Lord of the Flies
Quotes Chapters 10-12
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 10
_____ Page “Nowadays he sometimes found that he saw more clearly if he removed his glasses and shifted one lens to the other eye; but even through the good eye, after what had happened, Ralph remained unmistakably Ralph”
_____ Page “ ‘Simon’. Piggy said nothing but nodded, solemnly. They continued to sit, gazing with impaired sight at the chief’s seat. . . ”
_____ Page “ ‘That was Simon’ . . . ‘That was murder ‘Stop it!’ said Piggy, shrilly. ‘What good’re you doing talking like that’. . .’It was dark. There was that—the bloody dance. There was lightening and thunder and rain. We was scared!’ ‘I wasn’t scared,’ said Ralph ‘I was—I don’t know what I was’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Don’t you understand, Piggy? The things we did--’. . . ‘You were outside. Outside the circle. You never really came in. Didn’t you see what we—what they did?’. . . ‘It was an accident,’ said Piggy suddenly, ‘that’s what it was. An accident.’ His voice shrilled again. ‘Coming in the dark—he had no business crawling like that out of the dark. He was batty. He asked for it’”
_____ Page “ ‘But we were! All of us!’ Piggy shook his head. ‘Not us till last. They never noticed in the dark. Anyway you said I was only on the outside’”
_____ Page “ ‘We left early,’ said Piggy quickly, ‘because we were tired.’ ‘So did we’ . . . Sam touched a scratch on his forehead and then hurriedly took his hand away. Eric fingered his split lip. . . .The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. . . . Memory of the dance that none of them had attended shook all four boys convulsively”
_____ Page “A full effort would send the rock thundering down to the neck of land. Roger admired”
_____ Page “ ‘He’s going to take us hunting.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the distant shelter where a thread of white smoke climbed up the sky”
_____ Page “ ‘He’s going to beat Wilfred.’ ‘What for?’ Robert shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He’s been’—he giggled excitedly—‘he’s been tired for hours, waiting’ ‘But didn’t the chief say why?’
_____ Page “He ceased to work at his tooth and sat still, assimilating the possibilities of irresponsible authority”
_____ Page “ ‘What’ll we use for lighting the fire?’ The chief’s blush was hidden by the white and red clay”
_____ Page “ ‘We don’t want another night without fire’. He looked round guiltily at the three boys standing by. This was the first time he had admitted the double function of the fire. Certainly one was to send up a beckoning column of smoke. But the other was to be a hearth now and a comfort until they slept”
_____ Page “ ‘He said something about a dead man.’ He flushed painfully at this admission that he had been present at the dance”
_____ Page “Ralph tried indignantly to remember. There was something good about a fire. Something overwhelmingly good. ‘Ralph’s told you often enough,’ said Piggy moodily. ‘How else are we going to be rescued?’”
_____ Page “ ‘I don’t know where she is now. And I haven’t got an envelope and a stamp. An’ there isn’t a mailbox. Or a postman.’ The success of his tiny joke overcame Ralph. His sniggers became uncontrollable, his body jumped and twitched”
_____ Page “ ‘There’s something moving outside’. . . Quite clearly and emphatically, and only a yard or so away from the back of the shelter, a stick cracked. . . A voice whispered horribly outside. ‘Piggy—Piggy’”
_____ Page “He began to pound the mouth below him, using his clenched fist as a hammer; he hit with more and more passionate hysteria as the face became slippery. A knee jerked up between his legs and he fell sideways, busying himself with his pain. . .”
_____ Page “ ‘When I woke up one was kicking me in the face. I got an awful bloody face, I think Ralph. But I did him I the end’. . . ‘I got my knee up,’ said Eric with simple pride, ‘and I hit him in the pills’
_____ Page “ ‘I thought they wanted the conch’. . . ‘They didn’t take the conch’ ‘I know. They didn’t come for the conch. They came for something else’ ”
_____ Page “From his left hand dangled Piggy’s broken glasses”
Chapter 11
_____ Page “ ‘Blow the conch,’ said Piggy. ‘Blow as loud as you can.’. . .Both ways the beach was deserted. Some littluns came from the shelters”
_____ Page “We’d have given them fire if they’d asked. But they stole it and the signal’s out and we can’t ever be rescued. Don’t you see what I mean? We’d have given them fire for themselves only they stole it.”
_____ Page “ ‘What’s grownups goin’ to think? Young Simon was murdered. And there was that other kid what had a mark on his face’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘You let me carry the conch, Ralph. I’ll show him the one thing he hasn’t got’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘But I don’t ask for my glasses back, not as a favor. I don’t ask you to be a sport, I’ll say, not because you’re strong, but because what’s right’s right. Give me my glasses, I’m going to say’”
