Lord of the Flies by William Golding

What happens to “good kids” when the only thing enforcing morality is gone? We pick up William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and follow the story past the classroom summary into the uncomfortable stuff: status, scapegoats, fear, and the speed at which a group can trade principles for power.

We talk through Golding’s deceptively simple writing style and why it makes the novel hit harder. Ralph’s easy charisma collides with Piggy’s intelligence and outsider vulnerability, and we track how the conch shell tries to stand in for law and shared voice. Then the symbols sharpen: Piggy’s glasses become a currency of control, and the signal fire shifts from rescue plan to deadly consequence when the boys choose action without thought.

From there, the island turns into a case study in group psychology. The “beast” grows from a nightmare into mass hysteria, the parachutist becomes a chilling war-born illusion, and Jack learns exactly how to weaponize fear with ritual, face paint, and a cult of personality. We unpack the moral breaking points, the denial that follows violence, and the bitter irony of a rescue sparked by destruction.

If you like literary analysis podcasts, classic literature discussions, and psychology of leadership under pressure, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share the episode with a fellow reader, and leave a review with your take: is Golding making an indictment of human nature, or a warning about what fear can make us become?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Welcome back. What happens when civilization is reduced to just children? This week we're diving into William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a novel that has haunted classrooms for generations and challenged readers with one unsettling question. Are we naturally good or is civilization the thin veneer keeping our darker instincts in check? It's one of those books almost everyone has heard of. Many have read it, but how many of us have really wrestled with what Golding is saying? Because this isn't simply just a story about survival. It's an autopsy of society. Golding strips away laws, institutions, parents, schools, religion, and consequence until only human nature remains. What emerges isn't merely chaos. It is a struggle between reason and impulse, cooperation and domination, truth

Why Lord Of The Flies Haunts Us

SPEAKER_02 1:40

and fear. And perhaps most disturbing of all, the monsters aren't hiding in the jungle, they're hiding in us. Is Golding right? Is humanity fundamentally inclined towards violence when external restraints disappear? Or was Golding riding through the lens of a world shattered by war, projecting the horrors of the twentieth century onto children? History offers evidence for both sides. We have countless examples of communities coming together after disasters, neighbors risking everything to save strangers. Perhaps that's why Lord of the Flies still feels so relevant, because the island isn't really an island. It's every school cafeteria where exclusion becomes entertainment, every social media platform where outrage earns applause, every political movement that decides disagreements make someone an enemy, every society tempted to trade principles for power. So grab your conch shell. If anyone's still willing to listen, let's light the fire. All right, Liz. I think it's your job to summarize Lord of the Flies.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

And as a literature teacher, that should be pretty simple, although Lord of the Flies seems to get more complicated every single time I read it. So Lord of the Flies is a novel by William Golding that was written in 1954. That really brings it into context because clearly Golding is coming off of World War II. We've got the Cold War, we've got a lot of things ramping up in society and then coming back down, just the devastation that is left afterwards. And so Golding really takes this moment to examine these children and what would happen if children crash-landed on an island and then had to form their own society without adults. And that's

Plot Setup After The Crash

SPEAKER_01 3:26

what happens. So in our novel, presumably these boys, because they're all boys from a boys' school, are being transported by plane to a safer location in the midst of war. That plane goes down, the adults are killed, and some of the boys make it to the island, a good group of them, while some are lost. And what we see develop from that point is a multitude of personalities amongst the boys, natural leaders stepping up and vying for power, if there is such a thing as natural leadership amongst 12 and 13-year-olds. We have people stepping up, we have younger children, we've got the innocent, the submissive, the aggressive, the people that are naturally taken advantage of, and the people that take advantage. And all these things begin to develop in this microcosm of society on this island. We watch it start, we watch it hit a kind of peak, and then we watch it degenerate. And that is really what we're battling with as we deal with these boys trying to survive. No adults, no girls, no one over the age of approximately 13 years old. So let's copile this and then we'll get into the weeds a little bit with all the interesting things going on. What did you think of the characters?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Well, I think you really actually hit it on the head with your introduction just now. The characters in this book are not meant to become fully fleshed out human beings, but rather representational of different kinds of personalities. And like you said, their pecking order, their order of society to represent all the different levels of power and power distribution. And that is what I got out of the characters because they really are more representational than they are these truly fleshed-out human beings that we get to know.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

And that doesn't mean that we don't have feelings for the characters, because there are certainly moments in the novel where I feel very connected to the characters, but it's like if I see innocence harmed, it's like feeling connected when I watch the news and also see innocent people harmed. So as you said, representative is very, very true.

Archetypes Symbolism And Simple Style

SPEAKER_01 5:35

You do also get connected to them on an individual level, but you realize that you're dealing with a lot of allegory here as well as a story that's being told.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah, it's it's more about the their level of vulnerability, like you said. I mean, there's definitely either feelings of I don't like that character, he's a bully, and I like that character more because he's the victim, you know?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Right. Or this is the intelligent one, which we'll get into. All right, so atmosphere. I think Golding sets the atmosphere beautifully. We are stuck on this island. The island is a mystery unto itself and almost its own character because as young boys would be, they're scared to be on this island. It is a scary experience. And so some of them try to step up and be macho about it, but you've got children as young as five years old, and you really get that eerie sense to the island. You also get the boyish wonder in the atmosphere of the island. The island has these different faces depending on the moment and the context and the situation that the boys are in. And I always think that's really interesting. It's multidimensional.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Yeah, and I think that we'll break it down a little bit more in the second half, but I feel like the way they navigate the island is deeply representational of their foray into their own power.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Right, and their psychology.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

And their psychology, yeah. So I think that was really interesting how he uses the island as sort of that that metaphor.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Right. So, what did you think about the writing style for Golding?

