46 pages • 1 hour read
William GoldingLord of the Flies
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1954A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: “Gift for the Darkness”
When Jack, Ralph, and Roger come down from the mountain, Jack calls an assembly. He tells the others that they saw the beast. He says that Ralph thinks the hunters are no good. When Jack calls Ralph a coward, saying he stayed back instead of crawling toward the beast, he and Ralph come close to blows. Jack asks for a vote as to who should be chief, but none of the boys vote, so he runs off down the beach. Ralph and Piggy decide they should build a fire on the beach, but by the time they’ve finished building it, most of the bigguns have run off to join Jack. At the far end of the beach, Jack tells his hunters that he’s chief. He leads them on a hunt, where they kill a fat sow with their spears and bare hands. Jack, in a gift to the beast, cuts off the pig’s head and puts it on a stake. When Simon sees it, he names it “Lord of the Flies”(138) because of the big green bottle flies swarming over it. As Jack plans a feast and goes down to steal fire from Ralph, Simon sits talking to the pig’s head, who tells him that he is a silly boy for thinking the beast could be killed.
Chapter 9 Summary: “A View to a Death”
As clouds begin to build up over the island, Simon wakes from where he has fainted and makes his way down the mountainside. He sees the pilot stuck in his parachute and is heading down to tell the others that the beast is a human:just a man, stranded here in death like they are. Down below, Ralph and Piggy, realizing all the others have joined Jack, decide they will as well. When they reach Jack, his hunters offer them meat, but as the storm begins to break, they pretend they are killing the pig again. They chant and dance as the wind kicks up. Lightning strikes, and the rain storm blows in from the ocean. Simon, weak and weary, tries to tell them that the beast is only a man, but in the frenzy of the storm and their fear and savagery, Jack and his hunters fall on Simon, thinking he is the beast, and beat him to death.
Chapters 8-9 Analysis
Jack calling the assembly is the first time anyone beside Ralph has called one, signifying that, somehow, Ralph has lost his leadership and Jack has taken control. And even though no one will vote for Jack to be the new leader, as soon as he runs off, the bigguns follow him. Their fear has gotten to them again. They fear the beast and believe that Jack and his spears can protect them.They forgo working the fire for rescue in favor of what they consider safety. In their ignorance, they have no idea that the beast is only a man, stranded on the island like they are. The dead pilot foreshadows the fate of the boys. The fire represents comfort and safety, and the spears and face paint represent savagery and reverting back to a time before civilization when man could not even build a fire, when he stole from his fellow man. Ralph and Piggy, wanting the kind of comfort that only comes from the closeness of others, decide to join Jack and his hunters, not realizing they are acquiescing to Jack. In doing so, they are accepting his rules of savagery. When Simon comes down the hill, he is killed before he can tell the boys that he was right: the beast was no more than a man. Simon’s death is a sign that the boys may not make it to being men because they have allowed the beast—the fear and savagery inside them—to take over.