_____ Page “The others nodded. They understood only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought.”
_____ Page “They passed the place where the tribe had danced. The charred sticks still lay on the rocks where the rain had quenched them but the sand by the water was smooth again. They passed this in silence”
_____ Page “Piggy peered anxiously into the luminous veil that hung between him and the world”
_____ Page “ ‘Is it safe? Ain’t there a cliff? I can hear the sea’ . . . ‘Am I safe?’ quavered Piggy. ‘I feel awful--’”
_____ Page “Freed by the paint, they had tied their hair back and were more comfortable than he was. Ralph made a resolution to tie his own back afterwards”
_____ Page “Roger took up a small stone and flung it between the twins, aiming to miss. . . Some source of power began to pulse in Roger’s body”
_____ Page “ ‘I’ve come to see about the fire’, said Ralph, ‘and about Piggy’s specs’ ”
_____ Page “Behind them on the grass the headless and paunched body of a sow lay where they had dropped it”
_____ Page “ ‘You could have had fire whenever you wanted. But you didn’t. You came sneaking up like a thief and stole Piggy’s glasses’ ”
_____ Page “Jack mad a rush and stabbed at Ralph’s chest with is spear. . . Then he brought the end round and caught Jack a stinger across the ear. . . By common consent they were using the spears as sabers now, no longer daring the lethal points”
_____ Page “He pushed his hair up and gazed at the green and black mask before him, trying to remember what Jack looked like”
_____ Page “ ‘Call that a signal fire? That’s a cooking fire. Now you’ll eat and there’ll be no smoke. Don’t you understand? There may be ships out there’ ”
_____ Page “Jack glanced back at Ralph and then at the twins. ‘Grab them!’. . . ‘Tie them up!’. . . Jack was inspired. He knew Ralph would attempt a rescue. ‘See? The do what I say’. . . ‘You’re a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I tell you, I got the conch!’ Surprisingly, there was silence now; the tribe were curious to hear what amusing thing he might have to say”
_____ Page “Someone was throwing stones. Roger was dropping them, his one hand still on the lever. Below him, Ralph was a shock of hair and Piggy a bag of fat”
_____ Page “ ‘Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?’ ”
_____ Page “By him stood Piggy still holding out the talisman, the fragile, shining beauty of the shell. The storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred. High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever. . . The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist”
_____ Page “Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy’s arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed. . . the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone”
_____ Page “ ‘See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that! There isn’t a tribe for you anymore! The conch is gone. . . I’m chief’ ”
_____ Page “The twins lay hidden behind the tribe and the anonymous devils’ faces swarmed across the neck. . . he saw the headless body of the sow and jumped in time”
_____ Page “ ‘You got to join the tribe’. . . The chief snatched one of the few spears that were left and poked Sam in the ribs. ‘What d’you mean by it, eh?’ said the chief fiercely. ‘What d’you mean by coming with spears? What d’you mean by not joining my tribe?’ ”
_____ Page “Roger edged past the chief, only just avoiding pushing him with his shoulder. The yelling ceased, and Samneric lay looking up in quiet terror. Roger advanced upon them as one wielding a nameless authority”
Chapter 12
_____ Page “But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt”
_____ Page “The tribe must be sitting round the gutted pig, watching the fat ooze and burn among the ashes. They would be intent. . . . Ralph saw that for the time being he was safe”
_____ Page “He argued unconvincingly that they would let him alone, perhaps even make an outlaw of him. But then the fatal unreasoning knowledge came to him again. The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over the island like a vapor. These painted savages would go further and further”
_____ Page “The best thing to do was to ignore this leaden feeling about the heart and rely on their common sense, their daylight sanity. Now that the tribe had eaten, the thing to do was to try again”
_____ Page “At length he came to a clearing in the forest where rock prevented vegetation from growing”
_____ Page “. . .he saw that the white face was bone and that the pig’s skull grinned at him from the top of a stick. . . .the skull gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer at him cynically. . . the thing was lifeless”
_____ Page “They were savages it was true, but they were human, and the ambushing fears of the deep night were coming on”
_____ Page “Pretend they were still boys, schoolboys who had said, ‘Sir,yes, sir’ and worn caps? Daylight might have answered yes; but darkness and the horrors of death said no”
_____ Page “Samneric were savages like the rest; Piggy was dead, and the conch smashed to powder”
_____ Page “ ‘You two aren’t painted. How can you? If it were light’ If it were light shame would burn them at admitting these things. But the night was dark”
_____ Page “ ‘They made us. They hurt us’”
_____ Page “ ‘They’re going to hunt you tomorrow’”
_____ Page “ ‘When they find me, what are they going to do?’ The twins were silent. Beneath him, the death rock flowered again”
_____ Page “ ‘You don’t know Roger. He’s a terror’ ‘And the chief—they’re both’ ‘Terrors’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I’ll lie up close; in that thicket down there’, he whispered, ‘so keep them away from it. They’ll never think to look so close’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Here!’ said Sam suddenly. ‘Take this’ Ralph felt a chunk of meat pushed against him and grabbed it”
_____ Page “ ‘Roger sharpened a stick at both ends’. Roger sharpened a stick at both ends. Ralph tried to attach a meaning to this but could not”
_____ Page “While he was eating, he heard fresh noises—cries of pain from Samneric, cries of pain, angry voices”
_____ Page “Within seconds he was worming his way into the thicket; but not before he had glimpsed the legs of a savage coming toward him”
_____ Page “One of the twins was there, outside the thicket, with Jack and Roger. ‘You’re sure he meant in there?’ The twin moaned faintly and then squealed again. ‘He meant he’d hide in there?’ ‘Yes—yes—oh!’ Silver laughter scattered among the trees. So they knew”
_____ Page “There was only one other rock up there that they might conceivably move; but that was half as big as a cottage, big as a car, a tank. He visualized its probable progress with agonizing clearness—that one would start slowly, drop from ledge to ledge, trundle across the neck like an outsize steamroller”
_____ Page “ ‘See? I told you- he’s dangerous’ The wounded savage moaned again”
_____ Page “A stick snapped and he stifled a cough. Smoke was seeping through the branches in white and yellow wisps, the patch of blue sky overhead turned to the color of a storm cloud, and then the smoke billowed round him”
_____ Page “He came to a pig-run, followed it for perhaps a hundred yards, and then swerved off”
_____ Page “Ralph thought of the boar that had broken through them with such ease. If necessary, when the chase came too close, he could charge the cordon while it was still thin, burst through, and run back”
_____ Page “Samneric were somewhere in that line, and hating it. Or were they? And supposing, instead of them, he met the chief, or Roger who carried death in his hands?”
_____ Page “There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch”
_____ Page “Most, he was beginning to dread the curtain that might waver in his brain, blacking out the sense of danger, making a simpleton of him”
_____ Page “Hide was better than a tree because you had a chance of breaking the line if you were discovered. . . . He wondered if a pig would agree, and grimaced at nothing”
_____ Page “Here, bushes and a wild tangle of creepers made a mat that kept out all the light of the sun. Beneath it was a space, perhaps a foot high, though it was pierced everywhere by parallel and rising stems”
_____ Page “If anyone peered under the bushes and chanced to glimpse human flesh it might be Samneric who would pretend not to see and say nothing”
_____ Page “The savage peered into the obscurity beneath the thicket. You could tell that he saw light on this side and on that, but not in the middle—there. In the middle was a blob of dark and the savage wrinkled up his face, trying to decipher the darkness. . . .Now he’s seen you. He’s making sure. A stick sharpened. Ralph screamed, a scream of fright and anger and desperation”
_____ Page “A naval officer stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary astonishment”
_____ Page “ ‘Are there any adults—any grown ups with you?’ ”
_____ Page “A semi-circle of little boys, their bodies streaked with colored clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all. ‘Fun and games,’ said the officer.