SPEAKER_02 7:01

So, okay, I think it's no secret that this was one that was a checkoff on my basic classic literature that I haven't ever read. And so I had years and years and years of buildup of people's impressions and just hints at what the book was like. And it was far more simpler than I thought it was going to be, honestly. And his writing was far more simple than I expected it to be. Not very flowery. The dialogue is pretty bare bones. It's a straightforward story about what's happening to these boys every day and how they handle it.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Right. What's interesting about Lord of the Flies is it reminds me very much of George Orwell's Animal Farm as well, which is equally a simple story, except not a simple story, right? So the writing style is not overly complex. Golding wants you to get what's happening. And while there is some descriptiveness and kind of some beautiful imagery associated with the island, it's not overly elaborate.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

I have no idea how long they're actually on the island. We get a sense that time has passed, but only a sense that they've dropped into kind of a routine day by day, and their hair is growing longer.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Right. His writing leaves a lot for inference. So, like you're looking at the tan on the boys, you're looking at the hair growth, you're looking at the lack of clothing that happens over a certain amount of time, and then you begin to realize okay, this is the passage of time. But again, Golding does not spell that out for us.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

So he doesn't even spell out why, how they really got there. You have to infer through clues what happened to put them on this island.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Correct. So there's a lot left there to your imagination with Golding, while he also gives you a very straightforward story of these boys and their journey. I just find that the writing style allows for it to be so multi-layered and interesting if you go at it from a literary analysis perspective. If you just read it as a story, you just read it as a story of these boys, and it's kind of disturbing. And this is what happens. But if you really look into it, there's so much more there. All right. So on that level, plot.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Plot's pretty simple. I mean, I think Golding spelled it out perfectly when he talked about it himself. He was sitting around with his wife, and she speculated what would happen, do you think, if a group of boys were left alone on an island to their own devices? And he said, That's a fascinating idea. I think I'll write a book about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Right. And so he did.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

And so he did. And he said that it needed to be a group of boys because, and not a mix of boys and girls or even a group of girls, because he did not believe that if he took a group of girls and put them on an island, they would break down into the representational parts of society as it really is. That only a group of boys could break down truly into the representational parts of society. And he said that's not because I'm against girls, but because I believe that is the power structure we're dealing with here. And I think the boys would more closely represent our basic parts, our basic natures.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Which really is interesting and begs a whole different discussion on the sexes, et cetera. Yes. Intrigue. There is definitely intrigue here, but like I said, I find the intrigue really embedded in the character of the island, the discovery of part by part. So as you said, Peter, it's like as they're exploring the island, they're also discovering more about themselves for better or for worse. And these different locations become very connected to their psyches. And so the intrigue builds as they are going out and having these different experiences on the island. And I think that's where, for me, that's where the intrigue is embedded is that conflict between the atmosphere and the characters.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Agreed. And I think the logic basically is following what Golding speculates would be the natural progression of the construction and deconstruction of order.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

And the different influences that are introduced into the situations that are catalysts for change or adaptation.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Right. So did you find it logical? Did you think, yes, I agree, this is the way it would go?

SPEAKER_02 11:00

In some ways, yeah. I think we'll discuss that further. But yeah, I I I thought that it was he uses the different kinds of fears that they have, especially, and the different power struggles that they have, and the natural evolution of that, I think, is there.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah, and I would agree with you. I think that we see a lot of logical conclusions reached and logical endpoints and logical consequences. All right. So I never know how to answer the question of whether I like this book and I enjoy it. It hurts. Like I think I said this to you. Like, I've read this book so many times, I really can't count the number of times I've read this book. Every year when I teach it in class, it hurts a little more. And I would venture to guess that's because every year I see more and more in society that I feel is representative of this. And maybe I see it in the microcosm of the school system as a teacher, but then also as I'm looking out into the world. So enjoyment is difficult because I feel like it's like scratching open a wound every time I read this book.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Right. This book does not try hard to make you laugh at the antics of the boys and introduce funny, heartwarming scenes. There is nothing funny or heartwarming, really, in this book. The boys

Why Reading It Still Hurts

SPEAKER_02 12:12

are actually pretty terrible to each other.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

There's only a couple of characters that have some human decency. And our main character, somewhere in the middle, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

He waffles back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Right. So enjoyment only in the sense that you get enjoyment out of challenging yourself to think on it and ponder it and delve deeply into the metaphors and points that are being made. But not in the, oh my gosh, I feel so good after I read this kind of way. Right. It's not one of those books.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

No, it's one of those books, honestly, that when you read it and you read it often, I just increasingly want to jump inside the novel and change the course of what's going on with these boys. And that's what's so difficult for me. And maybe that's what makes it difficult for me to be an outsider in the world anyway, as I watch things happen and not want to automatically jump in and try to fix them. So that gives the breakdown of where we are with Copile. We're going to move into a spoiler section. And for some of you, this book may already be spoiled because you've read it in school or you've heard it talked about so much that you can just listen straight through. But if you want to read it first and like Peter, you never got around to doing that, then this may be the point where you stop. Okay, quick pause. Because if you're still listening, you clearly have excellent taste or questionable judgment. Either way, we've got something for you.

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Spoiler Line And Merch Break

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So go grab yours at Litonfire Podcast-shop.fourthwall.com. Because if you're going to burn it all down, you might as well look good doing it. Lit on fire. Okay, so I'm going to put on my teacher hat for a second and talk about the structure of this novel because Golding really starts us in Medias Race, right? We come in in the middle of things that are happening and we drop into the mind of Ralph, who is one of our oldest boys on the island, and his perspective as he is looking around and kind of stretching his limbs and taking stock of his situation. And we get the impression that they crashed the day before. They've made it one night through, and this is the morning, and Ralph is kind of stumbling around looking. And then close on the heels of dropping into this tall, lanky, impressive athletic youth, we have Piggy, who is kind of a stout, plump young man with asthma and glasses

