Lord fo the Flies _ Quotes 1-3

Lord of the Flies
Quotes Chapters 1-3
Directions:
1. Locate the quotes in the book and highlight or underline them in the book.
2. Write down the page number on this sheet.
3. Be prepared to discuss why these quotes are important to the plot, foreshadowing, symbolism, or character development.

Chapter 1

_____ Page “The naked crooks of his knees were plump, . . . He was shorter than the
fair boy and very fat. He came forward, searching out safe lodgments for his feet, and then looked up through thick spectacles.”

_____ Page “He tried to be offhand and not too obviously uninterested, but the fat boy hurried after him.”

_____ Page “ ‘I saw the other part of the plane. There were flames coming out of it.’
He looked up and down the scar. ‘And this is what the cabin done’.”

_____ Page “ ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Ralph.’ The fat boy waited to be asked his name in turn but this proffer of acquaintance was not made.”

_____ Page “. . . then started to wipe them against his grubby wind-breaker. An expression of pain and inward concentration altered the pale contours of his face.”

_____ Page “He became conscious of the weight of clothes, kicked his shoes off
fiercely, and ripped off each stocking with its elastic garter in a single movement. . . . He undid the snake-clasp of his belt, lugged off his shorts and pants, and stood there naked, looking at the dazzling beach of the water.”

_____ Page “You could see now that 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.”

_____ Page “He laid a hand on the end of a zipper that extended down his chest. ‘My
Auntie--’ Then he opened the sipper with decision and pulled the whole wind-breaker over his head.”

_____ Page “ ‘I expect we’ll want to know all their names,’ said the fat boy, ‘and
make a list. We ought to have a meeting’.”


_____ Page “ ‘I don’t care what they call me,’ he said confidentially, ‘so long as they
don’t call me what they used to call me at school.’ . . . ‘They used to call me Piggy’. Ralph shrieked with laughter. He jumped up. ‘Piggy! Piggy’ ‘Ralph-please!’. . . ‘So long as you don’t tell the others’.”

_____ Page “ ‘I can’t swim. I wasn’t allowed. My asthma--’ ”

_____ Page “ ‘Daddy taught me. He’s a commander in the Navy. When he gets leave
he’ll come and rescue us. What’s your father?’ ‘My dad’s dead, and my mum--’ He took off his glasses and looked vainly for something which to clean them. ‘I used to love with my auntie. She kept a candy store. I used to get ever so many candies. As many as I liked’.”

_____ Page “ ‘Not them. Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all dead’.”

_____ Page “ ‘A conch he called it. He used to blow it and then his mum would come.
It’s ever so valuable’.”

_____ Page “ ‘We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They’ll come when
they hear us’.”

_____ Page “Ralph grasped the idea and hit the shell with air from his diaphragm. Immediately the thing sounded. A deep, harsh note boomed under the palms, spread through the intricacies of the forest, and echoed back from the pink granite of the mountain. Clouds of birds rose from the treetops, and something squealed and ran in the undergrowth.”

_____ Page “A child had appeared among the palms, . . . He was a boy of perhaps six years, sturdy and fair, his clothes torn, his faced covered with a sticky mess of fruit. . . . Piggy helped him up. . . . As he received the reassurance of something purposeful being done he began to look satisfied, and his only clean digit, a pink thumb, slid into his mouth.”

_____ Page “Piggy moved among the crowd, asking names and frowning to remember them.”

_____ Page “Then the creature stepped from mirage on to clear sand, and they saw that the darkness was not all shadow but mostly clothing. The creature was a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines and dressed in strangely eccentric clothing.”

_____ Page “The boy who controlled them was dressed in the same way though his cap badge was golden.”

_____ Page “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.”

_____ Page “The group of cloaked boys began to scatter from close line. The tall boy
shouted at them. ‘Choir! Stand still!’ Wearily obedient, the choir huddled into lines and stood there swaying in the sun.”

_____ Page “Piggy asked no names. He was intimidated by this uniformed superiority and the offhand authority in Merridew’s voice. He shrank to the other side of Ralph and busied himself with his glasses.”

_____ Page “ ‘Your’re talking too much,’ said Jack Merridew. ‘Shut up, Fatty.’ Laughter arose. ‘He’s not Fatty,’ cried Ralph, ‘his real name’s Piggy!’ . . . A storm of laughter arose and even the tiniest child joined in. 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.”

_____ Page “There was a slight, furtive boys whom no one knew, who kept to himself with an inner intensity of avoidance and secrecy. He muttered that his name was Roger and was silent again.”

_____ Page “ ‘I ought to be chief,’ said Jack with simple arrogance, ‘because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp’.”

_____ Page “what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy, while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out; there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch.”

_____ Page “ ‘Who wants Jack for chief?’ With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands.”

_____ Page “Even the choir applauded; and the freckles on Jack’s face disappeared under a blush of mortification.”

_____ Page “Beyond falls and cliffs there was a gash visible in the trees; there were the splintered trunks and then the drag, leaving only a fringe of palm between the scar and the sea.”