_____ Page “ ‘We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something’ Ralph nodded.”
_____ Page “ ‘Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?’ ‘Only two. And they’ve gone’. The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph. ‘Two? Killed?’”
_____ Page “ ‘I’m, I’m—‘ But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away”
_____ Page “ ‘I should have thought that a pack of British boys—you’re all British aren’t you? – would have been able to put up a better show than that—I mean—‘ ‘It was like that at first’, said Ralph, ‘before things---’”
_____ Page “But the island was scorched dup like dead wood—Simon was dead—and Jack had… the tears began to flow and sobs shook him. . . infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too.”
_____ Page “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall though the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy”
_____ Page “He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance”
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Lord fo the Flies _ Quotes 7-9
Lord of the Flies
Quotes Chapters 7-9
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 7
_____ Page “Ralph planned his toilet. He would like to have a pair of scissors and cut
this hair—he flung the mass back—cut this filthy hair right back to half an inch. He would like to have a bath, a proper wallow with soap. He passed his tongue experimentally over his teeth and decided that a toothbrush would come in handy too. Then there were his nails”
_____ Page “He discovered with a little fall of the heart that these were the conditions he took as normal now and that he did not mind”
_____ Page “one might dream of rescue; but here, faced by the brute obtuseness of the
ocean, the miles of division, one was clamped down, one was helpless, one was condemned”
_____ Page “ ‘It’s so big, I mean’ Simon nodded. ‘All the same. You’ll get back all
right. I think so, anyway’ ”
Notice all of Ralph’s memories of home (civilization) on pg. 112. No need to highlight, but note his homesickness in the margin.
_____ Page “Ralph was full of fright and apprehension and pride. ‘I hit him! The
spear stuck in’ . . . He sunned himself in their new respect and felt that hunting was good after all”
_____ Page “Robert squealed in mock terror, then in real pain”
_____ Page “They got his arms and legs. Ralph, carried away by a sudden thick
excitement, grabbed Eric’s spear and jabbed at Robert with it. . . All at once, Robert was screaming and struggling with the strength of frenzy. Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife. Behind him was Roger, fighting to get close”
_____ Page “Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown,
vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering”
_____ Page “Once more Ralph dreamed, letting his skillful feet deal with the difficulties of the path. Yet here his feet seemed less skillful than before”
_____ Page “Simon pushed his way to Ralph’s elbow. ‘I’ll go if you like. I don’t
mind, honestly’ ”
_____ Page “There came the sound of boys scuttling away. Astonishingly, a dark
figure moved against the tide. ‘Roger?’ ‘Yes’ ”
_____ Page “Before them, something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head
between its knees. Then the wind roared in the forest, there was confusion in the darkness, and the creature lifted its head, holding toward them the ruin of a face”
Chapter 8
_____ Page “ ‘As long as there’s light we’re brave enough. But then? And now that thing squats by the fire as though it didn’t want us to be rescued’. . . ‘So we can’t have a signal fire . . . We’re beaten’ ”
_____ Page “The sound of the inexpertly blown conch interrupted them. As though he
were serenading the rising sun, Jack went on blowing till the shelters were astir and the hunters crept to the platform and the littluns whimpered as now they so frequently did. Ralph rose obediently, and Piggy, and they went to the platform”
_____ Page “ ‘He’s like Piggy. He says things like Piggy. He isn’t a proper chief’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘He’s not a hunter. He’d never have got us meat. He isn’t a prefect and we don’t know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Hands up,’ said Jack strongly. ‘whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?’ The silence continued, breathless and heavy and full of shame. Slowly the red drained from Jack’s cheeks, then came back with a painful rush. He licked his lips and turned his head at an angle, so that his gaze avoided the embarrassment of linking with another’s eye. . . . The humiliating tears were running from the corner of each eye. . . . ‘I’m not going to be a part of Ralph’s lot’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I think we ought to climb the mountain.’. . . ‘What else is there to do?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘We got no fire on the mountain. But what’s wrong with a fire down here? A fire could be built on them rocks. On the sand, even. We’d make smoke jus the same.’ . . . Only Piggy could have the intellectual daring to suggest moving the fire from the mountain”
_____ Page “The greatest ideas are the simplest. Now that there was something to be
done they worked with passion. Piggy was so full of delight and expanding liberty in Jack’s departure, so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood”
_____ Page “ ‘We could experiment. We could find out how to make a small hot fire and then put green branches on to make smoke. Some of them leaves must be better for that than the others’ ”
_____ Page “Then for the first time he saw how few biguns there were and understood why the work had been so hard”
_____ Page “ ‘I thought perhaps . . . we ought to have a feast, kind of’. . . The three
boys sat down. They had a great mass of the fruit with them and all of it properly ripe. They grinned at Ralph as he took some and began to eat”
_____ Page “ . . .he reached the great mat that was woven by the open space and crawled inside. . . . Soon the sweat was running from his long, coarse hair. He shifted relentlessly but there was no avoiding the sun”
_____ Page “Jack was standing before a small group of boys. He was looking brilliantly happy. . . . Each of them wore the remains of a black cap and ages ago they had stood in two demure rows and their voices had been the song of angels. ‘We’ll hunt. I’m going to be chief’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I’m going to get more of the biguns away from the conch and all that. We’ll kill a pig and give a feast’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘When we kill we’ll leave some of the kill for it. Then it won’t bother us, maybe’ ”
_____ Page “A little apart from the rest, sunk in deep maternal bliss, lay the largest sow of the lot. . . .the great bladder of her belly was fringed with a row of piglets that slept or burrowed and squeaked”
_____ Page “. . . the sow staggered her way ahead of them, bleeding and mad, and the hunters followed, wedded to her in lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood”
_____ Page “Roger ran round the heap, prodding with his spear whenever pigflesh appeared. Jack was on tip of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife. . . .Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands”
_____ Page “ ‘ We’ll raid them and take fire’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘But we’ll leave part of the kill for. . .’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘This head is for the beast. It’s a gift’ ”
_____ Page “Even if he shut his eyes the sow’s head remained like an after-image. The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business”
_____ Page “. . . ignoring the indignity of being spiked on a stick”
_____ Page “Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others”
_____ Page “Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene thing grinned and dripped. . . .The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. . .the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned”
_____ Page “ ‘But nobody else understand about the fire. If someone threw you a rope when you were drowning. If a doctor said take this because if you don’t take it you’ll die—you would, wouldn’t you. . . Without the smoke signal we’ll die here”
_____ Page “ ‘No, not it. . . I mean. . what makes things break up like they do?’. . .I dunno, Ralph. I expect it’s him.’ ‘Jack?’ ‘Jack’. A taboo was evolving round that word too.
