Castle Rock

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Piggy's Glasses

Piggy is helpless without his glasses and pushes Ralph to go and talk to Jack so they can get his glasses back.

Piggy's helplessness

The next day, Ralph tries to re-start the fire but cannot do it without Piggy’s glasses.
Piggy can see very little and needs help moving around.
Ralph and Piggy are both angry that Jack has stolen the glasses.
Ralph blows the conch to call a meeting. A few littleuns come, along with Sam and Eric, but none of the other boys.

The meeting

Piggy says that he must get his glasses back.
Ralph says that he does not understand why everything is so difficult. He just wanted to keep the signal fire going so they could be rescued.
He does not understand why Jack stole the glasses. If Jack had asked for fire, Ralph would have given it to him.

Going to see jack

Piggy pushes Ralph to take the lead and tell them what to do.
Ralph decides that they should go and talk to Jack.
Sam says they should all take spears, but Piggy refuses.
Instead, he takes the conch – he cannot see well enough to use a spear anyway.

Ralph's fears

Ralph worries that Piggy will be hurt if he goes to see Jack.
Piggy asks what more Jack can do to him.
Piggy says he will carry the conch to the meeting to show Jack what he does not have.
- Symbolically, Jack does not have what the conch represents:
  - Leadership, authority and civilised behaviour.

The conch

Piggy says he wants to hold out the conch to Jack and use it to show him that Jack is stronger than Piggy, and that Jack has a responsibility to give him his glasses back. Piggy starts to cry.
Ralph tells Piggy that he and the others will go with him to Jack to get his glasses back.
Sam warns the boys that they need to be careful. If they anger Jack, he may just kill them all.

Loss of authority

Ralph wants the boys to look clean and tidy as they approach Jack’s camp. He wants them to look strong and civilised, not like savages.
Ralph is trying to maintain some of the control he had at the start of the novel by trying to control how the boys present themselves.
When Ralph stumbles over his speech about why they need to make a signal fire, Sam and Eric realise that Ralph is just an overwhelmed boy, not the authoritative leader they thought he was.

The Fight at Castle Rock

The boys head to Castle Rock where Ralph and Jack start fighting. Holding up the conch, Piggy tells the boys to let him speak and gives them a number of questions.

Castle Rock

The boys head to Castle Rock.
As they approach Castle Rock, Roger calls out to ask who they are.
Ralph asks Piggy for the conch and blows it to summon the boys.
Many of the boys appear, all with painted faces.
Jack, who was out hunting, appears and asks Ralph what he wants.
Piggy is terrified (he has no glasses, so cannot see very well) and asks Ralph not to leave him.

Fighting

Jack tells Ralph to leave.
Ralph refuses to leave until Jack gives Piggy his glasses back.
Ralph and Jack fight for a while.
When they rest, Ralph tells Jack that they need to build a signal fire in order to be rescued and he wants Piggy’s glasses back.

Sam and Eric

Knowing that Ralph would fight to get them back, Jack tells his boys to tie up Sam and Eric.
Ralph shouts insults at Jack (“beast”, “swine”) and then charges at him.
They start fighting again as Jack’s boys cheer.
Holding up the conch, Piggy tells the boys to let him speak.
There is some booing, but then the boys go quiet and listen to Piggy.

Piggy's questions

Piggy tells the boys that they are acting like a “crowd of kids”.
He then gives them a number of questions:
- Is it better to be wild and have painted faces, or to be sensible?
- Is it better to have rules or to hunt and kill?
- Is it better to be rescued or to hunt and break things?

“A bag of fat”

While Piggy is speaking, Roger (who is at the top of Castle Rock) is throwing rocks down at Piggy.
Roger thinks of Piggy as “a bag of fat”.

Piggy's Death

Piggy is knocked over the edge of Castle Rock, where he lands on another rock and is killed. This symbolises the death of civilised society, intelligence, reason, and order.

The big rock

As Jack and Ralph start yelling at each other, Roger (at the top of Castle Rock) pushes all of his weight on the lever under the big rock, and the rock starts to roll down the hill.
Ralph escapes the path of the rock.
The rock hits Piggy, breaking the conch shell.

Piggy's death

Piggy is knocked over the edge of Castle Rock, where he lands on another rock and is killed.
After Piggy was hit by the rock, his “arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed”.
This idea links Piggy again to the mother sow from earlier in the story.
- Both Piggy and the sow looked after young ones, but were both killed by Jack’s tribe.

The loss of civility

Piggy’s body is carried away by the waves.
Piggy is dead and the conch has been destroyed.
This symbolises the death of civilised society, intelligence, reason, and order.
No civility remains on the island.

Ralph's exile

There is complete silence.
Suddenly, Jack threatens that Ralph will meet the same end as Piggy.
Jack says that the conch has been destroyed and there is no place for Ralph, no tribe for him on the island.
Jack throws his spear at Ralph.
Ralph, injured by the spear, runs away.

Sam and Eric

Jack yells at Sam and Eric for refusing to join his tribe earlier on.
Jack starts poking Sam with his spear, but Roger tells him that he can do a better job at hurting the twins.
The twins are terrified.