There is one set of twins, Sam and Eric. A group of the older boys is members of a choir, dressed in black. Their leader is Jack, a redhead who tries to take control of the meeting. One of the boys in the choir, Simon, faints. Jack soon tells Piggy to shut up, and calls him "Fatty." Ralph gleefully reveals that Piggy's name is "Piggy." Everyone laughs, humiliating Piggy.
The boys decide to vote for a leader. Everyone in the choir votes for Jack, but the other boys vote for Ralph because he blew the conch. To keep Jack happy, Ralph says that the choir will be hunters and Jack will lead them. Ralph decides the boys must explore their island. He and Jack will both go, of course. Ralph ignores Piggy's whining pleas to be included and picks Simon to be the third explorer. Ralph, Jack, and Simon have a great time exploring, and stop to push a huge boulder off a cliff, which seems to them like a great accomplishment. The boys climb to the highest peak on the island, which they call the mountain, from where they can see that they are on an uninhabited island. They also see the "scar" where the crashing plane tore through the jungle. Ralph says of the island, "This belongs to us."
Soon the boys head back down the mountain to the beach. On the way, they spot a wild pig caught in vines. Jack pulls out his pocket knife but pauses before striking, and the pig escapes. Jack vows not to hesitate next time.
Themes
- Human Nature. By leaving a group of English schoolboys to fend for themselves on a remote jungle island, Golding creates a kind of human nature laboratory in order to examine what happens when the constraints of civilization vanish and raw human nature takes over.
- Savagery and the "Beast". The "beast" is a symbol Golding uses to represent the savage impulses lying deep within every human being. Civilization exists to suppress the beast. By keeping the natural human desire for power and violence to a minimum, civilization forces people to act responsibly and rationally, as boys like Piggy and Ralph do in Lord in the Flies.