Ralph Piggy And Unearned Privilege

SPEAKER_01 15:09

and doesn't know how to swim. And we have the awkwardness of him stumbling behind through the brush and he's having diarrhea because of the fruit they ate. And there's this constant awkwardness with him. And right away we see something very societal and very relational take place. For me, it's pivotal to the whole book, what happens right here, because we could start on a positive note, but I don't really feel like we do. No. Ralph is taking stock of this beautiful island and kind of thinking, oh wow, I can kick off my clothes and jump in the water and just kind of this is paradise, right? Lulling us into this moment of, is this going to be a good thing? And then when Piggy stumbles in, immediately the relationship between Ralph and Piggy, while Ralph is not immediately hostile and terribly cruel, he is disinterested and disregards Piggy in a lot of ways. He's an annoyance. And Piggy is talking and talking and talking about his home and talking about, you know, the things he can do and can't do because of what he's been told by authority figures. And Ralph is very silent during that exchange, kind of dismissive of it, and simply wants to jump into the water. And for me, that sets up right away that we're not gonna have a good moment here. We're going to see that raw thing that I see in the school system, where you see the bully popular kids or just the popular kids. And I think Ralph really is one of those popular kids. You know, you see that, and then you see the unnoticed, frequently abused, smart kid or quirky kid, or kid on the fringes that you know is gonna get hurt. And I feel that from scene one.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Right away, we know that Ralph is one of those persons that nothing has ever really come to him with difficulty.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

He is natural charisma, he's automatically accepted for whatever unknown reason into popular society. And then we have the contrast of he's not a bully.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

No, he's not.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

But he just has no empathy for somebody like Piggy because he's never had that kind of disadvantage.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

And it's somewhat embarrassing.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Yeah. And let's be clear, Piggy is not that boy's name. We never learn it because it doesn't matter. All that matters is that in a moment of vulnerability, he tells Ralph that people used to call him Piggy, and Ralph thinks that's hilarious and can't get over it. And then he sort of betrays him to the other boys and lets the other boys know that that's what he used to be called, and that's who he is. Automatically, it sets the tone.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

That's that's who Piggy is from that moment. And he is devastated by Ralph's betrayal because he thinks he's making a friend right up front. And again, that just wounds me on a personal level as I watch it play out because I've certainly seen that play out with kids all the time. But Piggy is just automatically relegated to the outside. He can't be one of the popular kids and he's never going to be fully accepted by the society on the island because he is going to be the one that becomes the default source of amusement and the default outcast so that everyone else can feel good about themselves.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Right. And ironically, he's initially the one who helps hold them all together.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Because he's the reason why Ralph comes across this conch shell in the middle of this pool of water, and he comes up even with the way to get it into Ralph's hands. Right. He it's all his knowledge that leads to Ralph acquiring this conch shell. And here I think we get the first big symbol of the book, which is this symbol of authority that right away, because of Piggy, Ralph gets a chance to grasp onto first.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Right. And what gets me about that is who really provides the authority here? It is Piggy, the intellectual, the smart kid, the outcast, but he has to pass the authority into the hands of the tall, visually appealing, accepted character of Ralph, right? In the hopes that he will, as kind of a byproduct, be carried along with Ralph into acceptance because he's provided this to Ralph, but we know that's never going to happen. And it is that intelligence in Piggy that allows the basic foundation of society to begin to be developed on this island, but Piggy is not the one that could ever hope to hold it together.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Right. Yeah. And on a personal note, you know, I have this core memory of applying for a job when I was younger. And just the I'm applying for a basic entry position. And the interview is going okay or whatever, but I'm getting just received so well. And before the interview is over, she the person interviewing me was like, I can see management potential in you. And I'm going to, I'm going to say this right now. If things go well, I'm going to move you up into a manager position in a few months. And I just thought to myself, that's always stuck with me. Why? Exactly. Why? And it really was the turning point, a big moment where I had to look at my innate advantages and my innate privileges.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

As a person, as a human being. And there's there's some guilt there, you know? Right. But it's there. It's just one of those natural aspects of our society.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

So I'm going to take this back to even a more personal memory for me and maybe a moment of vulnerability. How old were you when you modeled for Vogue magazine? Nine years old. Nine years old. And so when Peter was nine years old, he is picked up as the all-American boy from his school in Montana to be taken and to be photographed as the all-American boy as part of this photo shoot for the Italian version of Vogue, correct? Yes. I'm tracking on this. So when Peter was nine, I was 14. And I had glasses.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

And a perm.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

And a perm, a bad one. Oh, good lord. Like, why did mom give me that perm? That was just, it was painful. It was almost to the point of being a mullet combined with a bad perm. Anyway, I had this perm, I had these thick glasses. I am still fighting the, you know, puberty acne that naturally takes place. I am wearing what looks like a pastor's wife outfit with my skirt and my support hose and my loafers and this cheesy 90s sweater that I was wearing. And our parents let us come along to witness your photo shoot. And you're getting paid money, and you are this blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful child who is grinning and walking and, you know, the coat tossed over your shoulder. And I remember sitting in the backseat of the car and being like, I hate you. Like, I am over here and I have got straight A's in school and I'm working my butt off. Not that you didn't have high grades too, but you were nine, right? So I am working my butt off. Everything comes hard to me. I am constantly made fun of at school. There are the popular girls, and then there's me. I mean, I'm carrying around a copy of the unabridged works of William Shakespeare to read at lunch. All right. And then there's you. And I remember sitting there in the backseat of the car and thinking the injustice of what is happening right now and really hating that moment. And so when I read this, like I get the, you know, as you look at Ralph and you look at the unearned privilege. In that moment, like you felt at that job interview. I look at Piggy and I'm like, oh God, like I am Piggy. Like I am the voice in the background going, I think we should do this. I don't think we should do that. I think maybe we need to consider as Ralph lopes along, and that is not to diminish your intelligence or anything else. You know, I'm not doing that. No. But it was, it was the situation that we were placed in that contextually just to me mirrors exactly what happens with Ralph and Piggy in this moment.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Yeah, exactly. And I see myself more in Ralph, unfortunately, especially at the age of 13, which is what Ralph is supposed to be. I wasn't necessarily as dismissive and mocking as he is of somebody like Piggy, but I would have found that person a little bit more annoying than I would later on in my life, having developed more empathy. Right. Because I would have found their homeschoolish, sort of just awkward, completely socially oblivious behavior really, really frustrating, you know? Right. It wasn't until later in my life where I actually went through some really seriously dark times, and that middle school will have a chance to do that to you. You can either become a bully or you can finally develop some empathy for people that are on the outside. And post my parents' divorce and moving from Montana to California and me wearing my Wrangler tight jeans and my tucked-in shirt, and I wasn't the cool kid anymore. Not naturally so. And then I started gravitating towards people like Piggy later on in my life as I remembered those moments. But a person like Ralph in this book doesn't have that kind of experience.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

