CHapter : Gift for the Darkness

In Chapter 8 of Lord of the Flies, the core members of their civilization become disembodied as disputes lead to the groups division. The tension between Jack and Ralph comes to a boil as Jack desires for Ralph to lose his power and departs after the group votes for Ralph to maintain his leadership role. The belief of the beast plays a major role in determining who people choose to live with. Once Jack leaves, the other members of the group while helping to build a new signal fire ditch the group to join Jack. Inspired by this new civilization with Jack as their leader, the hunters began to go wild. In the ensuing hours of chaos the hunters manage to kill a sow and continue by stabbing the beast and putting the sow’s head on a stick in celebration. A few minutes before the hunters converge of the beach, Simon sneaks off into the island’s jungle. Here he is captivated by the sow’s head on a stick which begins to speak to him as the lord of the flies, or, the devil. The pigs head intimidates Simon telling him that he can not escape and that he will have fun tormenting him. As this celebration continues the hunters inhabit Ralph’s camp and ask them if they would like to join the feast of the sow. Fueled by their hunger, Ralph and Piggy clearly show a desire for some of the meat. At the very end of the chapter, Simon ends up fainting due to his Lord of the flies experience.

Ch. 8: Gift For The Darkness ~ Emily Fiske

The boys had just returned from their brief adventure to the mountain-top and were in a panic about the so-called “beast” that was hiding up there. Piggy seemed to be the most openly worried about their experience and he worries that the beast could be watching them from atop the mountain. I think this story puts a lot of tension on the group because even Ralph seems to be shaken up about it, snapping at Piggy, saying to go look for it and “good riddance”. A meeting is called to discuss what options there are about the “beast” and a little argument breaks out between Ralph and Jack, causing Jack to call a vote for chief. He held the conch to his chest and called for people to vote either for him or for Ralph to be the chief. No one raised their hands. Jack stormed off down the beach crying a bit and said he would hunt on his own, with sharpened sticks as weapons, same as the rest of the group. Then Ralph and Piggy, along with everyone else, decide to build a fire and discuss whether or not they should stay away from the beast or go looking for it to kill it. They realize they could never try to fight something as big as the “beast” was made out to be. Soon the groups realize that Simon has disappeared, that he has wandered off into the fruit trees being surrounded by butterflies. Jack’s group decides that they are going to hunt for pigs. This is one double-meaning. Hunting for pigs for food, pigs as in pink and brown, four-legged animals, hunting for A pig, as in a chubby little boy with glasses. I think this means that Piggy is not seen as a normal member or the group, but that he is seen as prey, someone to make fun of, and possibly someone to take their anger out on. I think the idea of there being an unknown creature on the island really caused things on the island to go downhill, and fast. This animal seems to have caused a lot of stress among the boys and some of them might have survived without some of the fighting and “re-enactments”. Even thought the “beast” was a mental problem, it caused a tremendous amount of emotional and physical harm by playing with the minds of young children.

Chapter 7: Shadows and Tall Trees (by Robert)

Chapter seven blog entry shadows and tall trees

     Chapter begins with Ralph, Jack, Simon, Samneric, Roger, and a 

group of biuns walking down a pig run that gos along some rocks that are 

part of the edge of one side of the island. and stopping to eat at some 

fruit trees. While this is happening Ralph is thinking about the 

cleanness of the life he and the other boys are having. After a while 

the group gets going and Roger discovers some pig droppings and gets the 

group on the trail of the pig because it gos the same direction that the 

group wants to go. Eventually they find the pig a boar, Ralph wounds it, 

and Jack gets wounded from it as well. After Ralph wounds it the pig 

proceeds to run through the woods and escape the pursuit of the boys. 

After a while they reach a clearing and talk about what to do for a 

while where it is decided that Ralph, Jack, and Roger are to climb the 

mountain and search for the beast while the rest of the group gos back 

to the platform to help piggy keep the litluns safe. Ralph and his group 

eventually get to the top of the mountain and find the “beast” get 

scared and run away.

