When Jack first arrives at one of the shelters and asks for some water, Ralph is working so hard that he didn’t even notice him and says “oh, hullo. Water? There by the tree. Ought to be some left” without even looking at Jack. Then explaining to Jack, Ralph says “Been working for days. And look” showing him two very shaky shelters. Ralph then goes on to say “Meetings. Don’t we love meetings? Every day. Twice a day. We talk. I bet if I blew this conch this minute they’d come running. Then we’d be, you know, very solemn, and someone would say we ought to build a jet, or a submarine, or a TV set. When the meeting was over they’d work then wonder off or go hunting”. This sums up how annoyed Ralph is at the lack of progress they have been making and also it ties in how he thinks hunting is not important as he links it in with wondering off.
At this Jack flushes and says “We want meat” in a clearly insulted way. Then Ralph says how they still haven’t got any meat, the shelters were more important and that the other hunters came back hours before and had been swimming the whole time. Jack then to “convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up” and again “the madness came into eyes again” but Ralph does not see it in the way Jack does. Ralph says “but you haven’t” referring to Jack and his hunters still not getting any meat in an undertone making his annoyance obvious. Then Jack goes on to say “But I shall! Next time! I’ve got to get a barb on this spear! We wounded a pig and the spear fell out. If we could only make barbs-” and Ralph shouts back “We need shelters”. This causes Jack to shout “Are you accusing-?” and a drift between the two begins.
The two boys go on to say about the beast when Ralph says “If it rains like when we dropped in we’ll need shelters all right. And then another thing. We need shelters because of the-” Here Ralph first indicates how he thinks there is a beast but does not want to say it because he is embarrassed in believing it. Jack goes on to admit it when he says “when you’re hunting sometimes you catch yourself feeling as if- He flushed suddenly. There’s nothing in it of course. Just a feeling. But you can feel as if you’re not hunting, but – being hunted; as if something’s behind you all the time in the jungle.” Here he admits he’s afraid there is a beast and that it is hunting him down but he tries to disguise by seeing it’s only a feeling like when someone enters an unknown place with no one around they feel isolated and as though they are being watched.
Afterwards Jack returns to thinking about the pigs when he shouts “Got it”, Ralph who thought he saw a ship quickly asks “What? Where? Is it a ship?” But Jack is looking up at the mountain saying about the pigs resting in the shade. At this Ralph shouts out “All you can talk about is pig, pig, pig” and the frustration between the two boys appears again with again Jack obsessed with the pigs and Ralph obsessed with rescue.
Later on in the book when a ship appears on the horizon there was no fire which Ralph and Piggy saw as they ran up the mountain. From this point on the relationship between Ralph and Jack severely declines as they become more hostile towards each other. It says “Ralph reached inside himself for the worst word he knew.” And he says “They let the bloody fire out.” Which at the time was a very rude thing to say and it was the worst thing Ralph could think of showing how angry he is. When the hunters returned “Ralph clenched his fists and went very red. The intentness of his gaze, the bitterness of his voice pointed for him. There they are.”
The hunters are all happy along with Jack and the twins Sam and Eric and back celebrating the slaughter of the pig. Ralph spoke “You let the fire out” which Jack replies back saying “We can light the fire again” not really caring as he is so happy that he has finally killed a pig. Again Ralph says “You let the fire out” causing Jack to feel uneasy and he looks at the twins and says “We had to have them in the hunt” though he was “conscious of a fault” Jack realises he is wrong but tries to dismiss it saying “The fire’s only been out for an hour or two. We can light up again-” but stops after seeing Ralph’s “scarred nakedness, and the sombre silence of all four of them” Ralph points to the horizon and says “There was a ship” These few striking words force Jack to back away back to the pig. From this point on the friendship between Jack and Ralph completely breaks down and this is where the real problems begin on the island with each disagreeing more and more until Jack begins his own group where he is chief.