_____ Page “The forest near them burst into uproar. Demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green rushed out howling, so that the littuns fled screaming”
_____ Page “ ‘Me and my hunters, we’re living along the beach by a flat rock. We hunt and feast and have fun. If you want to join my tribe come and see us. Perhaps I’ll let you join. Perhaps not’ ”
_____ Page “The two savages looked at each other, raised their spears together and spoke in time. ‘The chief has spoken’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘When I saw Jack I was sure he’d go for the conch. Cant’ think why’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘The fire’s the most important thing on the island, because, because’--- He paused again and the silence became full of doubt and wonder. Piggy whispered urgently. ‘Rescue’. ‘Oh yes, Without the fire we can’t be rescued’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Let’s go to this feast and tell them the fire’s hard on the rest of us. And the hunting and all that, being savages I mean-it must be jolly good fun’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘You are a silly little boy,’ said the Lord of the Flies, ‘just an ignorant silly little boy’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘you’d better run off and play with the others. They think you’re batty. You don’t want Ralph to think you’re batty, do you? You like Ralph a lot, don’t you? And Piggy and Jack?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I’m warning you. I’m going to get angry. D’you see? You’re not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on the island! So don’t try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else--’ ”
Chapter 9
_____ Page “Nothing prospered but the flies who blackened their lord and made the spilt guts look like a heap of glistening coal”
_____ Page “The life-like movement would scare them off for a moment so that they made a dark cloud round the head. Then as the blue material of the parachute collapsed the corpulent figure would bow forward, sighing, and the flies settle once more”
_____ Page “he examined the white nasal bones, the teeth, the colors of corruption. He saw how pitilessly the layers of rubber and canvas held together the poor body that should be rotting away”
_____ Page “he freed them from the rocks and the figure from the wind’s indignity”
_____ Page “Even at that distance it was possible to see that most of the boys—perhaps all of the boys—were there”
_____ Page “The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible”
_____ Page “Piggy took off his glasses, stepped primly into the water, and then put them on again”
_____ Page “He laughed at Piggy expecting him to retire meekly as usual and in pained silence. Instead, Piggy beat the water with his hands”
_____ Page “ ‘P’raps we ought to go too. . .I mean—to make sure nothing happens’ ”
_____ Page “Jack, painted and garlanded, sat there like an idol. There were piles of meat on green leaves near him, and fruit, and coconut shells full of drink”
_____ Page “Immediately, Ralph and the crowd of boys were united and relieved by a storm of laughter. Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal”
_____ Page “Jack ignored them for the moment, turned his mask down to the seated boys, and pointed at them with the spear. ‘Who’s going to join my tribe’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Come away. There’s going to be trouble. And we’ve had our meat’ ”
_____ Page “Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable”
_____ Page “Roger ceased to be a pig and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily”
_____ Page “A thin was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. . . Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill. . . . It was crying out against the abominable noise, something about a body on the hill.”
_____ Page “There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws”
_____ Page “Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand”
_____ Page “On the mountaintop the parachute filled and moved; the figure slid, rose to its feet, spun, swayed down through a vastness of wet air. . .”
_____ Page “The water rose farther and dressed Simon’s coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulders became sculptured marble”
_____ Page “Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea”
Quotes Chapters 7-9
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 7
_____ Page “Ralph planned his toilet. He would like to have a pair of scissors and cut
this hair—he flung the mass back—cut this filthy hair right back to half an inch. He would like to have a bath, a proper wallow with soap. He passed his tongue experimentally over his teeth and decided that a toothbrush would come in handy too. Then there were his nails”
_____ Page “He discovered with a little fall of the heart that these were the conditions he took as normal now and that he did not mind”
_____ Page “one might dream of rescue; but here, faced by the brute obtuseness of the
ocean, the miles of division, one was clamped down, one was helpless, one was condemned”
_____ Page “ ‘It’s so big, I mean’ Simon nodded. ‘All the same. You’ll get back all
right. I think so, anyway’ ”
Notice all of Ralph’s memories of home (civilization) on pg. 112. No need to highlight, but note his homesickness in the margin.
