This shows that Jack had taken the first step into becoming a savage. By saying “Bollocks to the rules”, he has said that he has no regards to the rules. He manipulated the others’ minds so he could be elected chief; gaining trust by saying he is guarding them from the beast. However, there isn’t a beast on the island hence they cannot hunt it down, this is what Simon discovers further on. Simon had a hallucination in where he meets head-on with a pig’s head on a stick covered with flies, in front of a derelict cave. The pig’s head was a gift given by Jack, to the beast. The pig’s head, the Lord of the Flies, says to Simon in his hallucination that there is no beast that can be hunted, because the beast is a part of everyone;
‘“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!...You knew didn’t you? I’m part of you?”’
This shows that the beast is a part of everyone. A part of everyone’s fears and prejudices. It is just a matter of whether it can be controlled. Jack’s feelings towards the beast is exposed the most, because he is the most savage. The character that can control his feelings towards the beast the most is Piggy, probably because he is weak and frightened and doesn’t like the idea of savagery, but maybe Piggy also is civilised and obeys the rules, as Simon and Ralph do. These three characters can control their beast the most, which Golding portrays as them being the most civilised, a contrast from the rest of the boys mainly Jack and Roger. However, Piggy and Ralph’s give in to their fear of the beasts as they take part in the killing of Simon. Simon was rushing towards the other of the boys so he could tell them that the Beast was within them and that it represents their fear, darker, more savage side of basic human behaviour. While this is happening, everyone else is joining in a dance in which a boy, Roger, is a pig and the rest are killing him. This signifies their energy and readiness as if preparing for the moment any time soon. They are completely definite in their minds that there is a beast hence the preparations. Piggy and Ralph eventually join in with the savage dance;
‘Piggy and Ralph under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society.’
This shows that because there is a storm coming, something bad is going to happen. Golding is giving a clue or a hint to the reader of what is going to happen next. Ralph and Piggy eventually joins in with the savage dance, where they could feel safe and protected alongside the rest of the numerous adrenaline pumped boys. Even though they didn’t want to be part of the dance at first, their savagery got the better of them when they took part in the killing/murder of Simon. During the killing there was a chant;
‘“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”’
Simon was rushing to the boys; to tell them about the beats, however was misinterpreted as the beast itself and the boys savagery was released. Simon was mistaken for the beast and was attacked and killed;
‘The sticks fell…Only the beast lay still’.
Ralph finds out about Simon’s undelivered message, about the Beast. The fact that the beast is a figment of the boys imagination, that it is all within them, and represents the darker, more savage side of human nature;
‘Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart’.
Ralph and Piggy talked about Simon’s death the following morning. Ralph tells Piggy he feels guilty while Piggy wants to erase the thought of his savagery from his mind completely. This shows that they both regret their savage actions and wish it had never happened, they resembled perpetrators of manslaughter. Killing someone without intention. They are not truly savage, but the numbers of the adrenaline pumped boys influenced them into the frenzy killing by the idea of safety.
Nevertheless, near the end of the novel, Ralph’s mind is constantly being disturbed by an uncontrollable feeling, which stops him from thinking straight and makes gives him more primitive behaviours on the island;
‘He paused lamely as the curtain flickered in his brain.’
This shows that Ralph is starting to become savage, because he cannot think efficiently and is becoming more primitive. This may be as he is becoming tempted to become a savage because of the breakdown of democratic civilisation in the boys. His curtain is his mind, if the curtain is open Ralph can control himself, it is like the first step for his inner beast to be free and have taken over his actions, so when the curtain shuts, his beast takes over.
Everyone on the island has an inner beast; it is just a question of whether it can be controlled. The beast can be controlled by organisation and rules, or the goodness of heart. Jack creates a tribal group of his own, who have no rules and organisation and most of all there is no goodness he spends his time killing and hunting which shows savage evilness. Ralph’s group have rules and organisation. Jack’s tribe become savage and kill and torture members of Ralph’s group. Jack’s tribe have all awoken their inner beasts, while Ralph’s group can control theirs. The beast represents the darker, more savage side of human nature, and with rules and organisation, this beast can be controlled. Piggy is Ralph’s brain, adviser, trust and intellect. Both Ralph and Piggy represent order and democracy. Jack is the spark of wilderness that burns hot and close to the surface, who later clashes with Ralph. From the very beginning Jack has emotions of anger and savagery. Simon has the most positive outlook out of all of the characters and is depicted as a “Christ figure.” He is good and pure and insists that they will be rescued.
At the beginning of the novel, Piggy finds a conch. He gives it to Ralph to blow on. This conch gathers the boy’s scattered around the deserted island together, because Ralph gathered everyone together he is elected chief. He creates rules to ensure order and civilisation is kept. His rules included that if anyone wishes to speak, to discuss issues, they should be holding the conch;
‘“I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking.”’