He's not there.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

He's he's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yeah. And so he is just seeing through the lens of I'm a tall, good-looking boy, and I'm capable of this, and I'm gonna stretch my limbs. His father's in the Navy. He refers to that several times.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

My father was in the Navy.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yes, yes, absolutely. So he refers to that multiple times and he kind of has this sense of pride and natural confidence born of that context. Whereas Piggy, his parents are not alive, and he's raised by his auntie. And his auntie clearly takes care of him, shelters him. Piggy has developed this very adult sensibility and this intellect and this knowledge, but he doesn't know how to swim, and his auntie feeds him candy, and he's been protected, probably because of his parents dying early on. Right. Piggy gives Ralph the conch. He teaches Ralph how to use it as a type of trumpet to call the other boys together. And then Ralph initiates the gathering of the community.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Yeah. So they stand on this big rock on the beach. Right. And Ralph blows the horn and everybody comes to him. And I feel like the rock becomes this seat of governance, this place of meeting, and they keep coming back to it. And for whatever reason, they feel like they need to perform this ritual of only meetings can be held at the rock, as if it is the House of Congress or the UN or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yes. And he's on that rock, and they just kind of all these little kids stumble out of the bushes and they sit there, you know, kind of slack jawed, looking up at the big kid who's going to tell them what to do. And then we have the appearance of the chorus boys led by Jack, who is the other older boy on the island, the counterpart to Ralph. And he feels that he should wield authority because he is the top boy in his school and he is the chorus leader, but he is also unattractively mean and unattractive physically to a certain extent, the way he is described.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yes, yeah. Yeah. And I and I think both Ralph and Jack not only represent two different kinds of authority, not only in the way they they wield it, but what actually draws people to them, but also two different ideas of governance.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

As well. Because Jack comes in sort of in this military march. He is the commander, and all of his other subordinates are behind him, and he's been marching them all day long to in black robes in the heat. Yes. Whereas Ralph is standing there with a conch and he's trying to bring everybody together as a meeting, as a group, and decide together how they're going to move forward. Right. Whereas Jack is more of the, I just want to take control and I'll tell you how to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Right. And they vote on who should be the leader after the terrible moment when Ralph tells Piggy's name and there's kind of this joke made. Then there's also the fainting of Simon that takes place, one of the chorus boys who's in the black and goes down in a faint on the ground because he's been marched around by Jack all this time.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

And what's important about those two moments, if I may say so really quickly, is the mocking of Piggy and his name, and then the mocking, of course, of Simon and his fainting establishes sort of the weakest link in both of those groups, and at the same time brings all the other boys together around this kind of common disparity of power. And Simon becomes sort of that group's piggy as well. And I think Piggy and Simon really are the two links that establish the group as a whole. And it's the breaking of those two links, one Simon and then Piggy that shatters the whole structure eventually.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

And in the wake of all that, there is a vote who should be the leader. And because Ralph was holding the conch and all the little kids see him stand up there on the rock and draw them all together, Ralph is voted leader for no other reason than his appearance to those younger children and his authority with the conch and the fact that in this moment Jack's not winning the popularity contest because he's just a little mean.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

And unattractive.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Right. So Ralph wins initially.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

And he has some innate leadership skills. I mean, he first of all, he's inclusive.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

And he has a presence to a degree. And he does something very clever right after he wins the election. And that is he softens the blow to Jack's ego by giving him a purpose, by giving him a responsibility within this budding form of governance. And that is he makes Jack the hunter.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

And kind of second in command by default.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Right. And so he welcomes Jack, the bully leader, into his fold in order to kind of ease tensions.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Well, it works well initially. And this is where I start to really see animal farm parallels.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Right. Because initially Snowball and Napoleon.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yes, it's Snowball and Napoleon.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Right. So as Napoleon, Jack is going to do a certain amount of scheming in the background. I mean, and I can see that right away. Like it works to bring him in and they decide to explore the island. When they decide to explore the island, they take Simon with them, Jack and Ralph do, but they exclude Piggy. Piggy, you count the people here. You watch the people on the beach. You do the task that none of us want to do, the task of someone who's going to organize and do the, you know, menial work. And we're going to go off as the great leaders and explore. And they go off to explore the island together. And it works. There's a type of camaraderie that develops between these boys. The problem is it has no true center to hold it because Piggy should be the center on some level, but Piggy continually gets beaten on right away.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

He's used and taken advantage of, but never really utilized.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

And he's asked to do the impossible without the tools to do it, which is kind of that sign of the immature leadership that Ralph can provide. He's got bravado, he's got the looks, but he doesn't really know how to organize. And even in asking Piggy to do it, he fails to give him the tools.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Right, which makes him a scapegoat.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

And so you failed, Piggy, when we don't know how many boys there are and the little ones wander off. It was your failure. You didn't count them.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

So right away we know that success or failure as a person of power within this group is going to depend largely upon the perceived success or failure of their role. Right. So we've got Ralph as the leader, Piggy is sort of the doer, and Jack is the provider.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Right. And forgive me, but I see poll numbers in this scenario, like popularity poll numbers. Like Ralph's popularity started, according to the Pew poll, at what, 85%? People thought he was great. It's probably Jack and his group. But the popularity numbers start going down as we go forward.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

A combination of failures and fear.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

And fear. And Piggy is kind of riding that wave with Ralph and bearing the brunt of it along the way. But you definitely see that very natural dynamic of, oh, you're great. He's awesome. Oh, well, he let us down. And he's too nice about it. So it's easy for us to now also start bagging on Ralph. So that does begin to happen. Ralph is by nature somewhat of a compassionate soul, even though he doesn't always show it. And so he doesn't have the edge Jack has. And as things get tougher on the island, the bully leader is the one that people begin to turn to. And that's kind of the setup that we have from the very beginning. And I think it's important to note the evolution of Jack for a moment, because he is a bully with a lot of bluster that really doesn't have necessarily a firm foundation in the beginning. The first time he goes out to hunt, for instance, he's unable to bring himself to stick the pig. Like he goes to stab it. And stabbing is a very personal, up-close kind of experience, right? So he goes to spear this pig and it's a piglet, I think. It's a smaller pig in the beginning, and he can't do it. Like he he says, Oh, it got away from me too soon. But the truth is he cannot bring himself to kill in that moment. But then as he progresses, as the clothes come off, as we go unwashed, as we begin to paint our faces, so we're someone other than ourselves. Then he goes off with his hunters and he kills a boar.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