_____ Page “Ralph was full of fright and apprehension and pride. ‘I hit him! The
spear stuck in’ . . . He sunned himself in their new respect and felt that hunting was good after all”
_____ Page “Robert squealed in mock terror, then in real pain”
_____ Page “They got his arms and legs. Ralph, carried away by a sudden thick
excitement, grabbed Eric’s spear and jabbed at Robert with it. . . All at once, Robert was screaming and struggling with the strength of frenzy. Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife. Behind him was Roger, fighting to get close”
_____ Page “Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown,
vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering”
_____ Page “Once more Ralph dreamed, letting his skillful feet deal with the difficulties of the path. Yet here his feet seemed less skillful than before”
_____ Page “Simon pushed his way to Ralph’s elbow. ‘I’ll go if you like. I don’t
mind, honestly’ ”
_____ Page “There came the sound of boys scuttling away. Astonishingly, a dark
figure moved against the tide. ‘Roger?’ ‘Yes’ ”
_____ Page “Before them, something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head
between its knees. Then the wind roared in the forest, there was confusion in the darkness, and the creature lifted its head, holding toward them the ruin of a face”
Chapter 8
_____ Page “ ‘As long as there’s light we’re brave enough. But then? And now that thing squats by the fire as though it didn’t want us to be rescued’. . . ‘So we can’t have a signal fire . . . We’re beaten’ ”
_____ Page “The sound of the inexpertly blown conch interrupted them. As though he
were serenading the rising sun, Jack went on blowing till the shelters were astir and the hunters crept to the platform and the littluns whimpered as now they so frequently did. Ralph rose obediently, and Piggy, and they went to the platform”
_____ Page “ ‘He’s like Piggy. He says things like Piggy. He isn’t a proper chief’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘He’s not a hunter. He’d never have got us meat. He isn’t a prefect and we don’t know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Hands up,’ said Jack strongly. ‘whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?’ The silence continued, breathless and heavy and full of shame. Slowly the red drained from Jack’s cheeks, then came back with a painful rush. He licked his lips and turned his head at an angle, so that his gaze avoided the embarrassment of linking with another’s eye. . . . The humiliating tears were running from the corner of each eye. . . . ‘I’m not going to be a part of Ralph’s lot’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I think we ought to climb the mountain.’. . . ‘What else is there to do?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘We got no fire on the mountain. But what’s wrong with a fire down here? A fire could be built on them rocks. On the sand, even. We’d make smoke jus the same.’ . . . Only Piggy could have the intellectual daring to suggest moving the fire from the mountain”
_____ Page “The greatest ideas are the simplest. Now that there was something to be
done they worked with passion. Piggy was so full of delight and expanding liberty in Jack’s departure, so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood”
_____ Page “ ‘We could experiment. We could find out how to make a small hot fire and then put green branches on to make smoke. Some of them leaves must be better for that than the others’ ”
_____ Page “Then for the first time he saw how few biguns there were and understood why the work had been so hard”
_____ Page “ ‘I thought perhaps . . . we ought to have a feast, kind of’. . . The three
boys sat down. They had a great mass of the fruit with them and all of it properly ripe. They grinned at Ralph as he took some and began to eat”
_____ Page “ . . .he reached the great mat that was woven by the open space and crawled inside. . . . Soon the sweat was running from his long, coarse hair. He shifted relentlessly but there was no avoiding the sun”
_____ Page “Jack was standing before a small group of boys. He was looking brilliantly happy. . . . Each of them wore the remains of a black cap and ages ago they had stood in two demure rows and their voices had been the song of angels. ‘We’ll hunt. I’m going to be chief’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I’m going to get more of the biguns away from the conch and all that. We’ll kill a pig and give a feast’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘When we kill we’ll leave some of the kill for it. Then it won’t bother us, maybe’ ”
_____ Page “A little apart from the rest, sunk in deep maternal bliss, lay the largest sow of the lot. . . .the great bladder of her belly was fringed with a row of piglets that slept or burrowed and squeaked”
_____ Page “. . . the sow staggered her way ahead of them, bleeding and mad, and the hunters followed, wedded to her in lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood”
_____ Page “Roger ran round the heap, prodding with his spear whenever pigflesh appeared. Jack was on tip of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife. . . .Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands”
_____ Page “ ‘ We’ll raid them and take fire’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘But we’ll leave part of the kill for. . .’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘This head is for the beast. It’s a gift’ ”
_____ Page “Even if he shut his eyes the sow’s head remained like an after-image. The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business”
_____ Page “. . . ignoring the indignity of being spiked on a stick”
_____ Page “Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others”
_____ Page “Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene thing grinned and dripped. . . .The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. . .the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned”
_____ Page “ ‘But nobody else understand about the fire. If someone threw you a rope when you were drowning. If a doctor said take this because if you don’t take it you’ll die—you would, wouldn’t you. . . Without the smoke signal we’ll die here”
_____ Page “ ‘No, not it. . . I mean. . what makes things break up like they do?’. . .I dunno, Ralph. I expect it’s him.’ ‘Jack?’ ‘Jack’. A taboo was evolving round that word too.
_____ Page “The forest near them burst into uproar. Demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green rushed out howling, so that the littuns fled screaming”
_____ Page “ ‘Me and my hunters, we’re living along the beach by a flat rock. We hunt and feast and have fun. If you want to join my tribe come and see us. Perhaps I’ll let you join. Perhaps not’ ”
_____ Page “The two savages looked at each other, raised their spears together and spoke in time. ‘The chief has spoken’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘When I saw Jack I was sure he’d go for the conch. Cant’ think why’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘The fire’s the most important thing on the island, because, because’--- He paused again and the silence became full of doubt and wonder. Piggy whispered urgently. ‘Rescue’. ‘Oh yes, Without the fire we can’t be rescued’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Let’s go to this feast and tell them the fire’s hard on the rest of us. And the hunting and all that, being savages I mean-it must be jolly good fun’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘You are a silly little boy,’ said the Lord of the Flies, ‘just an ignorant silly little boy’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘you’d better run off and play with the others. They think you’re batty. You don’t want Ralph to think you’re batty, do you? You like Ralph a lot, don’t you? And Piggy and Jack?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I’m warning you. I’m going to get angry. D’you see? You’re not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on the island! So don’t try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else--’ ”
Chapter 9
_____ Page “Nothing prospered but the flies who blackened their lord and made the spilt guts look like a heap of glistening coal”
_____ Page “The life-like movement would scare them off for a moment so that they made a dark cloud round the head. Then as the blue material of the parachute collapsed the corpulent figure would bow forward, sighing, and the flies settle once more”
_____ Page “he examined the white nasal bones, the teeth, the colors of corruption. He saw how pitilessly the layers of rubber and canvas held together the poor body that should be rotting away”
_____ Page “he freed them from the rocks and the figure from the wind’s indignity”
_____ Page “Even at that distance it was possible to see that most of the boys—perhaps all of the boys—were there”
_____ Page “The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible”
_____ Page “Piggy took off his glasses, stepped primly into the water, and then put them on again”
_____ Page “He laughed at Piggy expecting him to retire meekly as usual and in pained silence. Instead, Piggy beat the water with his hands”
_____ Page “ ‘P’raps we ought to go too. . .I mean—to make sure nothing happens’ ”
_____ Page “Jack, painted and garlanded, sat there like an idol. There were piles of meat on green leaves near him, and fruit, and coconut shells full of drink”
_____ Page “Immediately, Ralph and the crowd of boys were united and relieved by a storm of laughter. Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal”
_____ Page “Jack ignored them for the moment, turned his mask down to the seated boys, and pointed at them with the spear. ‘Who’s going to join my tribe’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Come away. There’s going to be trouble. And we’ve had our meat’ ”
_____ Page “Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable”
_____ Page “Roger ceased to be a pig and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily”
_____ Page “A thin was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. . . Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill. . . . It was crying out against the abominable noise, something about a body on the hill.”
