Lord of the Flies: Brief Summary

Lord of the flies is a novel by British writer William Golding in 1954. This book places its focus on a group of British boys marooned on a deserted island and their futile attempt at governing themselves. This tale is a social commentary on the evil inherent in all human beings. The darkness within every soul that manifests whenever people are uncivilized, unsupervised and driven to insanity.

Summary of the Story

In the heat of a nuclear war, a group of boys finds themselves abandoned within an island when their plane crashes. Without any adult to supervise them, they need to work together to survive. The boys decide to elect their leader who happens to be 12-year-old Ralph.

Ralph insists on making a smoke signal. Therefore, he suggests that the group be split into smaller sub-groups with specific tasks. The choirboys choose to hunt for meat under the leadership of Jack. Two twin boys get assigned the task of starting and maintaining the fire. Some younger boys, known as littluns become Ralph’s counsel. They comprise a scientific thinker known as piggy and a spiritual boy known as Simon.

The hunters, under Jack’s leadership, become increasingly obsessed with killing sows to the extent that they paint their faces and track animals. All the other boys start having fears about an alleged beast in the jungle. These fears are compounded by the landing of a dead man with a parachute on top of the mountain. The boys start to view jack as a savior and leader. Others fear him.

One day while Simon was in his hiding place, he saw a sow head mounted upon a stake and began to experience delusions that the head is talking to him. Upon going up the mountain to investigate, he realizes the truth that it is only a dead man strapped on a parachute. He then rushes to the beach to inform the others.

However, upon arriving at the beach, he finds that they have become total savages participating in daily tribal rituals and dissident torture members. He attempts to tell them the truth but gets killed by Jack’s mob. Soon afterward, the mob, led by jack grows in size and recruits every other island boy saves for Piggy, Ralph, Eric, Sam, and some other Littluns.

Jack’s mob then raids Ralph’s camp and steals his glasses. When Ralph tries to get them back, they attack his team and end up killing Piggy and injuring Ralph. The following day, the tribe chases Ralph in a bid to kill him, but he ends up being saved by a British soldier who arrived at the beach after seeing the smoke signal.