Quotes - How said it? Flashcards
“Jack’s in charge of the choir. They can be - what do you want them to be?”
Ralph said this in Chapter 1.
It backfires when Jack, hungry for power, decides to take his hunters and start his own savage tribe later in the novel.
“We’ve got to have special people for looking after the fire… Another thing. We ought to have more rules. Where the conch is, that’s a meeting.”
Ralph says this in Chapter 2.
You can see his focus on orderly civilisation by prioritising the signal fire and establishing rules. You can also see that he has hope of being rescued.
“Don’t you want to be rescued? All you can talk about is pig, pig, pig!”
Ralph says this in Chapter 4.
He’s angry at Jack and his hunters for letting the signal fire burn out while hunting a pig.
“Things are breaking up. I don’t understand why. We began well; we were happy.”
Ralph says this in Chapter 5.
He doesn’t understand why everyone else can’t see the logic in maintaining a signal fire, or in helping build the shelters. He realises the difficulty of organising a civilisation where everyone has different ideas about how society should run.
“The fire’s the most important thing. Without the fire we can’t be rescued. I’d like to put on war-paint and be a savage. But we must keep the fire burning. The fire’s the most important thing on the island, because, because—”
After Jack and his hunters invite Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric to their feast in Chapter 8, Ralph admits he’d like to join Jack and the others in living a more carefree lifestyle, but he can’t. Ralph believes in the good of the group and the promise of rescue, and therefore cannot participate in Jack’s savage game. However, even Ralph begins to lose sight of the reason the fire is so important. This quote marks one of the times Ralph’s thinking becomes confused and he loses his focus, which undermine his ability to be a strong and convincing leader.
That was Simon…That was murder.
Ralph is the only character to admit that he helped kill Simon in Chapter 10, while Samneric and Piggy prefer to lie and make up excuses. Ralph acknowleges that the boys have killed Simon, one of their own, not the imaginary beast they believed they were attacking. By using the lawful terminology to refer to what the boys have done, Ralph returns the boys from their frenzied fantasy to the brutal reality of their actions.
I’m frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home.
In Chapter 10, Ralph grapples with his grief the morning after the boys kill Simon. Ralph understands that he has committed an unspeakable act. His new knowledge of his and the other boys’ capacity for violence causes him to fear their situation evne more than before. In a reminder that these characters are merely children, Ralph wants to return to the safety of his home.
Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
This quote, which comes in Chapter 11, sums up the essential conflict between Jack and Ralph. Ralph believes in law, order, and working towards the common good – in this case, rescue, while Jack prioritizes hunting, chaos, and living for the moment. Ralph pleads one final time with Jack and the others to see reason, to rejoin the group and help him build a civilization. But in an escalating fight to get Piggy’s glasses back, the boys refuse to compromise and in the chaos that follows, Piggy is murdered by Roger, signaling the triumph of Ralph’s worldview over Jack’s.
I ought to be chief…because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.
In Chapter 1, Jack stakes his claim as natural leader of the boys based on somewhat arbitrary prerequisites. However, due to Piggy’s crucial vote for Ralph, Jack fails to be elected leader, but is allowed to maintain control over his choir. While Jack does have inherent leadership abilities, he is bested by Ralph’s charm and desire to develop a set of civilized rules for the boys.
His specs – use them as burning glasses!
In Chapter 2, Jack realizes that Piggy’s glasses can be used to start a fire on the island, and aggressively snatches them from Piggy’s face. Jack’s actions foreshadow the importance of Piggy’s glasses to the plot and to the survival of the boys, while also highlighting Jack’s physical dominance over Piggy.
I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things.
In Chapter 2, Jack asserts that the boys should adhere to the rules of British civilization on the island. This statement is ironic because Jack and his followers are quick to shirk the constraints of society and give in to savagery. Jack’s logic that the boys should act civilized because they’re British – not because they’re humans – foreshadows the tribalism that develops later on. The example of Britain as a model civilization also mirrors the Naval officer’s disappointment at the end of the book to see British boys reduced to savagery.
I thought I might kill.
Jack returns from an unsuccessful hunt in Chapter 3 and tells Ralph he almost succeeded. Jack’s frustration at his inability to kill the pig is mirrored by Ralph’s frustration at Jack’s neglect of other duties to help the group. Ralph wants Jack to either catch a pig, or give up and help build shelters for the others. Tension grows between Ralph and Jack as their motivations on the island diverge.
Eat! Damn you!
