Discussion Topic
Significant endings of meetings and events in "Lord of the Flies."
Summary:
Significant endings in Lord of the Flies include the boys' descent into savagery, culminating in the deaths of Simon and Piggy, and the hunters' attempt to kill Ralph. The novel concludes with the boys' rescue by a naval officer, which abruptly ends their violent, chaotic society and forces them to confront the reality of their actions.
How does Chapter 5's meeting end in Lord of the Flies?
By the end of the meeting in the 5th
chapter of William Golding's Lord of the Flies,
fights have broken out. More specifically, Piggy and Jack
begin wrestling for the conch. Jack wants to encourage the rest of the group to
hunt for and kill the beast so that they can put their fears to rest and focus
on other necessities, while Piggy, in support of Ralph, wants the group to
behave more rationally and focus on survival and rescue.
Ralph wrestles the conch from Piggy because he is trying to
calm the group down but only winds up spooking everyone even more by speaking
of ghosts. Piggy wrestles the conch from Ralph to beg the
group members to act rationally, pleading with them in his famous lines, "What
are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What's grownups going to thing? Going
off--hunting pigs--letting fires out--and now!"
The struggle for the conch and fighting continues until
Jack runs off declaring they'll hunt and the rest of the group
follow him and begin dancing wildly. At that point, Ralph
considers resigning as chief, but Simon and Piggy convince him
otherwise.
In Lord of the Flies, how does chapter 8's meeting end?
In Chapter Eight of Lord of the Flies, Jack calls a meeting by blowing the conch and insists that the threat of the monster is real. Jack believes that Ralph is a coward who is incapable of handling the situation and calls for him to be removed from his position of leadership. The boys are unwilling to vote Ralph out of power, which causes Jack to storm off in a huff, assuring the group that those who wish to follow him are welcome to do so.
The result is a divided population, with some boys joining Jack on the beach to violently hunt down and kill a sow, whose head they offer up on a stake as a sacrifice to the beast. Jack's tribe then raids the old tribe's grounds and invites them to a feast and, once again, to join the new tribe. At this point, with the boys hungry and scared, Ralph has pretty much been stripped of all power.
How does the meeting in "Lord of the Flies" end?
This is a rather vague question because there are numerous assemblies throughout the novel Lord of the Flies. I will choose to elaborate on the assembly that takes place at the beginning of Chapter 8 because its ending is significant to the advancement of the plot of the story. After Ralph calls Jack's band of hunters "boys with sticks," Jack gets offended and calls an assembly by blowing the conch. Jack says he's called the meeting to tell the group the news that they have finally witnessed the "beast." Jack claims that they cannot kill the beast and tells the boys that Ralph said his hunters were no good. Jack attempts to usurp power by claiming that Ralph is like Piggy, an unpopular character, and is a weak leader. Jack calls Ralph a coward and brings up the fact that Ralph has never killed a pig. At the end of Jack's speech he raises the conch and asks the boys, "Who thinks Ralph oughtn't to be chief?" (Golding 127) When nobody raises their hand, Jack tears up and says, "I'm not going to be a part of Ralph's lot---" (Golding 127) Jack invites anyone who wants to hunt with him to come along and runs onto the beach, then into the forest. This is a significant ending to the assembly because it marks the beginning of Jack's totalitarian tribe. Jack's failed attempt at usurping power from Ralph creates a schism amongst the boys. Running away from Ralph's group physically represents the path toward savagery. Gradually, Jack's hunters and several other boys leave Ralph's tribe to join Jack's group. Jack's tribe represents primitive human instincts and total loss of civility, which is a major theme throughout the novel.
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