But before he ever reaches that point, Ralph, Simon, and Jack come back from that exploration of the island and Jack's failed attempt to kill the piglet. And they call another big meeting on the rock, and they discuss what's the first and most important thing that they're going to do. And during that discussion, a little boy, I think he's about like six years old, very, very timid, comes forward and tries to tell them about this thing that he believes he's seen in the dark that looks like a snake, according to his description. And they kind of write him off, Oh, you were having a nightmare, nothing that big is on the island, nothing can hurt you. And we are introduced to the fear of nature, sort of. That's the very first fear. It's very natural fear of nature and what looks in the dark and of the threat of animals. And Jack sort of blusters again and says, Oh, well, if such a thing does exist on the island, I will definitely kill it and I will protect you. And he kind of promises that it's my role to protect you and I'll and I'll do that. Then they go on to discuss the first priority, and Ralph

The Signal Fire Turns Deadly

SPEAKER_02 34:23

comes up with this idea that they need to find the highest point on the island and build a fire as a kind of beacon that they'll keep lit so that if anyone ever does come by the island on a ship or a plane, they'll see the fire lit and they'll be rescued. And everybody gets super excited and pumped up, and they all run off half-cocked to go up the mountain and light this fire.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

And this is where there's this dichotomy of purposes or this or goals because Ralph is automatically, I would like to be rescued. Maybe my dad, who's in the Navy, will be the one to rescue us, but we've got to make rescue a priority. And Jack is more interested in providing the immediate needs, like the food aspect to the kids. But we see that Ralph's priority is rescue. So we're gonna go up this hill and we're gonna make this fire.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

And he's gonna create this civilized society for the purpose of rejoining civilized society, being part of it again.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Correct. So that's what he wants. And then the boys just go willy-nilly up the hill with no order whatsoever and start grabbing branches and doing all this stuff, and then we're gonna make this fire, and no one plans anything out other than Ralph's initial, okay, we need to do this, and people just tear off.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

And he's not listening to Piggy because Piggy's trying to say, Hey, guys, guys, shut up, Piggy.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

And so that's disregarded. The voice of reason is disregarded. Ralph is standing there with the conch still in his hands when everyone starts running, and he has no choice but to run with them in order to save face. And then Piggy has to get up the hill too, panting with his asthma, and they have to figure out what's going on, but it's just chaos.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

And I love the moment where they all grab all that wood and pile it up, and then they stand around it, and then there's this crickets. And Piggy comes up behind them and is like, Yeah, did anyone think of how you're gonna start the fire?

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Right. And then unfortunately, they use him. They use him, they wheel on Piggy and they go, Well, yeah, we do give us your glasses. And they take his specs and he is blind without them. I mean, he's really, you know, severely he can't see well without his glasses. And they take his specs to light the fire without asking him, without considering him, just grabbing those off his face. Crediting him, or even crediting him with the fact that he has now provided the tools for this society twice. First in the conch shell, and now in the ability to light fire, which to me in this moment still represents knowledge and hope. And hope. So he's provided the knowledge and the hope in this moment to light this fire, and the glasses are kind of thrown back at him after they light the fire. Well, they light it too big. And it burns like the entire side of the mountain. It just burns through the trees, and that's when everyone goes, Where are the little kids? Not all the little kids were here. And then there's this horrific realization that they could be burning up amongst the trees as the fire spreads. And that's when Piggy becomes the scapegoat. Well, you didn't count them. You don't know how many there are. Well, how was I supposed to count them? You left me alone and they're all running in five different directions. I couldn't do that. You did not leave me with the tools.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

In particular, they know for a fact, because of the birthmark on his face, that the little boy that was afraid of the snake thingy is never seen again.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Right. And so we're gonna protect you. We killed you.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

First promise broken.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Right. And so right away we see the unraveling of the ability to offer something when you're not really acting it out yourselves. Like I'm going to protect you, but they're not protectors.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

As long as you remain an elitist, you can't possibly be a protector, a person of the populace, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Right. And so they still remain in that kind of elite role and and people around them start dying. And how real is that? Like, how real is that? First of all, the dichotomy of the two styles of leadership. Okay, I'm gonna try to bring people together. Okay, I'm going to bully people into things. And Jack's voice becomes very loud in this moment as he abuses Piggy and he generally acts big and tough, even in the midst of this terrible thing that's happened. He doesn't really want to acknowledge it, but he just kind of like, err, I'm gonna find food and I'm gonna do this, and we've got this fire, and you know, and so he kind of steps up in this bully role. And how real, how real that the elite leaders watch people die. It goes without acknowledgement because some people are simply disposable. They're more burdens than assets. And those little boys were burdens. The one's afraid of the snake thingy, you know, the other ones are undoubtedly going to cry for their mamas at night. And so the vulnerable population is disposable. Don't we see that all the time?

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's very symbolic that they seek out first not only this symbol of knowledge and hope, but also of power. Because fire is power before they think about providing basic shelter.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Where do we sleep at night? Do we have food to eat yet? How are we gonna deal with the diarrhea and the illness that some of these boys are experiencing? What do we do to make ourselves comfortable and make this area livable while we wait for someone to rescue us?