Ch. 6: Beast from Air (by Al)

5/1/2011

Lord of the Flies Blog Entry

The sixth chapter of the book Lord of the Flies is called Beast from Air. This chapter starts off with Ralph and Simon bringing a little one back to the huts before going to sleep. As the kids sleep, a parachutist from above falls down. He was most likely fighting in a fighter jet or something similar and had ejected out of his plane. As he was floating down, his parachute got caught in the rocks or trees or something so that he was just in the air. Once Sam and Eric woke up, even though they weren’t supposed to be asleep, they made the fire bigger and brighter. As the wind blew, the parachutist rocked back and forth and made a shape of a beast. Frightened, Sam and Eric ran back to the Beach to tell Ralph what they had seen. Ralph calls a meeting and everyone but piggy and the little ones set out to see if the beast exists. Jack leads the group the whole time until they get to a new part of the island, then Ralph is the one that has to go and explore the rest alone. After, he is rejoined by Jack and they remember their unity again. Meanwhile, the rest of the boys forget why they were there in the first place and they start playing around and throwing rocks and enjoying themselves. Then Ralph reminds them that they are there to hunt the beast, and so everyone but the hunters and Ralph go back to continue their job.

Ch.6: Beast from Air (by Ben)

Chapter 6: Beast from Air

Chapter 6 begins with the two twins, Sam n' Eric, collecting wood in the forest very early in the morning when it is still dark. The boys spot a figure in the trees that they do not recognize. The figure that the boys see, the reader knows, is the dead body of a pilot whose plate was shot down and whose body happened to land right on their island. But these boys are not yet old enough to know that fear comes from ignorance, and since these boys refused to get close enough to the figure to find out that it was just a harmless dead body they immediately run and tell Ralph that they have just seen the beast. Ralph tells the boys to call the rest of the island to an assembly at which the twins let their imaginations run away with them while telling the other boys of their encounter. The other boys then naturally, believe every word said by the twins and decide to set out a hunt to kill the beast. The vague signs of control abuse start to show when Ralph, Jack, Bill, and the litluns have been hunting into the night and approach the time when only the most determined of the group are able to stay awake. Roger and some others say that they should stop for the time being and build a fire and get a little bit of sleep but Ralph wants to keep going. The abuse shows at the way end of the chapter on the last page when Bill and Ralph are disagreeing on whether to stop and continue in the morning, which Bill wants, or to keep on going, which Ralph wants. After a few quick word exchanges Ralph strikes his knuckles and decides to make everybody go with his idea of to keep going on without rest. This part, I feel, is the domino effect for the rest of the book because it shows the first refusal of the boys to work as a team and of one deciding, with no consent or mutuality, that he is the boss and that what he says goes.

Chapter 5 Beast from Air

Chapter 5- Beast from Air

This chapter is one of the fist signs to the reader that the once exciting and peaceful life on the island is crumbling. This is prevalent during the assembly Ralph calls to talk about the major issues the group is facing. This includes having water brought from the stream and left in the coconut shells, how everyone didn't help build all of the shelters and as a result the last one is unstable, going to the bathroom away from the fruit trees and keeping a fire going at all times. During this meeting Ralph has to constantly remind the group to listen to him because he is the Chief. He says things like "All this I meant to say. Now I've said it. You voted me for chief. Now you do what I say." (81) and “First of all I'm speaking." (80). Ralph and the conch do not have as much importance and Ralph is losing patience.
Then there is the issue of the beast, Ralph says "Things are breaking up. I don't know why. We began well; we were happy. And then... people started getting frightened." Fear is manifesting inside the boys and is already having negative consequences. Although logical Piggy feels that there is nothing to fear unless they fear people. He thinks that everyone is afraid of the fear inside of them because life on the island is so different from what they were used to and they channel that fear into the so called beast. Simon also seems to have a different picture as to what the beast is. He says it could be a person; he tries to explain the way he thinks by attempting to articulate mankind’s essential illness, fear. He believes that the dirtiest things inside of them bring out the ideas of the beast and how terrible it is. He is the only one we know of who might think that the beast isn’t a monster or a ghost but rather a person who lets their imagination and fear get out of hand.

Overall in chapter 5 we start to see society and order fall apart as the assemblies get more and more out of hand and the ideas of the beast start to become more and more serious.

Chapter 5: Beast from Water

Chapter five dawns, but not everything is as bright and shining as the dependable rising of the sun each morning on the boys' island. In fact, it is evening when chapter five commences, signifying mystery, gloom, uncertainty and fear. Ralph has just reprimanded Jack and his hunters for their lack of concern in getting rescued via a fire and smoke signal. Ralph has good cause for his anger and frustration; at the end of chapter four, Jack and his hunters have just returned from a successful hunt and are bragging about their catch. Their excitement is overshadowed when Ralph sternly says that while they were happily hunting and enjoying themselves, there was no one on fire duty and it had gone out. He tells them a ship happened to have gone by while they were hunting, so whoever was supposed to be tending the fire had not been there. He asks them how they can care about a pig, when they had a hope of being rescued. He decides that a meeting is in order after this unfortunate event to set their priorities straight. It is there, at the serious assembly that Ralph calls, that the reader gets the first sense of the breakdown in the society and order on the island and also the oncoming breakdown of the little government that ever existed there, that must inevitably come. In this chapter, it is made clear to the reader that the boys, especially Ralph as chief, are having a harder and harder time keeping order, laws and civilization present on their island.

