In Lord of the Flies, William Golding examines what happens when laws, reason, and order are completely dissolved. In the novel, a group of young boys from an English Boarding school are stranded on an uninhabited island after their plane is shot down. The boys are able to quickly organize and elect Ralph, an older and rational boy, as their leader. Immediately, this decision causes conflict because Jack, another older boy and leader of the school's choir, wanted to lead the group. Despite the conflict, the group realizes that a fire is needed to signal for help. After exploring the island, the group decides to set up their living quarters on the beach while placing the fire on the top of the island's mountain so that smoke can be seen farther away. Before long, the group begins to show signs of deterioration as the boys cause a huge forest fire (which seemingly kills a young boy) and begin to focus more on hunting than on being rescued. Within a few weeks, most boys are more concerned about playing, relaxing, and hunting than they are about building shelters, maintaining the fire, or gathering fruits. This conflict leads to a summit where Jack, the designated leader of the hunters, decides to form his own tribe where they will hunt pigs day and night and live a much more relaxed lifestyle. With such an offer on the table, almost all of the boys decide to leave Ralph and his sidekick Piggy. But before long, the hunters realize the need for fire to cook, and they raid the old camp for Piggy's glasses, the only source of fire starter on the island. As the story progresses the boys become more and more savage and start to care about nothing more than killing and power. The novel climaxes when the hunting tribe mistakenly thinks Simon is the beast, and they beat him to his death. Also in their ruthless ways, the tribe kills Piggy with a giant boulder. These deaths leave Ralph alone on the island with this new insane tribe.
