Blogging Lord of the Flies, Chapter 5: Beast From Water

Jon is reading Lord of the Flies and blogging about it. His posts are collected here.

Chapter 5 introduces us to a new and updated Ralph—Ralph 2.0, as it were—who has been reborn out of last chapter's lack of a fire like some sort of reverse phoenix.

There's a reason "missed the boat" is an apt analogy for failing to seize opportunity, and now that Ralph has done this actual thing, it's made him all grim and thoughtful. As this new Ralph prepares for the meeting he called at the end of the last chapter, he's woefully aware of how little the boys have accomplished, and how everything they have managed to throw together is a piece of junk.

Ralph's newfound adultitude is plainly obvious in his pre-meeting internal monologue. He's come to respect Piggy ("Piggy could think…Ralph was a specialist in thought now, and could recognize thought in another"). He understands how to be clear and direct, and how to make himself understood even by the littluns. He's so grown up, he finds himself wondering: "If faces were different when lit from above or below—what was a face? What was anything?" A few hours ago he was goofing around on the beach and ignoring Piggy; now he's doing philosophy.

Ralph begins the meeting by complaining that nobody ever does any work, then solemnly moves on to his first directive: Quit just pooping wherever you feel like it, for Pete's sake! Both of these things certainly needed to be said, but already the meeting is in "ha ha, poop" mode, so it's not going too well for Ralph. Jack registers his disinterest by looking on idly and whittling like a Civil War stereotype.

But Ralph's just getting warmed up. Clearly unhappy that almost the entire island has been on fire at some point, except for the one time it would have helped, he establishes the rule that fire is permitted only on top of the mountain. The lines of debate for and against Ralph's new rule are clearly drawn, and they are as follows:

Reason to restrict fires to the mountaintop: We are shockingly careless children who very nearly burned this whole place down and we probably killed that one kid back in Chapter 2.
Reason not to restrict fires to the mountaintop: BUT FIRE IS AWESOME.

Unsurprisingly, most of the kids are big fans of fire, and they immediately get all shouty. Jack in particular is not happy. If he dislikes anything, it's...well, everything that isn't stabbing, but especially someone rambling on and on about all these rules. If Jack were a kettle, he'd be approaching boiling point. If he were a stew, he'd be stewing.

Last on Ralph's agenda is to insist again that there is absolutely, positively no monster on this island. Surprisingly, even Jack chimes in to support this idea, although his argument is mostly that no such monster could evade his hunting prowess. So really it's less "Ralph's right!" than "I'm right! About hunting!"

Piggy wants to hear the stories of the kids who claim to have seen the monster, and then debunk those stories. The first kid to speak is a surprisingly logical guy named Phil, who thought he saw something "big and horrid" moving around in the trees. As it turns out, it was in fact something small and not-horrid: Simon, who had been mucking around in the woods, being secretive, because that's pretty much what Simon does. With that mystery solved, next up is Percival, who nearly has another breakdown before barely managing to tell the assembly why no one has seen this beast: it comes out of the sea.

This is where things begin to fall apart. Maurice formulates a giant-squid-related theory, and some angry yelling erupts before Simon, "inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness," suggests that they themselves are the beast.

But these kids are better at starting fires than understanding metaphors, so they burst out laughing and then arrive at the conclusion that OH NO, HE MUST BE TALKING ABOUT GHOSTS. Having segued from squids to ghosts, the meeting devolves rapidly. Jack defies Ralph outright, initially doing a shrill impression of his voice. This is, as you certainly know, one of the most annoying things someone can possibly do to you. As a show of disrespect, it's pretty much right up there with punching someone in the face.

But this rivalry hasn't reached the face-punching stage, save for the figurative punch to Ralph's Leadership Face. "Bollocks to the rules!" Jack shouts, and if you're not English, you'll just have to substitute an appropriately mean phrase there, one that does not make you giggle. With that, Jack and his hunters scatter senselessly into the night, and though Ralph could blow the conch to try to recall them, he knows that if that failed, he'd officially have lost every shred of his remaining control.

The littluns are driven off, leaving only Ralph, Simon, and Piggy to contemplate beasts, leadership, television, and how Jack would probably abuse the crap out of Piggy if Ralph weren't there. The chapter concludes with poor hopeless Percival—collapsed in this grass after his monster explanation—screeching to himself in the night, as though he's foreshadowing the fact that things are about to get ugly. And they probably will, given that everyone is more interested in killing and ghosts than trying to get rescued. But this, and other matters, will be addressed shortly.

SNEAK PREVIEW: Chapter 6: Beast From Air has it all, even an actual adult human being! Granted, he's dead, but still!

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