On his way down from the top of the mountain where he had been frantically trying to flag down the ship to no avail, and where he had reprimanded the hunters, Ralph plans out his serious speech. He vows that this meeting will be serious, not like other meetings. When all the boys are at the meeting spot, Ralph addresses them; he says that they need to take their duties of running the island and keeping it functional more seriously. He says that, above all, they need to keep the fire going to make smoke as their only chance of being rescued. He goes through a long list of all the things that need to happen, that have not been. He says,"We've all got to use the rocks [for going to the bathroom] again. This place is getting really dirty" (80). He also says, "The fire is the most important thing. How can we ever be rescued...if we don't keep a fire going?" (80). He also points out that their feeble shelters were built by only a few people, and as a result, are liable to fall down any minute. However, they are needed to keep them safe from the rains (80). He implores them to see that the shelters, along with the other items he mentioned, are far more important that hunting. As Ralph is reiterating the importance of the fire and smoke, imploring them to see his reasoning, voices start calling out to him that there are "too many things" being talked about and worried about, and other voices murmur their agreement (81). Ralph tries to shush them but, as he goes on to talk about the specific places the fire can be made so as not to start another forest fire, the underlying current of boys' voices murmuring their disagreement with him becomes shouting. They ask what they will do about cooking their meat. Ralph tells them to quiet down, saying, "I have the conch." The boys reluctantly quiet down, but not for long. As Ralph continues, Jack says to him, "But you've talked and talked!" (81). Ralph and Jack get into a brief argument over authority. The conch seems to be losing importance here. In this sequence, the breakdown in authority and rules become apparent when all the boys are unwilling to listen to Ralph being parent-like. Also, in this part of the chapter, the conch, which symbolizes authority, order, laws and rules, is insufficient to squelch the boys' protests of hunting being important too, and their anger at more boring matters being looked upon as top priorities by Ralph. They start to rebel against Ralph's authority, even though they elected him chief at the beginning. This part is significant in that it is almost a foreshadow of the disasters to come because of the breakdown in society and government.

Another significant event in chapter five is the last matter to be discussed on Ralph's itinerary: the matter of the "beast". Ralph says to the assembly that he's noticed people getting scared and fearful. He says, "We've got to talk about this fear and decide there's nothing in it...[this is] nonsense!" (82). However, as the beast discussion progresses, is becomes clear to Ralph that there are some amongst them that faintly believe in a beast-like figure. Jack says that he's been all over the island and hasn't discovered anything, but the littleuns, who first brought up the idea of a beast, and some of the biguns, thing there may be a beast that comes out of the water. Piggy then pipes up and says that life is scientific; there can't be a beast and there can't be fear either, unless, he says, "...we get frightened of people" (82). Piggy's statement meets with jeers, but it accurately represents that the beast is really just a figure of their imaginations, and also, that the beast is really their fear, yet they don't realize this. This message that Piggy brings up in the chapter, of the only fear being fear of each other and essentially their fear itself being the beast, is supported by Simon's thoughts which he shares at the assembly. Despite not liking to speak in public, Simon gets the conch and says that maybe there is a beast. This is met with a chorus of "shut ups" and "sod yous" (89). Even though he has the conch, because it is losing power, Simon is jumped upon by all the no-beast believers. The boys don't care about speaking in turn or letting others speak, they just shush everyone they don't agree with and get all boisterous. Also, as we find out later, Simon's idea of the beast is a human. When ever he pictures a beast, he sees a human being. That is the same message being conveyed through Piggy's words when he says that the only fear that exists is of each other...fellow humans. Simon, at that assembly, doesn't voice why he thinks there is a beast, but we find out why later on what is backing this belief, when we discover what he pictures as a beast.

Chapter five: where the break down in society and the fear are brought to the surface. The whole chapter foreshadows the events to come that will be on a much larger scale, the destruction that is possible, and the damage these boys are capable of physically and mentally. Chapter five is only a taste of what will happen and the chaos that will eventually ensue when order breaks down. It will only get worse on this island that was once so happy and care free. The freedom given to these boys has lost its glamor and its appeal from the first few days. Ralph realizes, at the end of the chapter, that what they really need are adults.