Grade 9 Notes: Lord of the Flies

Ralph

The elected chief who holds to the signal fire and loses everything else

Ralph is twelve, fair-haired and confident, and the first boy we meet. With Piggy he finds the conch, blows it to call the others, and is elected chief, partly for his looks and his calm and partly because he holds the shell. He insists on rules, shelters and above all a signal fire, believing rescue depends on it. He is not a thinker like Piggy, and he relies on Piggy's ideas while often treating him carelessly. As Jack's hunters drift away he struggles to keep order; he joins in the dance in which Simon is killed and is haunted by it. After Piggy's death he is hunted across the island, and he is saved only when a naval officer arrives. He weeps at the end for what he has learned.

Chief by the conch

In Chapter 1 Ralph blows the conch, the boys gather, and he is voted chief. He gives Jack the choir as hunters to keep the peace. In Chapter 2 he sets rules — whoever holds the conch may speak — and calls for a fire on the mountain so that a passing ship will see the smoke.

Key moment. Piggy insisting, conch in hand, on his right to speak (Throughout). Piggy's repeated claim to the right to speak shows the conch's authority depending on others' agreement. Ralph's power rests on the same agreement — and fades with it.

Losing order

When the hunters let the fire go out as a ship passes, Ralph's anger at Jack marks the first open break. Later, at the feast, he and Piggy are drawn into the dance in which Simon is killed. At Castle Rock Ralph tries to argue for the fire and the glasses; after Piggy's death he is hunted with spears and smoke.

Key moment. Ralph weeping, at the rescue, for the boys' lost innocence (Chapter 12). Ralph's tears at the rescue are for what the island has taught him. The phrase turns a boys' adventure into a story about knowledge of human nature.

How Golding builds Ralph in language and structure

Ralph's speech is plain and practical — rules, shelters, the fire — and he often struggles to find words for bigger ideas.

The narration mostly follows him, so the reader sees the collapse through the eyes of the boy trying to stop it.

Structurally he moves from elected chief to hunted animal, and the novel ends on his tears.

Ralph in context

Ralph shares his name with a hero of The Coral Island, and his confidence at the start echoes that kind of story.

His faith in rules and rescue reflects the order of British school and adult life.

Relationships

• Piggy — His adviser, whose ideas he uses and whose worth he learns too late.
• Jack — His rival for leadership.
• Simon — A quiet friend whose death he takes part in.

What Ralph stands for

• The conch: authority by agreement.
• The signal fire: hope of rescue and of the adult world.

Why Golding made Ralph

• To show democratic leadership and its weaknesses.
• To show that even the good boy can be drawn into violence.

Other readings

• A figure of democracy and order, defeated by fear and appetite.
• An ordinary boy whose decency is limited — he joins the dance.
• The reader's guide, who learns what the novel wants us to learn.

Essay arguments

• Golding makes Ralph a decent but limited leader, so the collapse of order is not simply the fault of one villain.
• Ralph's part in Simon's death shows that no boy is immune to the group's violence.
• His tears at the end turn the rescue into a moment of grief and understanding.

In theme essays

• Civilisation: the conch and the fire.
• Innocence: Ralph's grief for lost innocence.

Questions that get asked

• How does Golding present Ralph as a leader in Lord of the Flies?
• How does Golding use Ralph to explore ideas about civilisation?

Think you understand Ralph? Teach it, then defend it against William Golding →

Jack Merridew

The choir leader who becomes chief of the hunters

Jack arrives leading a choir of boys in black cloaks, marching in formation, and expects to be chief. Losing the vote to Ralph, he takes the choir as hunters. He talks at first about rules and English superiority, but becomes obsessed with killing a pig. He paints his face with clay and charcoal, which frees him from shame. He lets the fire go out when a ship passes, kills the first pig, and grows openly hostile to Ralph and Piggy. When he fails to have Ralph removed, he leaves and forms his own tribe at Castle Rock, ruling by feasts, fear and punishment. He leads the hunt for Ralph at the end, setting the island on fire.

From choir to hunters

Key moment. Jack's early boast that the English are better than everyone at everything (Chapter 2). Jack's early confidence in English order and superiority is the novel's most bitter irony: the boy who says it becomes the island's tyrant.

Key moment. Jack, at an early assembly, calling for rules because they are English and not savages (Chapter 2). He calls for rules because the English are not savages. The claim is undone by his own later actions, so the novel tests the idea of civilised identity against behaviour.

Chief of the tribe

Key moment. The hunters' chant about killing the pig, which turns killing into a ritual (Chapter 4 onwards). The chant turns killing into a ritual and binds the hunters together. It later becomes a chant about the beast, and the ritual ends in Simon's death.