_____ Page “There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws”
_____ Page “Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand”
_____ Page “On the mountaintop the parachute filled and moved; the figure slid, rose to its feet, spun, swayed down through a vastness of wet air. . .”
_____ Page “The water rose farther and dressed Simon’s coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulders became sculptured marble”
_____ Page “Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea”
Lord fo the Flies _ Quotes 4-6
Lord of the Flies
Quotes Chapters 4-6
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 4
_____ Page “At midday the illusions merged into the sky and there the sun gazed
down like an angry eye”
_____ Page “Ever since then he had been peaked, red-eyed, and miserable; a littlun
who played little and cried often”
_____ Page “The smaller boys were known now by the generic title of ‘littluns’”
_____ Page “They suffered untold terrors in the dark and huddled together for
comfort”
_____ Page “They obeyed the summons of the conch, partly because Ralph blew it,
and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority”
_____ Page “Roger led the way straight through the castles, kicking them over,
burying the flowers, scattering the chosen stones. Maurice followed,
laughing, and added to the destruction”
_____ Page “In his other life Maurice had received chastisement for filling a younger
eye with sand. Now, though there was no parent to let fall a heavy hand, Maurice still felt the unease of wrongdoing”
_____ Page “He made little runnels that the tide filled and tried to crowd them with
creatures. He became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints became bays in which they were trapped and gave him the illusion of mastery”
_____ Page “Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there
was a spaced round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible, yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins”
_____ Page “When Roger opened his eyes and saw him, a darker shadow crept
beneath the swarthiness of his skin; but Jack noticed nothing”
_____ Page “He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He
capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from the shame of self-consciousness”
_____ Page “He was the only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow”
_____ Page “Piggy was a bore; his fat, his ass-mar, and his mater-of-fact ideas were
dull, but there was always a little pleasure to be got out of pulling his leg, even if one did it by accident”
_____ Page “Piggy saw the smile and misinterpreted it as friendliness”
_____ Page “Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by
fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor”
_____ Page “Piggy, always clumsy, stood up and came to stand by him, so that Ralph
rolled on his stomach and pretended not to see”
_____ Page “The smoke was a tight little knot on the horizon and was uncoiling
slowly. Beneath the smoke was a dot that might be a funnel. Ralph’s face was pale as he spoke to himself. ‘They’ll see our smoke’”
_____ Page “A moment later he was battling with the complex undergrowth that was
already engulfing the scar”
_____ Page “Ralph reached inside himself for the worst word he knew. ‘They let the
bloody fire go out’”
_____ Page “Ralph picked out Jack easily, even at that distance, tall read-haired, and
inevitably leading the procession”
_____ Page “Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying the great stake on their shoulders.
The gutted carcass of a pig swung from the stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven ground”
_____ Page “Instead, he danced a step or two, then remembered his dignity and stood
still, grinning. He noticed blood on his hands and grimaced distastefully, looked for something on which to clean them, then wiped them on his shorts and laughed”
_____ Page “ ‘You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might
have gone home--”
_____ Page “Jack smacked Piggy’s head. Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the
rocks. . . . ‘One side’s broken’”
_____ Page “. . . they were on different sides of a high barrier”
_____ Page “He meant to refuse meat, but his past diet of fruit and nuts, with an odd
crab or fish, gave him too little resistance”
_____ Page “ ‘Aren’t I having none?’ Jack had meant to leave him in doubt, as an assertion of power; but Piggy by advertising his omission made more cruelty necessary. ‘You didn’t hunt.’ ‘No more did Ralph,’ said Piggy wetly, ‘nor Simon.’. . . Simon, sitting between the twins and Piggy, wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who grabbed it”
_____ Page “With the conch. I’m calling a meeting even if we have to go on into the
dark. Down on the platform. When I blow it. Now”
Chapter 5
_____ Page “He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where
every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s waking life was spent watching one’s feet”
_____ Page “This meeting must not be fun, but business”
_____ Page “With a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay, understood how much he disliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair out of his eyes, and at last, when the sun was gone, rolling noisily to rest among dry leaves”
_____ Page “Perhaps one of those legendary storms of the Pacific had shifted it here”
_____ Page “Once more that evening Ralph had to adjust his values. Piggy could
think. He could go step by step inside that fat head of his, only Piggy was no chief. But Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains. Ralph was a specialist in thought now, and could recognize thought in another”
_____ Page “Piggy came and stood outside the triangle. This indicated that he wished to listen, but would not speak; and Piggy intended it as a gesture of disapproval”
_____ Page “ ‘We decide things. But they don’t get done. We were going to have
water brought from the stream and left in those coconut shells under fresh leaves. So it was, for a few days. Now there’s no water. The shells are dry. People drink from the river’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘We all built the first one, four of us the second one, and me ‘n Simon
built the last one over there. That’s why it’s so tottery. No. Don’t laugh. That shelter might fall down if the rain comes back. We’ll need those shelters then’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘We chose those rocks right along beyond the bathing pool as a lavatory. That was sensible too. The tide cleans the place up. You littluns know about that. . . Now people seem to use anywhere. Even near the shelters and platform. . . This place is getting dirty’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Look at us! How many are we? And yet we can’t keep a fire going to make smoke. Don’t you understand? Can’t you see we ought to—ought to die before we let the fire out?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Things are breaking up. I don’t understand why. We began well; we were happy. And then. . . Then people started getting frightened’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I know there isn’t no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I