This shows that the conch represents order and democracy. Power to the people. By implementing rules and laws, Ralph has created a new civilisation or parliament. Just as a flag is a representation of a particular country, the conch is a representation of their civilisation, in which rules and organisation are essential. Also, Ralph does not call them as “next boy”, but addresses them as “next person”, which means that he treats the boys as mature adults and not immature children. This shows that the boys are mature enough to run a community.
As the time on the island increases, the conch is used less and less. This is because savagery is getting declared more and more. There is an unbalance between the two. The savagery is weighting heavier against democracy and goodness in civilisation. As the other boys become savage, Ralph, Piggy and Simon obey the rules and don’t become as savage as the others. However Ralph was ever nearing to become brutal on a number of occasions when he forgets that they need to be rescued of the island.
The island then becomes partitioned to two sections. Where the group of boys split up into Jack’s savage tribe and Ralph’s civilised community. Ralph, Piggy, Sam and Eric go to Jack’s tribe to get Piggy’s glasses back, which was stolen to make a fire. The littluns are forgotten and left alone, which shows that order on the island has changed to anarchy. Piggy in Ralphs’s group takes the conch with them as a sign of democracy and order, and how things should be. Piggy feels that the conch is the only power he has over Jack:
‘“You let me carry the conch, Ralph. I’ll show him the one thing he hasn’t got.”’
This shows that Jack’s tribe do not have order or civility, because they do not possess the conch. When they get there, Ralph and Jack engage in a fight. Then Roger, from the top of Castle Rock, levers a huge boulder onto Piggy, which kills him and destroys the conch.
‘…the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.’
His painful death and the overthrowing of the “conch” represented the disappearance of some of the remains of democracy. When Sam’n’Eric are taken under Jack's control, Ralph is the only one left with the fading sense of democracy and goodness against evil. With the conch gone, order and civility also fades away.
The conch represents order and goodness and when it is destroyed, all order and goodness on the island is destroyed with it. It is replaced by savagery, which consumes the entire island from that point. It is like a contagious disease.
At the beginning of the novel, the meetings are well controlled, civilised meetings with everyone obeying the rules that only Ralph, the Chief, could interrupt the others when they spoke and the only way for the others to speak was with the conch in their hands. However, as the novel progresses, the meeting become more and more chaotic and out of control as everyone apart from Piggy speak without the conch and interrupts others. This is because there is less respect and less order for each other and more savagery tales place. A particular democratic meetings of Ralph’s falls apart with the mention of the beast;
‘The careful plan of this assembly had broken down.’
The meetings get more and more out of control as the rules get broken on a more regular basis. This signals the end of order and respect. Civilised discussions are replaced by savage arguments. Even Ralph forgets why some of the meetings had taken place, because his uncontrollable curtain tempts him to become more and more primitive. Piggy constantly reminds him that they need to be rescued. In another meeting, Jack splits apart from the group to form his own tribe:
‘“I’m not going to be part of Ralph’s lot-”’
This signals the end of one unified group, and the beginning of two separated ones- Ralph’s civilised society and Jack’s savage tribe.
In conclusion, Golding is telling us that without rules and organisation, civilisation among humans cannot survive and that there is a beast in everyone, it is just a question if it can be controlled. Golding may have wrote this book in the light of events during his time such as the civil war where people believed that world war three would break out. This beast aka the war can be controlled by rules and organisation. It represents savagery and the darkness of human nature; this is all triggered by fear. The conch and the assemblies represent democracy and order, and as the conch is mentioned less and less and the democratic assemblies get more and more out of control, the beast within everyone arouses more and more often from its sleep. At the end two groups are formed- the savage group of Jack’s and the civilised one of Ralph’s. Jack’s group are more of a tribe than a civilisation, because rules and organisation mean nothing to them as they act primitive and carry out savage killings. The fall of rules/laws and organisation also means the rise of the boys inner beasts. Golding is trying to show that men must have rules in order to control his or her savage or dark side. He is trying to tell us that you have to have rules; otherwise there will be chaos. Also that human must have rules to be able to stay alive. Even if some people do not like them they must still obey them. Civilisation must have rules it is there to keep order and respect for each other in place. One of the most obvious point Golding is trying to tell us about Civilisation on the Island is that society holds everyone together, and without these conditions, our ideals, values, and the basics of right and wrong are lost. Golding is also trying to tell us that morals come from our surroundings and the people around us, and if there is no civilisation around us, men will lose such values. William Golding shows us that the darkness of man’s heart can be controlled by rules and organisation. Adults are in charge of our world because they are mature enough to have rules and organisation. It also demonstrates what will happen in a world without rules.