The description afterwards is a great example of Golding’s skill to make you feel as though you were there and gives you a clear vivid picture of the surrounding area. “The silence was so complete that they could hear the fetch and miss of Piggy’s breathing. The sun slanted in and lay golden over half of the platform. The breezes that on the lagoon had chased their trails like kittens were finding their way across the platform and into the forest” The inclusion of Piggy’s breathings makes you recognise how bad the truth was to the children and that this would cause a problem in the democracy.
Ralph who is the leader tries to keep peoples moral up by pointing out all the good factors of the island. He says “this is a good island. We-Jack, Simon and me-we climbed the mountain. It’s wizard. There’s food and drink and-” He uses lots of “ands” because he’s rushing and has not thought through what he is saying and instead is just saying everything he think of. He tries to make it look like a fairy tale and people begin shouting out the first thing that comes to their head without really thinking. Ralph carries on saying “There’s pigs”, “There’s food; and bathing-water in that little stream over there-and everything. All this excitement means people don’t think things through and are left brainwashed to believe the island is a great place and have probably forgot about Piggy’s speech.
William Golding here shows how easily people can be brainwashed by grand speeches from inspiring individuals as present today where the British government used the fear of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to scare people into agreeing to go to war in Iraq without properly thinking it through.
Despite what at first seemed a very stable and strong democracy it soon broke down and the people became divided and were under the dictatorship of Jack who had become savage and murderous. The once strong and thriving democracy was now torn with Jack’s tribe making up the bulk of the children going out killing pigs and terrorising Ralph’s tribe. The once powerful conch no longer commanded people to join the meetings and Ralph are left weak and virtually powerless. He and the last remaining members of his tribe make one final attempt to turn the people back into their civilised selves and return to democracy.
Ralph’s tribe approach the fort and see “Roger’s dark face” at the top of the fort already preparing us for what Golding has in store for us later on. As Ralph walks further up he stops and blows the conch to call a final assembly on the island and Roger “took up a small stone and flung it between the twins aiming to miss”. This causes “some source of power” to “pulse in Roger’s body” which is the sick excitement of wanting to throw bigger and bigger rocks down which results in the death of Piggy.
Golding is showing here how people can find violence exhilarating despite it being wrong and describes the hunter’s laughter as “echoing among the tall rocks” almost as if Ralph was being surrounded by the darkness and the evil of the hunters. Golding also uses alliteration where he says “The sniggering of the savages became a loud derisive jeer” as though the hunters were no longer children but has recessed and become aggressive savages who no longer knew the difference between good and evil.
At one point Ralph came very close to getting through to the hunters where he says “Your only hope is keeping a signal fire going” and “We might years; till we were old-” This silences Jack’s tribe who stand there thinking about what they are doing for the first time. Jack orders them to grab Samneric and has to repeat himself because his tribe are standing there stunned.
Ralph has lost his chance to sway the hunters and Piggy attempts to do so himself and “the booing rose and died again as Piggy lifted the white, magical shell” showing that the shell still commands at least some order. However as Piggy makes his speech we hear the “Zup” of the rocks falling building up to the end of Piggy and the end of democracy.
Finally Roger “leans “all his weight on the lever” and the great rock comes tumbling down on Piggy ending democracy and ending all reason for democracy. The shell is destroyed and Ralph has to flee for his life quite similar to what has happened in Sudan where millions of people have been forced to flee from rampaging terrorists. Golding wrote this book after the second world was and many characters can be seen to represent people where Jack is Hitler, Roger is Himmler, Ralph is Churchill and Piggy is a Jewish citizen. Even after all these years many similar events are still happening and again there are those who stand up to the bullies and those who back down from fear. The language used in the book describes all the sounds and feelings of what boys can be like and William Golding has written a unique piece of writing that is both fascinating and haunting.