How Golding builds Jack in language and structure

Jack speaks in commands and boasts, and his language moves from rules to hunting and killing.

Golding uses irony: his early claims about the English are undone by his actions.

Structurally he rises from choir leader to chief of a tribe that hunts Ralph.

Jack in context

The choir and its uniform reflect the hierarchy of British schools.

Readers after the war often saw in Jack's tribe a model of dictatorship built on fear and spectacle.

Relationships

• Ralph — His rival, whom he finally hunts.
• Piggy — The boy he mocks and hits, breaking his glasses.
• Roger — His enforcer.

What Jack Merridew stands for

• The painted face: a mask that removes shame.
• Castle Rock: a fortress of power.

Why Golding made Jack Merridew

• To show how authoritarian power grows out of fear and appetite.
• To expose the gap between claims of civilisation and behaviour.

Other readings

• A dictator in miniature, ruling by fear and spectacle.
• A boy who finds in hunting a power school never gave him.
• A figure of the violence Golding saw in human nature itself.

Essay arguments

• Golding shows Jack moving from the language of rules to the language of the hunt, so civilisation proves a thin layer.
• The painted face frees Jack from shame, suggesting that identity and conscience depend on being seen.
• Jack rules by offering meat and protection from the beast, showing how fear can be used to hold power.

In theme essays

• Power: Castle Rock.
• Civilisation and savagery: Jack's insistence that they are not savages.

Questions that get asked

• How does Golding present Jack in Lord of the Flies?
• How does Golding explore ideas about power through Jack?

Think you understand Jack Merridew? Teach it, then defend it against William Golding →

Piggy

The clever, mocked outsider whose glasses make fire

Piggy is overweight, asthmatic and short-sighted, an outsider by class and body, mocked by the others from the start; his real name is never given. He is the most rational boy on the island: he sees the value of the conch, calls for shelters, rules and a list of names, and thinks like an adult. His glasses are used to light the fire. Jack breaks one lens and later steals the glasses, leaving him nearly blind. He goes to Castle Rock with the conch to demand them back and to argue for rules, and is killed by a rock Roger sends down on him; the conch is shattered at the same moment.

The voice of reason

Piggy asks Ralph not to tell the others his nickname, and Ralph tells them at once. Piggy suggests using the conch, wants to count the boys, and worries about the littluns. He is often right and rarely heeded.

Key moment. Piggy insisting, conch in hand, on his right to speak (Throughout). Piggy relies on the conch to be heard because he has no other authority. His dependence on rules shows both their value and their fragility.

Castle Rock

Key moment. Piggy's last question at Castle Rock: are rules and agreement better than hunting and killing? (Chapter 11). His last argument sets rules and agreement against hunting and killing. Moments later he is killed, and the novel lets the answer be given by force.

Key moment. The conch bursting into tiny white pieces as Piggy is killed (Chapter 11). The conch explodes as Piggy dies. Order and its spokesman are destroyed in the same instant.

How Golding builds Piggy in language and structure

Piggy's speech is non-standard in grammar, which the other boys mock, but his ideas are the most rational on the island.

His glasses are the novel's symbol of reason, used to make fire and then stolen.

Structurally his death and the conch's destruction happen together in Chapter 11.

Piggy in context

His speech marks a different class background from the other boys, and the mockery shows class prejudice.

He stands for the faith in science and adult reason that the war had shaken.

Relationships

• Ralph — His friend, who uses his ideas and learns his worth too late.
• Jack — His tormentor.
• Roger — His killer.

What Piggy stands for

• The glasses: reason and science, used to make fire.
• His asthma and weight: an outsider's body.

Why Golding made Piggy

• To show reason and rules as vulnerable without power behind them.
• To show how groups pick on outsiders.

Other readings

• The voice of reason and science, destroyed by fear.
• An outsider whose difference makes him a target.
• A figure of adult thinking who cannot command respect.

Essay arguments

• Golding makes Piggy right and powerless, showing that reason needs authority to survive.
• The shattering of the conch with Piggy's death makes his loss the loss of order itself.
• The way the boys mock Piggy shows prejudice at work long before the violence.

In theme essays

• Civilisation: the glasses and the conch.
• Power: reason without force.

Questions that get asked

• How does Golding present Piggy in Lord of the Flies?
• How does Golding use Piggy to explore ideas about civilisation and reason?

