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READ THIS
A thunderstorm is brewing. Ralph and Piggy, finding themselves isolated, decide to join Jack's group in
order to participate in their feast.
The storm terrifies the boys. Jack calls them to form a circle and do their hunter dance. Into this circle
stumbles Simon . . .
READ THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE:
The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The
shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe.
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"
The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead
man on a hill.
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"
The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in
the centre, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise something about
a body on the hill. The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to
the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast,
screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly.
The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the
horseshoe.
- What was the "thing" that was crawling out of the forest? (2)
[Need help?]
It was Simon, was it not? Simon had come down from the mountain to tell the boys that he knew the truth
about the identity of the beast.
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- Why did the "thing" come "darkly, uncertainly"? (4)
[Need help?]
Simon suffered from epilepsy and had had a fit -- a grand mal -- before the skull of the pig on
the mountain top. During that time he had had a "conversation" with the Lord of the Flies.
He came now to the beach to tell the boys but he was still groggy and uncertain from having been
unconscious for so long. He therefore staggered into their circle.
He arrived "darkly" because it was indeed getting very dark. A massive thunderstorm had erupted
which would already have darkened the world but it was also evening and so the world was getting dark
with the onset of night.
Furthermore, the boys identified Simon as being the beast. It was they, therefore, who saw him as a dark
vision of a dark, evil beast. It was to them that he appeared "darkly".
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- Explain the "shrill screaming" that rose before the beast "like a pain". (4)
[Need help?]
The "shrill screaming" could have been one of two things.
First, it could have been the boys themselves screaming in terror at the sight of what they thought was
the beast staggering into their circle.
On the other hand, it could have been Simon screaming in agony as the boys laid into him, clubbing him
to death.
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- What is the purpose of the war cry, "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his
blood!"? (4)
[Need help?]
A war cry is a short refrain which is meant to unite the tribe and instill into it a sense of urgency and
togetherness in support of one another. Sports team are prone to use war cries.
In this case, the war cry is that of the group of hunters. They created it on the first occasion that they had
killed the sow and it now became their distinctive chant to reinforce their togetherness, and to identify them
as different from the rest of the boys.
In this case, the war cry is being used to unite all the boys under Jack's leadership, both to establish his
rule over them and as a means of making them forget the fear of the thunderstorm.
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The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a
dead man on a hill.
- What was the "blue-white scar"? (2)
[Need help?]
The "blue-white scar" is a flash of lightning that must have struck very near.
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- Why was it "constant" and the noise "unendurable"? (4)
[Need help?]
The thunderstorm was raging all around them. Flashes of lighting were happening all the time, every few
seconds.
The storm was so close that the boys were right inside it. The noise of thunder was therefore deafening.
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- What was the "dead man on a hill"? (4)
[Need help?]
The "dead man on a hill" was the pilot who had bailed out of his aeroplane high overhead and had
drifted down onto the island, where the strings of the parachute had become caught up in the bushes,
thereby preventing the body from being blown out to sea.
The boys, on the other hand, had seen the parachute billowing in the wind and came to believe that the
dead man was in fact a beast, an evil spirit which lived up on the hill.
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- Why was Simon attempting to tell them about this dead man? (4)
[Need help?]
Simon had seen the dead man for what he was: a dead pilot entangled in his parachute. The boys, on
the other hand, believed he was an evil beast or spirit. Simon was trying to tell them the truth so that they
would stop being afraid.
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The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed.
- Explain why it was that the circle of boys felt compelled to kill Simon. (2)
[Need help?]
The boys believed that Simon was the beast. The beast therefore needed to be killed.
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At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit,
tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.
- Explain the depiction of the boys as "tearing of teeth and claws". (4)
[Need help?]
This is a description of a savage animal, is it not? The boys have degenerated into nothing more than
savage animals, where they not only club Simon to death but also rip him apart with their hands and teeth.
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