When, in Chapter 4, Jack finally kills a pig, he angrily demands the group eat in acknowledgement of his success as a hunter and provider. Jack notices that his rage elicits respect from the other boys, and for the first time recognizes his lust for power and controlling others. He will learn to use this rage, and the fear it incites, to motivate the boys and inspire their allegiance through the rest of the book.
Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong – we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat - !
In Chapter 5, Jack feels that being a hunter is more important than following Ralph’s rules. He values killing and hunting more than contributing to the order and civilization of the island. Jack demonstrates his growing desire for power over the others as he begins establishing an authoritarian system focused on hunting and barbarity.
I’m not going to play anymore. Not with you…I’m not going to be a part of Ralph’s lot—
Hurt and embarrassed after Ralph belittles his hunters, Jack decides to leave the group in Chapter 8 and go off on his own. Jack’s tears remind us that despite their adult actions, these characters are still children. Jack’s humiliation is directly tied to his violence later in the book, when he realizes that fear is an effective tool for getting the others to take him seriously.
Sharpen a stick at both ends.
In a particularly brutal hunting scene in Chapter 8, Jack tells Roger to use a sharpened stick to mount the dead pig’s head and leave it as an offering to the beast. The head becomes the Lord of the Flies with whom Simon has a hallucinogenic conversation. In the final chapter, Roger and Jack sharpen a second stick. While they don’t explicitly state their plans, because of this earlier quote we know they intend to mount Ralph’s head as an additional offering to the beast.
No! How could we–kill–it?
In Chapter 10, Jack asks Stanley how they could kill the beast, even as the boys quietly suspect the beast was actually Simon. Like Piggy and Samneric on the other side of the island, Jack refuses to admit that he helped brutally murder Simon, not the beast. Because Jack needs the boys to continue fearing the beast in order to maintain his control, he tells his hunters to prepare an offering just in case the beast returns, again disguised as something or someone else.
Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all dead.
In the first chapter, Piggy mentions the ongoing global war to Ralph, implying that no one survived. As the boys rebuild society on the island, we understand how the world might look after a cataclysmic nuclear event. Ralph and the others represent a small scale version of humankind’s proclivity for violence and war. The fact that they quickly degenerate to the same sort of intolerance and tribalism that leads to war does not suggest much optimism for mankind’s ability to correct course after a global catastrophe.
Acting like a crowd of kids!
In Chapter 2, Piggy is frustrated by the immaturity of the others when they excitedly run off to build a fire atop the mountain. He asks them to calm down, think rationally, and use adult intellect to problem solve. While the boys view Piggy as a nuisance, he correctly assumes that in their excitement, they contributed to the death of at least one stray littlun.
Give me my specs!
Piggy begs with the boys to return his glasses in Chapter 2 during the first signal fire atop the mountain. This quote establishes Piggy as physically inferior to the other biguns, particularly when they gang up on him. It also foreshadows the importance of Piggy’s glasses to the group’s need for fire and the developing plot.
That little ‘un that had a mark on his face—where is he now? I tell you I don’t see him.
After the boys light a signal fire that erupts into a huge forest blaze in Chapter 2, Piggy asks after a littlun who is missing. He indicates that in their excitement the boys lost track of some of the smaller boys and that at least one child is likely dead from the raging fire. Finally listening to Piggy, the other boys fall silent in shameful realization.
I know there isn’t no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I know there isn’t no fear, either…Unless we get frightened of people.
In Chapter 5, Piggy refuses to believe a real beast is on the island, but he does concede that fear itself exists, and could be particularly dangerous if the boys start to become frightened of one another. Manipulating fear in order to control people is a tactic eventually employed by Jack and Roger in the final chapters, proving Piggy right.
What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?
Piggy fears that the boys are going to descend into savagery in Chapter 5. As the voice of logic and intellect, Piggy is ridiculed and ignored, and when he asks this legitimate question during an assembly, Jack immediate stands and calls him names, proving Piggy’s concerns about savagery on a small scale.
[Jack] hates you too, Ralph…You got him over the fire; an’ you’re chief an’ he isn’t… He can’t hurt you: but if you stand out of the way he’d hurt the next thing. And that’s me.
In Chapter 5, Piggy foreshadows his own death at the hands of Jack. Piggy’s intelligence and sensitivity lends him insight into Jack and Ralph’s relationship, and he can understand how dangerous Jack would be if Ralph were ever removed. Jack’s jealousy and anger toward Piggy culminates in Piggy’s murder in Chapter 11.