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Let's make sure everybody's taken care of.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

None of that is considered. We make fire. Right? And that's and that's what they do, and people automatically die. And I can't help but sit and look in the real world and see people running around saying, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna take control of that, and I'm gonna stop this, and I'm gonna show these people who's boss. And people are dying.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Because they have a concept of a plan, but not an actual plan.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Right. Yes, concepts of a plan. So I see this as a very human moment, and for me, the whole book just unravels from this point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

And we get some progression of time, and then we get an interesting uh insight into another character's psyche, and that is Roger.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Right. Roger, the sociopath and the potential serial killer in my mind. Roger is this very quiet boy, but menacingly quiet, right? He's watching people, and he has that hardness in his eyes. And we get this progressive growth of Roger's menace and cruelty through the rest of the novel, and it starts as they are still trying to set up their society, even though time has passed. We've got some rudimentary shelters, we've got some semblance of routine going on on the island. And for the little boys, part of the routine is going to be to sit and make sand castles on the beach or play pretend because they're kindergartners and they're too young to really do anything else. And Roger is back in the bushes behind these little boys that are doing that. And Roger's presumably around 10 years old, somewhere around there. He's a little younger than Ralph and Jack and Simon, but he is somewhere in the middle to the upper part of the boys. And he starts picking up these little rocks and chucking them at the little boys. And there's kind of this just menacing feeling of Roger in the background. And Golding hints at the fact that Roger is hiding because he's still constrained on some level by what is right and wrong. And is someone going to come out and reprimand me? But this really last time he hides his cruelty.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Yeah, yeah. He's teasing the boundaries of polite society.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Right. What kind of pain can I cause and get away with?

SPEAKER_02 42:12

He's waiting for somebody to come out of the shadows and punish him for what he's doing.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Right. And no one does. And so when no one does, because no one's paying attention to these vulnerable populations, then he's like, I can pretty much do what I want here and no one's going to stop me. Roger becomes this growing cruelty on the island. He's symbolic to me of this dark nature that is growing in the background and begins to ultimately take control because the boys are uninhibited and they face no real consequences amongst themselves, especially the elites. The other character, of course, is Simon. And Simon is seen in stark contrast to Roger in my mind. You have Jack versus Ralph. You've got Piggy clearly on the outside here, and then you have Simon versus Roger. Simon is not that much older than Roger, but Simon represents kindness to the vulnerable. Simon at one point even pulls down a branch to feed the younger children.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Right. He tries to play both sides in a sense. He's naturally accepted into the popular group.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Even though he faints in the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Yeah, he's the very, very outside. He's the one that could fall off very easily if he doesn't play the game correctly.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

If there's no piggy.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Right. If there's no piggy, then Simon would be the piggy.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

But he has this empathy towards Piggy and even defends him and gets the boys to listen to him a few times when they have these meetings that they have every time they call the conch.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

And offers him food when Jack tries to exclude him. And so Simon is kind of this force for good. If Simon is a force for good and Roger is a force for evil, there's the contrast between the two of them.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

And he's the one that tries to hear everybody out and tries to take everybody's opinions and fears at face value. So we have these various archetypes that have formed within the society. And we already see that morality is beginning to break down, not only because Roger is testing his limits, throwing the rocks at the little boy, but also because we also see another little boy, Maurice, kick sand into a boy's eyes for no reason whatsoever and cause him to cry. And then we come to the very first big break, a turning point between the relationship in leadership between Ralph and Jack. Because Ralph has established that they need to keep this fire burning on the hill. And it's always supposed to be watched by somebody. Eventually, they see a ship on the horizon and everybody panics and they look up and at the hill, and there's no fire lit. And so Ralph goes tearing. Off along with Piggy up to the top of the hill, and they see that the fire has been put out, and all this time they're trying to keep their eyes on the ship. But by the time they get to the top and they see the fire has been put out, they have no time to light it, and the ship disappears over the horizon. Meanwhile, Jack and his crew come marching happily around the corner with a boar that they have finally killed, and they're so proud of themselves, and he thinks it's going to be this major triumph. And all Ralph can say is, you let the fire burn out. You let the fire burn out. And Jack doesn't see the point of Ralph's anger because for him, it's just this

Fear Missed Rescue And The Beast

SPEAKER_02 45:23

major coup. And all Ralph can think about is you didn't do what I asked you to do. And they have this big argument, and they try to make light of it. They pantomime killing the boar and reenacting it, and somebody plays the boar, and everybody else pretends to stab them, and they kind of try to lighten the mood a little bit. And I think that's very interesting because they start doing this over and over again, this pantomime of killing. And I think the reason why is because they're slowly trying to turn the idea of death into something that isn't real. That's almost something that they can pretend isn't really happening, and that really comes to fruition later on. But this is where Ralph and Jack really have a split in their relationship. And Jack never really gets over that disappointment and that humiliation of Ralph not recognizing his contribution. And he carries it with him into their next meeting. Because they held this meeting, and one of the things that comes up is the fact that they all have gotten this feeling that there's some sinister, almost supernatural force on the island.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

The ghost. And of course, Pizzy Piggy being the voice of reason is like that's ridiculous. Everybody and Simon's like, well, let's not take their fears for granted. I mean, let's not like just write them off. Let's consider the possibility that there is something to fear on the island.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Right. But what is there to fear on the island? The boys. The boys. Right. And Simon's the one that first identifies that maybe the monster isn't out there. Maybe it's here.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

Right. And how often do we see in our society this externalization of our inner insecurities and our fears? This labeling of either groups as other or the fear of a war or of nuclear disaster, whatever it may be, we focus on our fears instead of ourselves and what kind of society we want to actually be.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Right. And so this is the part that gets painful to me is that the reasonable voices here, the voice of compassion that is Simon, who initially identifies that maybe there's no beast, maybe it's us. And the voice of Piggy who's sitting on the outside going, Yeah, yes, that's what I would say too, you know, and and has been trying to warn people off of their reactionary behavior the entire time. It's just painful to watch that. And they're just in the minority. And it's not popular. Like, stop making us feel bad. Like, we don't want to consider the fact that we're part of the problem. And we don't want to have to consider the homework that we need to do, Piggy, that you're telling us we have to focus on because we need to actually work. You guys are unpopular and their voices are rejected.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Overnight, this figure falls down from the sky with a parachute and lands on the top of their mountain close to where they build their fire, their lookout fire. And initially they don't actually see it when he falls. Right. But we're described this really interesting picture of how this body falls from the sky, lands propped up against a rock, and the parachute gets wrapped around the body in just the right way to make it appear as though it is moving by the wind, constantly bowing and lifting its head and bowing and lifting its head. And so it creates this sort of false appearance of being real, of being alive.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Right. And the parachute itself is kind of billowing in the wind and it's seen partially, and it looks like it could be a winged thing, it could be something monstrous that's up there on top of the mountain.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