know there isn’t no fear, either. . . . Unless we get frightened of people’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I wanted—to go to a place—a place I know’ ”
_____ Page “There had been no further numberings of the littluns, partly because there was no means of ensuring that all of them were accounted for and partly because Ralph knew the answer to at least one question Piggy had asked on the mountaintop. . . . No one had seen the mulberry-colored birthmark again’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘What I mean is. . . maybe it’s only us.’ . . . Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness”
_____ Page “The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Once there was this and that; and now-and the ship had gone”
_____ Page “ ‘What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think? Going off—hunting pigs—letting fires out—and now’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued’ ‘If you don’t blow, we’ll soon be animals anyway. I can’t see what they’re doing but I can hear’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘If Jack was chief he’d have all hunting and no fire. We’d be here till we died’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘If you give up,’ said Piggy, in an appalled whisper, ‘what’ud happen to me?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘He can’t hurt you; but if you stand out of the way he’d hurt the next thing. And that’s me.’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘We’re all drifting and things are going rotten. At home there was always a grownup. Please, sir; please, miss; and then you got an answer. How I wish’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Grownups know things,’ said Piggy. ‘They ain’t afraid of the dark’ ”
_____ Page “The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life”
_____ Page “ ‘If only they could send us something grownup…a sign or something’ ”
Chapter 6
_____ Page “But a sign came down from the world of grown-ups, though at the time there was no child awake to read it. There was a sudden bright explosion and corkscrew trail across the sky; then darkness again and stars. There was a speck above the island, a figure dropping swiftly beneath a parachute, a figure that hung with dangling limbs. . . . The figure fell and crumpled among the blue flowers of the mountainside, but now there was a gentle breeze at this height too and the parachute flopped and banged and pulled”
_____ Page “But they could never manage to do things sensibly if that meant acting independently, and since staying awake all night was impossible, they had both gone to sleep”
_____ Page “Eric watched the scurring woodlice that were so frantically unable to avoid the flames, and thought of the first fire—just down there, on the steeper side of the mountain, where now was complete darkness. He did not like to remember it, and looked away at the mountaintop”
_____ Page “Then as though they had but one terrified mind between them they scrambled away over the rocks and fled”
_____ Page “Ralph was dreaming. . . for he was back to where he came from, feeding the ponies with sugar over the garden wall”
_____ Page “Ralph stood up and walked for the sake of dignity, though with his back pricking, to the platform”
_____ Page “By custom now one conch did for both twins, for their substantial unity was recognized”
_____ Page “ ‘We don’t need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us’ ”
_____ Page “Ralph could no longer ignore his speech. The blood was hot in his cheeks. ‘You haven’t got the conch’, he said. ‘Sit down’ ”
_____ Page “Piggy let out his breath with a gasp, reached for it again and failed. He lay against a log, his mouth gaping, blue shadows creeping round his lips. Nobody minded him”
_____ Page “Ralph walked in the rear, thankful to have escaped responsibility for a time”
_____ Page “However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick”
_____ Page “ ‘What a place for a fort!’ . . . ‘Not me. This is a rotten place’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I’m chief. We’ve got to make certain. Can’t you see the mountain? There’s no signal showing. There may be a ship out there. Are you all off your rockers?’ Mutinously, the boys fell silent or muttering. Jack led the way down the rock and across the bridge”
Quotes Chapters 4-6
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 4
_____ Page “At midday the illusions merged into the sky and there the sun gazed
down like an angry eye”
_____ Page “Ever since then he had been peaked, red-eyed, and miserable; a littlun
who played little and cried often”
_____ Page “The smaller boys were known now by the generic title of ‘littluns’”
_____ Page “They suffered untold terrors in the dark and huddled together for
comfort”
_____ Page “They obeyed the summons of the conch, partly because Ralph blew it,
and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority”
_____ Page “Roger led the way straight through the castles, kicking them over,
burying the flowers, scattering the chosen stones. Maurice followed,
laughing, and added to the destruction”
_____ Page “In his other life Maurice had received chastisement for filling a younger
eye with sand. Now, though there was no parent to let fall a heavy hand, Maurice still felt the unease of wrongdoing”
_____ Page “He made little runnels that the tide filled and tried to crowd them with
creatures. He became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints became bays in which they were trapped and gave him the illusion of mastery”
_____ Page “Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there
was a spaced round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible, yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins”
_____ Page “When Roger opened his eyes and saw him, a darker shadow crept
beneath the swarthiness of his skin; but Jack noticed nothing”
_____ Page “He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He
capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from the shame of self-consciousness”
_____ Page “He was the only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow”
_____ Page “Piggy was a bore; his fat, his ass-mar, and his mater-of-fact ideas were
dull, but there was always a little pleasure to be got out of pulling his leg, even if one did it by accident”
_____ Page “Piggy saw the smile and misinterpreted it as friendliness”
_____ Page “Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by
fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor”
_____ Page “Piggy, always clumsy, stood up and came to stand by him, so that Ralph
rolled on his stomach and pretended not to see”
_____ Page “The smoke was a tight little knot on the horizon and was uncoiling
slowly. Beneath the smoke was a dot that might be a funnel. Ralph’s face was pale as he spoke to himself. ‘They’ll see our smoke’”
_____ Page “A moment later he was battling with the complex undergrowth that was
already engulfing the scar”
_____ Page “Ralph reached inside himself for the worst word he knew. ‘They let the
bloody fire go out’”
_____ Page “Ralph picked out Jack easily, even at that distance, tall read-haired, and
inevitably leading the procession”
