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Unit 25: William Golding — Lord of the Flies: Detailed Study of Text-I

Jack’s explicit rejection of the democratic rules established in the boys’ first meeting. Jack Notes
emerges in Chapter Six as driven less by totalitarian or anarchist ideology than by self-interest,
although the anarchy makes room for a new order led totally by Jack.
Jack’s increasing credibility among the group isolates Ralph from the other boys, who find
Jack’s focus on the games of hunting and building forts more appealing than Ralph’s commitment
to keeping the fire burning and remaining safe. After all, what is so bad about a life on the
beach with plenty of fruit and fun? Throughout the chapter, Golding develops this rift between
the more mature Ralph and the other boys. Ralph finds he must ally himself with the intellectual
Piggy and the introspective Simon. As the other boys narrow their focus to pure self-interest,
with a limited focus on survival (killing the beast) and a greater goal of satisfying their boyish
desires (playing as hunters), the three boys represent three facets of distinctly human thought.
Ralph, who strives to balance priorities successfully, represents practical reason and democratic
ethics. Piggy the problem-solver represents pure intellect. Simon, in contrast, is a spiritual
thinker who demonstrates the ability to transcend individual interests in order to achieve not
just peace but harmony with others and with the natural environment.

Significantly, Golding begins Chapter Six with a description of an aerial battle that, unlike
most of the narrative, is not filtered through one of the boys’ perspectives. The reader learns
of the events of the battle while the boys remain sleeping and unaware. This special knowledge
calls our attention to the dramatic irony here, the gap between reality and the boys’ interpretation
of that reality. The group’s hysterical reaction to the “beast from air,” which the reader knows
is a dead parachutist, underscores how distorted, irrational, and fear-driven the boys’ reasoning
is. Rather than leaving readers with the boys’ perspective, which would require readers to
figure out the reality of the situation on their own, Golding briefly gives the reader an objective
viewpoint in order to help readers perceive the danger of the children’s mounting irrationality.
Moreover, the chapter’s opening description of the aerial battle highlights one of the novel’s
missions, that is, as a political allegory rooted in the Cold War. The war described here is
fictional and accords with no real historical events; nevertheless, the rhetoric Golding uses in
this section evokes the conflict of the Cold War. The battle is between England and “the Reds,”
and an atom bomb-the main weapon at issue in the arms race-is responsible for evacuating the
children from the Home Counties. Golding plays on the fears of Cold War America and Great
Britain to reinforce his cautionary tale about the superiority of democracy. That the war again
threatens the boys, through the misinterpreted figure of the dead parachutist, also draws the
reader’s attention to the fact that the children are primarily victims of war. From this perspective,
the tragic events to follow are consequences of a global crisis rooted as much in war as in
human nature.
Again in Chapter Six, Golding uses religious symbolism to express the underlying themes of
the novel. The dead parachutist appears to the boys as a supernatural creature; Golding enforces
the twins’ interpretation by describing the dead body with mystical imagery and language.
The body appears to lift and drop its own head, and the flapping parachute opens and closes
in the wind. Samneric describe it as a “beast,” but Golding’s opening description, which
follows the parachutist as he drifts across the island-as well as the wing-like quality of his torn
parachute-implies that he is more akin to a fallen angel. In Judeo-Christian mythology the first
fallen angel was Lucifer, who later became Satan, the incarnation of evil. The parachutist thus
serves as a symbol of, and motivation for, the evil that is now manifesting on the island. The
Satanic function of the dead body is compounded by the violent, tragic action that results from
the confusion surrounding its identity.

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