So a couple of the boys see this thing in the dark, reflected with the fire, and it freaks them out. And they immediately run down the mountain screaming, we've seen the monster, we've seen the beast. And I think it's very interesting that Golding chooses to use a soldier of war, first of all, to be this thing that they fear. And there's where we get in the whole how war sort of destroys humanity, just sort of destroys this our structure of human decency towards one another. Right. I think we get a clear symbol there. But anyway, they they run down and now they're all afraid to go back up to the mountain to tend the fire, which we already said kind of the fire's gonna go out. Yes, yeah, which all we already said sort of represents knowledge and power, and they give in to this fear of the unknown, of the supernatural thing that they can't quite place. But it it becomes this sort of breaking point for the leadership in the group.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Right. And it's mass hysteria, which is also a very real psychological thing. It becomes kind of a mass hysteria moment where they rev themselves up and they not only have convinced themselves that they've seen this, but they begin to get everyone else afraid and make everyone else jumpy and like they've seen it as well. And so it just builds in people's minds. And I think that that fear that's there underlying the entire time, that fear of the unknown and that fear of the island and the fear of the potential snake, that fear comes to the forefront as knowledge and power and hope die in the fire that's left unattended, the darkness of that fear rises up and it's used because Jack in particular realizes he can use that fear. And again, so so parallel to society.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

Yeah. And so Jack decides that it's his time because this has riled up everybody's, you know, emotions. It's his time to call another vote and kind of call out Ralph and say he's not been leading you well. And he points out all the ways in which Ralph has failed them and he calls for another vote, which initially is quite humiliating for him. Right. Because no one's ready to quite yet abandon social order. Social order. So he decides to go ahead and say, fine, I'm leaving. Remember, I'm your hunter. So if you all want food, when when you're all starving again, you know, maybe you'll remember me. And so he pouts off really angrily and goes off. And that's the first split, the first schism within their structure.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

When Jack does decide to pull away and show that he's going to leave the group, he takes some of the choir boys with him that decide to follow their original leader. And as they go off together, they come across a sow

Jack’s Cult Ritual And Simon’s Death

SPEAKER_01 51:37

who has mothered these piglets, right? He kills the sow in a brutal way and brings back the meat. And I think the evolution of Jack is really interesting. Once he gets some power, that hesitancy that was there in the beginning melts away over time as his humanity to a certain extent melts away, but it melts away when he realizes this is the line I cross, right? And I kill, and then I am admired. Right. Because I brought back meat, even though I've killed this innocent animal. And I'm sorry, I'm not a hunter, but I'm just saying clearly they need meat. But in the way Golding frames it, it's a very brutal moment where the sow is screaming. So he does draw them off one by one, and he does succeed over time in really gaining the upper hand. And I think that's when we have this climactic catastrophe, this horrible moment that takes place when Jack has come into his full power and he is chanting and he's getting the boys to eat meat and he's pulling them over to his side of the island where torture is going on because he believes in corporal punishment and he believes in, you know, beating people into submission to a certain extent, where torture is going on, but they're also uninhibited in their animalistic natures and celebration. And even the youngest children are running around screaming like crazy people and kind of joining in with Jack's.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

Yeah, and he doesn't have to worry about democracy because he creates around himself, he figures out a way to create a cult of personality. Right. By painting his face and sort of changing who he is and how people perceive him. He gives them their own way of identifying themselves by having them paint their own faces and taking and become hunters as well. As well. And then he gives them chance. He gives them things to say and ways to drum up feelings of power, and there's ritual.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Right. And they pretend to go after another boy who is the posing as the pig, and it's all fun and games, but then it gets violent. And there's just this frenzy of kind of a mixture of mass hysteria and a cult. Yes. Cultish behavior. Yeah. So they're down there doing this. Ralph and Piggy and Simon are kind of on the outskirts. Simon has now departed from the group because Simon's beginning to realize that we have become monstrous. Simon climbs up the hill to see what the beast actually is, and he's the one that discovers that the beast is not a beast.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

That's just a dead body that they have nothing to fear from.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

Meanwhile, Ralph and Piggy hear that Jack has killed another boar and he's having a feast, and they kind of go to try to make some peace.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

And they're holding the conch when they're doing it. And they want to make peace and they want to kind of re-enter the group. They are allowed in to have meat, but into this animalistic celebration where the conch is meaningless. The conch is pretty much set to the side.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

Right. And something scares them. Something scares them. Something happens that makes them afraid. And they start to kind of just work themselves up. They start to dance and jump around and chant and pretend to kill things. And to try to drive off the evil. And in that moment, in that frenzy, in that fervor of fear, Simon comes in stumbling in the dark, and he's saying something about a dead body. And but they don't see him as Simon anymore. Simon becomes the pig. Simon becomes the sow.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

The beast. The beast that is coming out of the woods.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

And they all come together to kill the beast. And before they know it, they're they're all taking part in this brutal beating of murder.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Of Simon.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Of Simon. And his body falls off the cliff onto the rocks and he's blown out to sea. He's pulled out to sea. And everybody kind of slowly, like in like a trance, sort of departs, goes back to their places, goes to sleep for the night. And the next day they're all denial.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

Yes, because that had to be just some kind of dream. It was the beast. It was the beast and we killed it. But they cross that line and they'll never be able to go back. Never. And what's interesting is you really get this terrifying view of even the best of society, which would be Ralph and Piggy at this point, to the extent that they can be the best of society. They are back at their camp. And Piggy and Ralph have to sit there, and Ralph says, that was murder. We murdered someone. And they have to face that as well because they were involved.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

And then also though, but they're like, but we weren't as involved as everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

No, we were sort of on the outside. We were on the outside. We didn't really want to do that. But but that was that was murder. That was the sacrifice that had to take place. Now here's an interesting thing when I discuss this from a literary point of view is I begin to look at Ralph and Piggy and Simon in almost a Trinitarian fashion. And when I say that, we have got Simon now who is sacrificed, almost like Christ, to the masses. We've got Piggy, who has been the voice of reason or the Holy Spirit whispering the entire time. And we have Ralph, who is the father who let it happen. And there's this interesting parallel that you can draw either to that or to more of a psychoanalytic point of view with the id, the ego, the superego, which is also Trinitarian in a way, the id, the ego, the superego. Either way you go, there becomes this representation that happens in this moment of the sacrifice of Simon as one of the voices of compassion, as the compassionate voice. And now we're left with reason and leadership over here with no place to go because everyone else has departed to this dark side. It's just this incredibly devastating kind of hopeless moment.

