Lord of the Flies - Summary and Significance

Chapter 1 - The Sound of the Shell
Summary
Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell to use to call the rest of the boys.
Ralph is voted as the leader.
Jack was unable to kill the pig.
Significance
Introduction to order and structure
Introduction to conflict over leadership

Chapter 2 - Fire on the Mountain
Summary
Rules are set
Fear of the beast
Working to build a fire that gets too big
Establishing Jack and his choir boys as hunters.
Little boy may have died in a fire but no one acknowledges it.
Significance
Shows danger of situation
Shows lack of logic from boys
Shows little remorse to consequences.

Chapter 3 - Huts on the Beach
Summary
No one helps Ralph build huts.
Conflict between Jack and Ralph over who is helping.
Simon finds peace and tranquility.
Significance
Displays Ralph's lack of leadership skills
Shows lack of maturity among the boys
Displaying conflict between Ralph and Jack (order vs fun)

Chapter 4 - Painted Faces and Long Hair
Summary
Roger throws stones at the littleuns.
Signal fire has gone out just as a ship passes by.
Jack kills a pig but is yelled at by Ralph for letting the fire go out.
Conflict between Jack and Ralph builds (Jack slapped Piggy).
Significance
Jack losing morals
Foreshadowing Jack as barbaric and Ralph as civil.

Chapter 5 - Beast from Water
Summary
Ralph holds a meeting to restore order.
Boys get distracted about beasts.
Everyone follows Jack. Nothing got accomplished in the meeting.
Significance
Fear of beast
Ralph's downfall as leader

Chapter 6 - Beast from Air
Summary
Airplanes battle overhead; dead man parachutes onto island.
Jack and Ralph rebond over searching for beast.
Boys do not take the hunt seriously and make a game of pushing stones into the ocean.
Significance
Conventions of civilization are diminishing.
Jack becomes a more powerful and menacing figure.

Chapter 7 - Shadows and Tall Trees
Summary
Jack and Ralph attempt to kill a pig.
Ralph agrees to go on a hunt to try and solidify his position as leader.
Jack has seen the monster (the dead man in the parachute)
Significance
Ralph gets caught up in the instinctual excitement over hunting and killing.
Power struggle between Jack and Ralph
Ralph forgetting his morals in the hunt is a win for Jack.

Chapter 8 - Gift from the Darkness
Summary
Jack tries to take Ralph's role as leader.
Jack starts his own tribe.
Jack's tribe raids Ralph's fire but invites them to eat meat with them.
Simon has a seizure in the jungle, after spotting the pig head impaled on a stick.
Significance
Jack uses the beast to rule his tribe.
Ralph is in conflict with his morals and his instincts.
Simon's incident indicates the persuasive power of instinct of chaos and savagery the Lord of the Flies represents (pig head, not the book).

Chapter 9 - A View to a Death
Summary
Simon awakens, finds that the beast is just a body, heads to beach to tell others.
Ralph and Piggy dine with Jack who has become king of his tribe.
It starts to rain and Jack's tribe does a wild dance and in the frenzy, kill Simon.
Significance
With Simon's murder, the last bit of civilization has left the island.
Simon's death exemplifies the power of evil within the human soul.
Shows that the boys, except Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric, are inhuman savages.

Chapter 10 - The Shell and the Glasses
Summary
Ralph is taking blame for Simon's murder; Piggy says it was an accident.
Jack attacks Ralph's small group to steal Piggy's glasses.
Significance
Jack now has full power.
Piggy's glasses, a symbol of civilization, are now in Jack's hands.
Major symbols have lost their importance.

Chapter 11 - Castle Rock
Summary
Ralph and Jack fight, Jack captures Samneric.
Roger shoves a rock down the mountainside which shatters the conch shell and kills Piggy.
Ralph escapes into the jungle.
Significance
Ralph is left alone on the island.
Ralph becomes to prey for the hunters to find.
Piggy's death signifies the death of order, structure, rules, civility.

Chapter 12 - Cry of the Hunters
Summary
Ralph destroys the Lord of the Flies
After being chased out of the jungle, Ralph falls to the feet of a naval officer.
Significance
Haphazard fire brought the attention of the naval ship to rescue the boys.
The boy's savagery brings the rescue rather than the order and structure they were hoping to achieve.
Nothing can be as it was before coming to this island.