Page 190 - 梁文燕紀念中學（沙田）－青苗文集

Helen Liang Memorial Secondary School (Shatin)

The youngest boys, known as ‘littluns’, have been troubled by nightmares from the
beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast
or monster living on the island. The older boys try to convince the others to think
sensibly, asking where such a monster could hide during the daytime. One of the
littluns suggests that it may hide in the sea — a proposition that terrifies all the boys.
Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above
the island. A parachutist falls on the signal-fire mountain and dies. Sam and Eric,
the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, were asleep and did not see
what happened. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous shadow of the
parachute and hear strange flapping noises. They rush back to the camp in extreme
terror and report that a beast attacked them. The boys organise a hunt to search for
the monster. They send Jack and Ralph, who had an awkward relationship, up the
mountain. They see the shadow from a distance and think that it looked like a huge,
deformed ape. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others
what they saw. Jack says that Ralph was a coward and he should be removed
as the leader, but the other boys refuse to vote. Jack angrily runs away down the
beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph tells the remaining boys to build a
new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but
before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack.
Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organises a
violent, ritual slaughter of a sow for the celebration. The hunters then cut the head
off the sow and place it on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering for the
unseen mythical beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon
mistakenly thinks that the head was speaking. He imagines that the voice belongs
to the Lord of the Flies, which says that Simon would never escape from him.
Simon faints. The time he wakes up comes the climax of the story. He goes to the
mountain and sees the dead parachutist. Understanding that the beast does not
exist externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon tells the others what
he has seen. But the others were in Jack’s feast, and even Ralph and Piggy have
joined. When they see Simon’s shadowy figure emerging from the jungle, they think
that he is the monster, and kill him with their bare hands and teeth.
The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack’s
hunters attack them and steal Piggy’s glasses. Ralph’s group travels to Jack’s
stronghold to find out the reason, but Jack orders the twins to fight with Ralph.

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