Overall Summary

In the beginning, Ralph is in the jungle working his way down to the beach. There, he meets Piggy, and they use a conch shell that Piggy found to call the rest of the survivors of the crash there. When the boys meet, they elect Ralph as chief, with Jack being in charge of the choir. It is decided later that they will create a signal fire in order to get the attention of any passing ships, that the choir boys will be the Hunters, and that the conch will be used to determine who speaks during assemblies. An expedition then explores the majority of the island. Later, using Piggy's glasses, they create a fire, but accidentally set part of the island on fire. Rules are laid down afterwards, but these get ignored, as the signal fire is eventually left to burn out, and the boys begin to get lazy.

The group begins to worry, however, about the perceived presence of a beast on the island. Ralph and Jack deny the existence of such a beast, but the boys claim to have seen it. Jack takes his hunters out to look for one

Jack begins to diverge from the rest of the group from the beginning, acting aggressively and attempting to go against Ralph, doing things such as painting his face and attempting to turn the rest of the group against him. For a time, he was rebuked by the boys, but Jack ultimately broke away from the rest of the boys along with some other boys, and created their own tribe. They then killed a pig and lured most of the other children to their tribe with the promise of meat. The boys begin to paint their faces like Jack did beforehand and take part in dances.

Soon after, Simon find the head of the pig killed beforehand on a sharpened stick. In a fit of hallucination, he sees the head as The Lord of the Flies, and passes out. Later he wakes up and sees that the man that had crashed on the island earlier is not the beast. He goes to tell the others, but is mistaken for the beast by Jack and his tribe (as well as Ralph and Piggy and Samneric, who had arrived at the tribe's home for a feast), and is killed in the ensuing melee.

Afterwards, Ralph's camp is raided by Jack's tribe in order to take possession of the only means to start fire on the island (Piggy's glasses). They go to retrieve the glasses, but the tribe refuses, and Roger kills Piggy, and Samneric taken hostage and tortured into joining the tribe. A manhunt for Ralph ensues, and the tribe sets the entire island on fire. Ralph runs to a section of the island that is not burning, and finds a Naval Officer there. The rest of the boys arrive, and as Ralph begins to cry, the rest follow suit. The officer turns away to give them time, and looks on silently at the ship in the distance.