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Fiction

Notes Analysis

The weight of leadership becomes oppressive for Ralph as the story continues; he is dutiful
and dedicated, but his attempts to instill order and calm among the boys are decreasingly
successful. Golding develops Ralph’s particular concerns and insecurities in this chapter. By
showing him brooding over his perceived failures, Golding highlights Ralph’s essentially
responsible, adult nature. Ralph’s concern about his appearance, and particularly his grown-
out hair, indicate his natural inclination towards the conventions of civilization. Although
Ralph demonstrates a more than sufficient intellect, he also worries that he lacks Piggy’s
genius. His one consolation is that he realizes that his abilities as a thinker allow him to
recognize the same in Piggy, again a rational observation that draws the reader’s attention to
his potential as a leader. The implication is that deviations from Ralph’s plans will be illogical,
ill-informed, and dangerous.
Ralph still has a strong sense of self-doubt. He is not immune to fear, which he admits to the
boys, and he even feels it necessary to ask Piggy whether there might actually be a ghost on
the island. Thus, Golding presents Ralph as a reluctant leader. His elected position of chief has
been thrust upon him, and he assumes it only because he is the most natural and qualified
leader. He has no real ambition or drive, such as the rapacious energy that motivates Jack, but
he knows that the boys will be best provided for under his care. It is Ralph who is most
concerned with the rules of order on the island. He accurately tells the boys that without the
rules, the boys have nothing. Ralph’s rules keep the boys tethered to some semblance of
society, but without these rules there will be disastrous consequences.
Piggy remains the only fully rational character during the assembly and afterward. Piggy is
the only boy who categorically dismisses the idea of a beast on the island, and he even
reassures the generally unwavering Ralph on this point. It is Piggy who realizes that the boys’
fear is the only danger that they truly face so long as they have enough food to survive, and
even this fear proves no actual threat to them. Still, the outcast Piggy once again is ignored
in favor of lurid tales of beasts and ghosts; although he is consistently correct in his judgments,
Piggy is continually ignored. He raises the important question of whether the boys wish to act
like humans, savages, or animals. Once again, Ralph and Piggy exemplify civilized human
order, while Jack represents a brutal anarchy that may devolve into animal behavior.
The conflict between Jack and Ralph, with Piggy as his ally, reaches a breaking point in this
chapter. Although Jack initially dismisses the idea of a beast on the island, he comes to accept
the idea when they conceive of the beast as an enemy that his hunters may kill. Jack continues
to be an aggressive and destructive force. He again physically threatens Piggy, foreshadowing
the eventual violent conflict between the two boys, and he even manipulates the young boys’
fear of monsters and ghosts. During the assembly Jack fully abandons the rules and codes of
society. He promotes anarchy among the boys, leading them on a disorganized hunt for an
imaginary beast. While Ralph is appointed leader for his calm demeanor and rationality, Jack
gains his authority from irrationality and instinctual fear, manipulating the boys into thinking
that there may be a dangerous creature that they should hunt. This behavior is dangerous;
Ralph concludes that a focus on hunting will prevent them from ever leaving the island and
seal their fate as no more than animals.
The assembly highlights how fear ferments and spreads in a group. The littluns begin with a
concrete example of a frightening incident that is easily explained and is understandable, but
the idea of something more sinister on the island provokes mass hysteria. The terrors that the
boys imagine become progressively more abstract and threatening. Percival uses concrete facts
about squids to arrive at an illogical conclusion that a squid may emerge from the sea to harm
them. This then provokes the unfounded rumors that there may be supernatural beings, ghosts,
on the island.

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