SPEAKER_02 57:20

Right. And I also see it as very symbolic of the two kinds of reaction you can have when a line that should never have been crossed gets crossed. It can either be a very sobering moment, a very come to Jesus kind of moment, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

Or it can be a moment of complete hopelessness into abandoning reason and abandoning order and abandoning abandoning all ethical and moral consciousness.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

And which response do you think Ralph and Piggy really have individually?

SPEAKER_02 57:52

I think they have more of a desire to make up for what they've done and try to make it right. I I think they're they they have more of a sobering moment from it.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

Aaron Powell Even though they don't want to entirely acknowledge what has happened. Yes. There is some denial.

SPEAKER_02 58:07

There is definitely some denial.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

They can't shake off the guilt.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

And for the sake of their own guilt and their own conscience, they try to once again go up the mountain with the conch, again as the symbol of order and law and authority and talk it out with the boys.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

Right. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about what needs to happen. What about getting rescued? What about all these things? We need to go and we need to have this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

And the immediate impetus is not just that, but also because Jack has come in the middle of the night and stolen Piggy's glasses because he realizes that they're his means of fire, and he can't actually do what he needs to do without them. And as we've said, they've become this symbol of order and the idea of control, the idea of structure.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 58:56

But in a broken way, and now in a way in which he intends to use basically to continue to manipulate the people that follow him. He doesn't need Piggy, he just needs people to believe that he can continue providing the way that he's been providing. And so he steals from that order and brings it up the mountain into his chaos.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 59:13

And so they go up the mountain with the conch, trying to convince Jack, hey, we need the I need those glasses back. They're how I see.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Right, because Ralph

Piggy’s Death Hunt And Rescue

SPEAKER_01 59:22

is having to guide Piggy for the most part at this point because Piggy can't see anything.

SPEAKER_02 59:26

And they climb the mountain, but yet Jack has created this sort of gateway to his kingdom. And Roger is the one who is sort of guarding that gateway.

SPEAKER_01 59:36

Right. And as the boys begin to scream back and forth at one another, Ralph's calling up, Piggy's calling up, they're trying to talk to them. Jack's being dismissive of them. All the boys are kind of yelling because there is this kind of this craziness that's going on. Roger keeps leaning against this boulder. He's got leverage on this boulder. And as the gatekeeper, as the arm of cruelty, he is leaning on this boulder, and the boulder is kind of tilting back and forth until he pushes it all the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

And the boulder comes down the mountain and hits Piggy and knocks him off of the mountain down onto a rock where he's essentially brained.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

And it talks about his brain spilling out of his head.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:13

Spilling out of his head, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Which is very profound if you're talking about Piggy's knowledge and his reason and all those things. His brains spill out of his head, and then the water comes and washes him away. One moment he's there and then he's gone. And what's left is just the red as the water's pulling that out. And now Ralph has to run.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:33

Because they grab his two companions, which are these twins that had stuck with him and Sam and Eric. Sam and Eric. And then they go after Ralph uh to kill him, essentially, and he runs down the hill. And then Sam and Eric are essentially tortured into submission by Roger.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Right. And so now Ralph is completely on his own. He has no followers left. All of his power has been stripped away. And he is now the hunted. And so that degenerates into absolute chaos. Once again, we have not just the hunting of a human, we have the outright hunting of a human now. Like before, it had been kind of imposed and accidental, but now we're going to deliberately hunt Ralph like a pig.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:16

Yeah, he's been completely vilified.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

He is public enemy number one. And in the process of hunting him down, in this chaotic, climactic, Ralph is running for his life and trying to find any allies, and everyone's kind of pulled into Jack's sway, and the island gets set on fire again. And in a moment of extreme irony, and also Dus Machina, if you will, God of the machine. I mean, this really happens at the end here because again, the story is not so much about total logic, but about representation. The island is set on fire, and this is the fire. As the island is consumed and Ralph is running for his life, this is the fire that attracts the attention of a rescue. And Ralph runs and runs and runs right into an adult on the beach. And suddenly they're all kids again.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

They all break down in tears.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

All of them. They're crying, they're traumatized. They're children.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

So as always, Liz, we're ending with the feeling of we could have discussed so many things that we didn't. There's just way too much to unpack in a single hour. But I did want to end with the question that we posed in the introduction, and that is, is this Golding's basic indictment of human nature? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

I think so. I don't think it's limited to the context of war that he was dealing with. I think he's really examining what causes those wars in the first place. And so it is a psychological examination. It is his condemnation of our basic tendency to do harm, to take power, to prey on the weak. And certainly he saw that in war, but it's not limited to war.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:56

Right. I agree. I think that it's if not an indictment of humanity in its entirety, it's an indictment of mankind specifically, since he is very, very emphatic that this is a representation of what boys would do in this situation.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

Totally fair.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:14

And also the use of children as sort of a primitive culture in a way, a primitive antithesis to civilized society. And as their relationships essentially descend into outright warfare, it is an indictment of warfare as a primitive act.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:33

As a failure of our civilization to be human to one another.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

But also, warfare is simply a byproduct of who we are capable of being.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:42

So, Peter, tell us what we are going to discuss next time.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

Well, we are going to discuss a book that I finally got you to read because I knew you would love it. And that is Sloughfoot by Brome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Right. And I am super excited about this discussion. I always am excited about our discussions, but he did wrote me into reading this, and I put it off for a while, and I am just fascinated by this book. So until then, please keep reading.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:07

Keep thinking.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

And we'll look forward to talking to you soon.