Lord of the Flies Chapter 1 Character Introduction

Ralph

• "The boy with fair hair"
• "The delight of a realized ambition overcame him. "No grownups."
• "He was old enough...to have lost the prominent tummy of childhood and not yet old enough for adolescence to have made him awkward.
• "There was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil.

• "This is an island...Perhaps there aren't any grownups anywhere."
• "[Daddy] is a commander in the Navy. When he gets leave he'll come and rescue us.

Piggy

• "Where's the man with the megaphone?"
• "I expect we'll want to know all their names...and make a list. We ought to have a meeting."
• "Nobody didn't know we're here. Your dad doesn't know...we may stay here till we die.

• "The naked crooks of his knees were plump, caught and scratched by thorns."
• "He was shorter than the fair boy and very fat."
• "...looked up through thick spectacles."

Ralph:

He turned neatly on his feet, jumped down to the beach, knelt and swept a double armful of sand into a pile against his chest.

Piggy:

The fat boy lowered himself over the terrance and sat down carefully, using the edge as a seat.

Sam and Eric

• Two boys, bullet-headed and with hair like tow, flung themselves down and lay grinning and panting like dogs.
• They breathed together, they grinned together, they were chunky and vital.
• "Sam, Eric, Sam, Eric."

The Choir Boys

• The creature stepped from the mirage on to clear sand, and they saw that the darkness was not all shadow but mostly clothing.
• The creature was a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines.
• Each boy wore a square black cap with a silver badge on it. Their bodies from throat to ankle, were hidden by black cloaks which bore a long silver cross on the left breast.

Jack

• "The boy himself came forward, vaulted on to the platform with his cloak flying, and peered into what to him was almost complete darkness.
• Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness.
• Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn to anger.

"You're talking too much...Shut up, Fatty."

"I ought to be chief because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp."

Roger

"A slight furtive boy whom no one knew, who kept to himself with an inner intensity of avoidance and secrecy. He muttered that his name was Roger and was silent again

Simon

A skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and coarse.

Important Moments

"I ought to be chief," said Jack with simple arrogance, "because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp."

This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a chief to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was tracable to Piggy while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.

The circle of boys broke into applause. Even the choir boys applauded; and the freckles on Jack's face disappeared under a blush of mortification. He started up, then changed his mind and sat down again wile the air rang.

But not “Come on” to the top. The assault on the summit must wait while the three boys accepted this challenge. The rock was as large as a small motor car...

The boys push the rock off the cliff.

The great rock loitered, poised on one toe, decided not to return, moved through the air, fell, struck, turned over, leapt droning through the air and smashed a deep hole in the canopy of the forest. Echoes and birds flew, white and pink dust floated, the forest further down shook as with the passage of an enraged monster: and then the island was still

Note how each of the boys react to nature:

Here they paused and examined the bushes round them curiously.

Simon spoke first. “Like candles. Candle bushes. Candle buds.”

The bushes were dark evergreen and aromatic and the many buds were waxen green and folded up against the light. Jack slashed at one with his knife and the scent spilled over them.

“Candle buds.”

“You couldn’t light them,” said Ralph. “They just look like candles.”

They found a piglet caught in a curtain of creepers, throwing itself at the elastic traces in all the madness of extreme terror. Its voice was thin, needle-sharp and insistent; The three boys rushed forward and Jack drew his knife again with a flourish. He raised his arm in the air. There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm. The pause was only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be.

Chapter 1