As the days go by, Jack wants a more active roll, and asks Ralph if he can be the leader of the hunters, at first they find it difficult to find it within them to murder the pig, but Jack soon builds an insatiable obsession with hunting a pig, and finally he comes to grips with what he “has” to do, and murders the pig. However, the island is full of fruit and other luxuries, but human nature demands blood and hunting. Soon after Jack and his hunters (once being civilised intelligent choir boys) paint themselves like tribal warriors, and soon the chant “Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Bash her in!” can be heard within the forest. Slowly, their civilisation is falling to pieces, and soon law and order is not respected as everyone wants to hunt. Ralph, Piggy and smneric continue to do what is required, as the others go and have “fun”. Ralph finds it difficult to convey what he is thinking into words, “I cant think, not like Piggy….Piggy could think” the only problem was that “Piggy was no chief, but for all of his ludicrous body, he had brains”. Something in all honesty Ralph did not have. Although, Ralph continued to call his meetings and use the conch to demand silence he respect from the others was wearing, and Jack with his pugnacious ways says, “I ought to be chief”. Early on it is mentioned that a “beast” is on the island, and everyone is scared and worried. Ralph as leader decides to call a hunt, yet Simon a shy and strange boy believes “it is not the beast we should worry about, but each other”.
Simon is a martyr like figure, and he is like a religious allusion, a prophet of some sort. However, the other children think he is “batty” and do not really mix with him. Yet, he is the only child that knows that the beast is not a physical thing, yet mans pernicious nature. He finds a dead body of a parachutist and when he goes to tell the others they hunt him down and murder him, thinking he is the beast. By this time, Jack has made his own tribe, and Ralph and Piggy go to try and sort things out, whilst Jacks tribe are doing tribal dances and eating flesh. When Simon is killed, they try to make out as if the beast took the form of Simon, yet deep down they knew it was cold-blooded murder. “The mask was a thing on its own behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness’”, Jacks and his face paint made him a savage, but if it was taken away from him a humble and young face would immerge. Piggy only had one half of his glasses, and this symbolises that even his clear sightedness and intelligence has no answer to the tribalistic and animal like savages the others had become. They no longer shouted when they hunted, but “snarled” and “growled”. The island was become worse and worse, and Piggy and Ralph knew this, but there was very little they could do. Soon after Piggy’s glasses were stolen so the other tribe could make a fire, and then broken, so Piggy had very limited vision.
Ralph goes to confront Jack and tells him that he is a “dirty thief” and they have a fight, to which Jack hurls his spear at Ralph, which narrowly misses. Jack once had worries of killing a pig, yet now he has no worries and feelings under the mask. Rodger, a violent and bully-like boy hurls a huge rock off the top of there base, and it lands on Piggy, cruelly murdering him, and washing him to the sea. Ralph is outraged, but is ganged up on by the tribe and has to run. Golding takes the island to such a low level, and shows how man has an evil and violent nature, and that civilisation is just a façade. The island turns from a potential Utopia, to a complete Dystopia. Ralph, is alone everyone he once had control of are now Jacks, the conch was smashed to a million pieces as democracy ended, and so did the intelligent and clear sighted Piggy.
The pigs’ head, which is an offering to the beast, represents the dictatorship and the evil nature of the boys. Simon when alive, has an illusional conversation with it, and talks to it, yet he is not afraid, and his religious air about him seems to logically conclude that the beast is a mentality thing, rather than a physical one.
Ralph the following day is hunted down, as Jacks tribe want to kill him, the island is at an all time low, and Ralph hides is lots of crawlers, only to be found, and burnt out, he keeps running and the island is on fire creating a dantesque atmosphere, as the island turns to a hellish image. Ralph sprints away, and then bumps into the ultimate figure of civilisation, a fully uniformed Officer. He turns to the boys, who have spears and face paint on, and classes it to “fun and games”, when really the boys had gone so far down into savagery and animalistic behaviour, that it would be very difficult to come to terms with when they are back home, in “Great Britain”.
The island changes gradually from a democratic mini civilisation, to a fascist dictatorship, and at the time the book was written there was cold war paranoia. The book has an element of didactism also, and the symbols of the story are vivid. The way the boys behave changes the Island completely, and Golding deliberately changes his descriptions throughout the book from being “beautiful” and “nice” to “hellish” and constantly reminds the readers of the boys as “savages”. The, way they act reflects mans pernicious nature, and the lust for meat and blood. The boys had no Law or Order, and the only discipline they had was Jack. Towards the end the islands turns apocalyptic and the shows how crowd mentality really can have effect on the individual.