_____ Page “Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying the great stake on their shoulders.
The gutted carcass of a pig swung from the stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven ground”
_____ Page “Instead, he danced a step or two, then remembered his dignity and stood
still, grinning. He noticed blood on his hands and grimaced distastefully, looked for something on which to clean them, then wiped them on his shorts and laughed”
_____ Page “ ‘You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might
have gone home--”
_____ Page “Jack smacked Piggy’s head. Piggy’s glasses flew off and tinkled on the
rocks. . . . ‘One side’s broken’”
_____ Page “. . . they were on different sides of a high barrier”
_____ Page “He meant to refuse meat, but his past diet of fruit and nuts, with an odd
crab or fish, gave him too little resistance”
_____ Page “ ‘Aren’t I having none?’ Jack had meant to leave him in doubt, as an assertion of power; but Piggy by advertising his omission made more cruelty necessary. ‘You didn’t hunt.’ ‘No more did Ralph,’ said Piggy wetly, ‘nor Simon.’. . . Simon, sitting between the twins and Piggy, wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who grabbed it”
_____ Page “With the conch. I’m calling a meeting even if we have to go on into the
dark. Down on the platform. When I blow it. Now”
Chapter 5
_____ Page “He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where
every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s waking life was spent watching one’s feet”
_____ Page “This meeting must not be fun, but business”
_____ Page “With a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay, understood how much he disliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair out of his eyes, and at last, when the sun was gone, rolling noisily to rest among dry leaves”
_____ Page “Perhaps one of those legendary storms of the Pacific had shifted it here”
_____ Page “Once more that evening Ralph had to adjust his values. Piggy could
think. He could go step by step inside that fat head of his, only Piggy was no chief. But Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains. Ralph was a specialist in thought now, and could recognize thought in another”
_____ Page “Piggy came and stood outside the triangle. This indicated that he wished to listen, but would not speak; and Piggy intended it as a gesture of disapproval”
_____ Page “ ‘We decide things. But they don’t get done. We were going to have
water brought from the stream and left in those coconut shells under fresh leaves. So it was, for a few days. Now there’s no water. The shells are dry. People drink from the river’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘We all built the first one, four of us the second one, and me ‘n Simon
built the last one over there. That’s why it’s so tottery. No. Don’t laugh. That shelter might fall down if the rain comes back. We’ll need those shelters then’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘We chose those rocks right along beyond the bathing pool as a lavatory. That was sensible too. The tide cleans the place up. You littluns know about that. . . Now people seem to use anywhere. Even near the shelters and platform. . . This place is getting dirty’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Look at us! How many are we? And yet we can’t keep a fire going to make smoke. Don’t you understand? Can’t you see we ought to—ought to die before we let the fire out?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Things are breaking up. I don’t understand why. We began well; we were happy. And then. . . Then people started getting frightened’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I know there isn’t no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I
know there isn’t no fear, either. . . . Unless we get frightened of people’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I wanted—to go to a place—a place I know’ ”
_____ Page “There had been no further numberings of the littluns, partly because there was no means of ensuring that all of them were accounted for and partly because Ralph knew the answer to at least one question Piggy had asked on the mountaintop. . . . No one had seen the mulberry-colored birthmark again’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘What I mean is. . . maybe it’s only us.’ . . . Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness”
_____ Page “The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Once there was this and that; and now-and the ship had gone”
_____ Page “ ‘What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think? Going off—hunting pigs—letting fires out—and now’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued’ ‘If you don’t blow, we’ll soon be animals anyway. I can’t see what they’re doing but I can hear’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘If Jack was chief he’d have all hunting and no fire. We’d be here till we died’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘If you give up,’ said Piggy, in an appalled whisper, ‘what’ud happen to me?’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘He can’t hurt you; but if you stand out of the way he’d hurt the next thing. And that’s me.’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘We’re all drifting and things are going rotten. At home there was always a grownup. Please, sir; please, miss; and then you got an answer. How I wish’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘Grownups know things,’ said Piggy. ‘They ain’t afraid of the dark’ ”
_____ Page “The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life”
_____ Page “ ‘If only they could send us something grownup…a sign or something’ ”
Chapter 6
_____ Page “But a sign came down from the world of grown-ups, though at the time there was no child awake to read it. There was a sudden bright explosion and corkscrew trail across the sky; then darkness again and stars. There was a speck above the island, a figure dropping swiftly beneath a parachute, a figure that hung with dangling limbs. . . . The figure fell and crumpled among the blue flowers of the mountainside, but now there was a gentle breeze at this height too and the parachute flopped and banged and pulled”
_____ Page “But they could never manage to do things sensibly if that meant acting independently, and since staying awake all night was impossible, they had both gone to sleep”
_____ Page “Eric watched the scurring woodlice that were so frantically unable to avoid the flames, and thought of the first fire—just down there, on the steeper side of the mountain, where now was complete darkness. He did not like to remember it, and looked away at the mountaintop”
_____ Page “Then as though they had but one terrified mind between them they scrambled away over the rocks and fled”
_____ Page “Ralph was dreaming. . . for he was back to where he came from, feeding the ponies with sugar over the garden wall”
_____ Page “Ralph stood up and walked for the sake of dignity, though with his back pricking, to the platform”
_____ Page “By custom now one conch did for both twins, for their substantial unity was recognized”
_____ Page “ ‘We don’t need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us’ ”
_____ Page “Ralph could no longer ignore his speech. The blood was hot in his cheeks. ‘You haven’t got the conch’, he said. ‘Sit down’ ”
_____ Page “Piggy let out his breath with a gasp, reached for it again and failed. He lay against a log, his mouth gaping, blue shadows creeping round his lips. Nobody minded him”
_____ Page “Ralph walked in the rear, thankful to have escaped responsibility for a time”
_____ Page “However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick”
_____ Page “ ‘What a place for a fort!’ . . . ‘Not me. This is a rotten place’ ”
_____ Page “ ‘I’m chief. We’ve got to make certain. Can’t you see the mountain? There’s no signal showing. There may be a ship out there. Are you all off your rockers?’ Mutinously, the boys fell silent or muttering. Jack led the way down the rock and across the bridge”
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.”
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.”
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