Think you understand Piggy? Teach it, then defend it against William Golding →

Simon

The quiet boy who understands the beast and is killed for it

Simon is a small, shy boy from the choir who faints and is thought odd. He helps the littluns, picking fruit for them, and helps Ralph build the shelters when others will not. He goes alone to a quiet clearing in the forest. At an assembly he suggests that the beast may be inside the boys themselves, and is laughed at. Later, in the clearing, he faces the pig's head on a stick — the Lord of the Flies — which seems to speak to him. He climbs the mountain, finds that the beast is a dead parachutist, and runs down to tell the others, but stumbles into their frenzied dance in the storm and is beaten to death. His body is carried out to sea.

The insight

Key moment. Simon's halting suggestion at the assembly that the beast might be the boys themselves (Chapter 5). Simon struggles to say what he means and is laughed down. His halting suggestion is the novel's central idea: the beast is human.

The clearing and the beast

Key moment. The pig's head seeming to tell Simon that the beast is a part of him (Chapter 8). The pig's head, in a scene that may be a hallucination, tells Simon that the beast is inside him. The novel's title is given a voice to confirm Simon's insight.

Key moment. The pig's head mocking the idea that the beast is an animal to be hunted and killed (Chapter 8). The head mocks the idea of the beast as an animal to be hunted. The boys' hunts cannot find what is inside them.

How Golding builds Simon in language and structure

Simon struggles to speak in assemblies, and his halting words are laughed at.

The narration describes him in scenes of natural beauty and silence, set apart from the others.

Structurally his death in Chapter 9 is the turning point from hunting animals to killing a boy.

Simon in context

Many readers see Simon as a Christ-like or prophet figure, killed for the truth he brings.

His insight answers the post-war question of where evil comes from.

Relationships

• Ralph — A loyal helper with the shelters.
• The littluns — He feeds and comforts them.
• The Lord of the Flies — The head that confirms his insight.

What Simon stands for

• The clearing: a place of solitude and vision.
• His death: truth destroyed by the group.

Why Golding made Simon

• To provide a figure of insight and goodness.
• To show the group destroying the one who understands it.

Other readings

• A saint or prophet figure killed by those he tries to save.
• The novel's voice of truth.
• A sensitive boy whose difference makes him vulnerable.

Essay arguments

• Golding gives Simon the novel's central insight and then has the group kill him, showing truth destroyed by fear.
• The scene with the pig's head turns the beast from a creature into a part of human nature.
• Simon's death is the moment the boys cross from hunting animals to killing one of their own.

In theme essays

• The beast: Simon's suggestion that the beast might be the boys themselves.
• Innocence: Simon's death.

Questions that get asked

• How does Golding present Simon in Lord of the Flies?
• How does Golding use Simon to explore ideas about the beast?

Think you understand Simon? Teach it, then defend it against William Golding →

Roger

The silent boy whose cruelty grows as the rules fade

Roger is a quiet, secretive boy who becomes Jack's enforcer. Early on he throws stones near a littlun but deliberately misses, held back by the memory of rules from home. As the novel goes on that restraint disappears: he is among the most violent hunters, guards Castle Rock, releases the rock that kills Piggy, and by the end is said to have sharpened a stick at both ends for Ralph. He represents cruelty that needs only the removal of rules to appear.

Stones that miss

Key moment. Roger throwing stones that land near a littlun but deliberately miss, held back by the rules of home and school (Chapter 4). Roger throws stones to miss, held back by the rules of parents, school and police. The novel shows civilisation as an invisible barrier — and then shows it dissolving.

The rock

Key moment. Roger leaning on the lever that sends the rock down onto Piggy, giving himself up to the moment (Chapter 11). Roger leans on the lever that sends the rock onto Piggy. The phrase shows killing as a release, the opposite of the restraint in Chapter 4.

Key moment. The conch bursting into tiny white pieces as Piggy is killed (Chapter 11). The conch shatters as Roger's rock strikes. His act destroys order as well as Piggy.

How Golding builds Roger in language and structure

Roger speaks very little; Golding defines him by actions.

The narration traces his restraint dissolving, from stones that miss to the rock that kills.

Structurally he moves from the edges of the group to the role of enforcer.

Roger in context

His early restraint is linked to parents, school and police — the institutions of adult order.

Readers after the war saw in such figures the ordinary people who carry out a regime's violence.

Relationships

• Jack — His chief, whose authority frees his cruelty.
• Piggy — His victim.
• Ralph — The boy he hunts at the end.

What Roger stands for

• The stones that miss: the invisible limits of civilisation.
• The rock: those limits gone.

Why Golding made Roger

• To show cruelty restrained only by external rules.
• To trace the removal of those rules step by step.

Other readings

• A sadist waiting for the chance.
• Evidence that cruelty is ordinary when rules are removed.
• The enforcer every tyrant needs.