_____ Page “They knew very well why he hadn’t: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood.. . . He snatched his knife out of the sheath and slammed it into a tree trunk. Next time there would be no mercy.”

Chapter 2

_____ Page “ ‘Before I could kill it-but-next time!’ Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly.”

_____ Page “ ‘There aren’t any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves’.”

_____ Page “ ‘We can’t have everybody talking at once. We’ll have to have ‘Hands up’ like at school’.”

_____ Page “ ‘That’s what this shell’s called. I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking’.”

_____ Page “ ‘We’ll have rules!’ he cried excitedly. ‘Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks ‘em—whee-oh!

_____ Page “ ‘ While we’re waiting we can have a good time on this island’.”

_____ Page “Piggy knelt by him, one hand on the great shell, listening and interpreting to the assembly. ‘He wants to know what you’re going to do about the snake thing’.”

_____ Page “ ‘My father’s in the Navy. He said there aren’t any unknown islands left. He says the Queen has a big room full of maps and all the islands in the world are drawn there. So the Queen’s got a picture of this island’.”

_____ Page “Ralph flushed, looking sideways at Piggy’s open admiration, and then the other way at Jack who was smirking and showing that he too knew how to clap.”

_____ Page “ ‘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 thop of the mountain. We must make a fire’.”

_____ Page “All at once the crowd swayed toward the island and was gone- following Jack. . . Ralph was left, holding the conch, with no one by Piggy.”

_____ Page “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.”

_____ Page “Trees, forced by the damp heat, found too little soils for full growth, fell early, and decayed.”


_____ Page “Ralph and Jack looked at each other while society paused about them. The shameful knowledge grew in them and they did not know how to begin confession. Ralph spoke first, crimson in the face. . . . ‘Will you light the fire?’ . . . ‘His specs-use them as burning glasses’. . . ‘Here-let me go!’ His voice rose ot 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’!”

_____ Page “ ‘The conch doesn’t count on top of the mountain’, said Jack, ‘so you shut up’.”

_____ Page “ ‘We’ve got to have special people for looking after the fire’.”

_____ Page “ ‘We ought to have more rules. Where the conch is, that’s a meeting. The same up here as down there’.”

_____ Page “ ‘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’.”

_____ Page “ ‘Ralph, I’ll split up the choir- my hunters, that is- into groups, and we’ll be responsible for keeping the fire going’. . . ‘And we’ll be responsible for keeping a lookout too. If we see a ship out there’-they followed the direction of his bony arm with their eyes- ‘we’ll put green branches on. Then there’ll be more smoke’.”

_____ Page “ ‘That’s what I said! I said about our meetings and things and then you said shut up’-“

_____ Page “ ‘I got the conch! Just you listen! The first thing we ought to have made was shelters down there by the beach. It wasn’t half cold down there in the night. But the first time Ralph says ‘fire’ you go howling and screaming up this here mountain. Like a pack of kids’!”

_____ Page “ ‘Then when you get here you build a bonfire that isn’t no use. Now you been and set the whole island on fire. Won’t we look funny if the whole island burns up’!”

_____ Page “ ‘Them kids. The little ‘uns. Who took any notice of ‘em? Who knows how many we got’?”

_____ Page “ ‘and them little ‘uns was wandering about down there where the fire is. How d’you know they aren’t still there?’. . . ‘That little ‘un’, gasped Piggy, ‘him with the mark on his face, I don’t see him. Where is he now’?”

Chapter 3

_____ Page “. . . his nose only a few inches from the humid earth.”

_____ Page “His sandy hair, considerably longer than it had been when they dropped in, was lighter now; and his bare back was a mass of dark freckles and peeling sunburn.”

_____ Page “From the pig-run came the quick, hard patter of hoofs, a castanet sound, seductive, maddening-the promise of meat.”

_____ Page “ ‘They’re hopeless. The older ones aren’t much better. D’you see? All day I’ve been working with Simon. No one else. They’re off bathing, or eating, or playing’.”

_____ Page “ ‘Meetings. Don’t we love meetings? Every day. Twice a day. We talk. I bet if I blew the conch this minute, they’d come running. Then we’d be, you know, very solemn, and someone would say we ought to build a jet, or a submarine, or a TV set. When the meeting was over they’d work for five minutes, then wander off or go hunting’.”

_____ Page “The madness came into his eyes again. ‘I thought I might kill’.”

_____ Page “ ‘They talk and scream. The littluns. Even some of the others. As if- as if it wasn’t a good island’.”

_____ Page “ ‘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’.”

_____ Page “ ‘Of course! They’ll lie up there- they must, when the sun’s too hot.”

_____ Page “ ‘Don’t you want to be rescued? All you can talk about is pig, pig, pig’!”

_____ Page “He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were.”

_____ Page “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.”

_____ Page “He looked over his shoulder as Jack had done at the close ways behind him and glanced swiftly round to confirm that he was utterly alone.”