Essay arguments

• Golding uses Roger's stones that miss to show civilisation as a learned restraint that can fade.
• Roger's killing of Piggy shows the final collapse of that restraint.
• As Jack's enforcer, Roger shows how tyranny depends on those willing to carry out violence.

In theme essays

• Civilisation and savagery: the stones that miss.
• Power: the enforcer.

Questions that get asked

• How does Golding present Roger in Lord of the Flies?
• How does Golding present violence in Lord of the Flies?

Think you understand Roger? Teach it, then defend it against William Golding →

Civilisation and savagery

The boys bring rules, assemblies and a conch to the island; the novel watches them fall away.

The novel sets up the signs of civilisation early: an elected chief, assemblies, the conch as a symbol of the right to speak, a plan for shelters and a signal fire. Against them grow the hunt, the painted faces, the chants and the feasts. The fire goes out; the shelters are left unfinished; the assemblies fall apart; Piggy's glasses are stolen; the conch is shattered. By the end the boys are hunting a boy.

Key moment. Jack, at an early assembly, calling for rules because they are English and not savages (Chapter 2). Jack's early claim sets the measure by which the novel judges the boys — and him.

The novel's use of savage is itself a product of its time: it draws on a colonial way of speaking about other peoples, and the boys' painted faces and chants borrow from stereotypes. A strong essay can notice that the novel locates savagery not in any other people but in British schoolboys, which turns the stereotype back on those who used it.

Context that changes the reading. The novel was published in 1954, after the Second World War, in which the most civilised nations had carried out mass killing. The boys are being evacuated during a new war in which an atom bomb is mentioned. Golding had served in the Royal Navy during the war and had worked as a schoolteacher.

Use this in an essay. Frame: Golding gives the boys every sign of civilisation and then shows how little those signs restrain them.

Think you understand civilisation and savagery in Lord of the Flies? Teach it, then defend it →

Power and leadership

Two kinds of leadership compete: Ralph's elected order and Jack's rule by fear and appetite.

Ralph is elected with the conch and governs by assembly and rules; Jack leads by charisma, hunting, meat and the promise of protection from the beast. When the boys must choose, most choose Jack. Piggy has the best ideas but no power; Roger enforces Jack's will. The novel asks what makes people follow, and its answer is uncomfortable: fear and feasting outweigh reason.

Key moment. Piggy's last question at Castle Rock: are rules and agreement better than hunting and killing? (Chapter 11). Piggy's last question names the choice the island has faced.

Context that changes the reading. The novel was written in the years after dictatorships in Europe had won popular support through fear, spectacle and the promise of strength. Readers have often seen Jack's tribe in that light.

Use this in an essay. Frame: Ralph has the conch; Jack has the meat — and the novel shows which the boys follow.

Think you understand Power and leadership in Lord of the Flies? Teach it, then defend it →

The beast and fear (minor)

The beast begins as a littlun's nightmare and ends as the darkness inside the boys.

A littlun with a birthmark first reports a beastie. Fear grows: the beast is imagined from the sea, then seen on the mountain — in fact a dead parachutist, a sign from the adult war. Jack's hunters leave the pig's head as a gift to it. Simon alone understands that the beast is inside the boys, and he is killed by them while they chant about killing the beast.

Key moment. Simon's halting suggestion at the assembly that the beast might be the boys themselves (Chapter 5). The insight the boys laugh at, and the novel's central idea.

Context that changes the reading. After the war, many people were asking how ordinary people had taken part in atrocities. The novel's beast answers in a way that puts the cause inside human beings.

Use this in an essay. Frame: The boys hunt the beast across the island, and the novel shows it was never anywhere but in them.

Think you understand the beast and fear in Lord of the Flies? Teach it, then defend it →

Innocence and its loss (minor)

A story about children on a paradise island becomes a story about the end of innocence.

The island at first looks like a boys' adventure paradise: sun, fruit, a lagoon, no adults. The boys are delighted. By the end the paradise burns, two boys are dead, and the rescuing officer sees only a game gone wrong. Ralph weeps for what he now knows.

Key moment. Ralph weeping, at the rescue, for the boys' lost innocence (Chapter 12). The novel's own summary of what has happened.

Context that changes the reading. Victorian adventure stories such as R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island, whose heroes are also called Ralph and Jack, showed British boys bringing order to an island. The officer's mention of that story at the end invites the reader to see Golding's novel as a reply to it.

Use this in an essay. Frame: Golding borrows the adventure story's island and boys, and shows what the adventure story left out.

Think you understand innocence and its loss in Lord of the Flies? Teach it, then defend it →