This document is Chapter 1 of *Lord of the Flies* by William Golding, titled “The Sound of the Shell,” which introduces the opening of the novel where a group of British schoolboys find themselves stranded on an uninhabited tropical island after their plane is shot down during a wartime evacuation, with no adults to be found; the chapter follows Ralph, a confident and fair-haired boy, who meets the chubby, asthmatic, and bespectacled Piggy, and together they discover a conch shell which Ralph uses to summon the other scattered boys to a meeting on the beach — including a disciplined choir group led by the arrogant and red-haired Jack Merridew — where the boys democratically elect Ralph as their chief despite Jack’s bid for leadership, assign the choir as hunters, and set out on an exploratory expedition to confirm they are on an island, ending with a telling moment when Jack hesitates to kill a trapped piglet, foreshadowing the central theme of civilization versus savagery that runs throughout the novel.
Chapter 1
The Sound of the Shell
The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and picked his way
toward the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater, his grey shirt stuck to him and
his hair was plastered to his forehead. All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle. He
was clambering heavily among the creepers and broken trunks when a bird flashed upwards
with a witch-like cry.
“Hi!” it said. “Wait a minute!” The undergrowth at the side of the scar was shaken.
“Wait a minute,” the voice said. “I got caught up. I can’t hardly move with all these creeper
things.”
The owner of the voice came backing out of the undergrowth. The naked crooks of his
knees were plump, caught and scratched by thorns. He was shorter than the fair boy and very
fat. He came forward and looked up through thick spectacles.
“Where’s the man with the megaphone?”
The fair boy shook his head. “This is an island. At least I think it’s an island. That’s a reef
out in the sea. Perhaps there aren’t any grownups anywhere.”
The fat boy looked startled. “There was that pilot. But he wasn’t in the passenger cabin,
he was up in front. All them other kids,” the fat boy went on. “Some of them must have got out.
They must have, mustn’t they?”
The fair boy began to pick his way as casually as possible toward the water, and the fat
boy hurried after him.
“Aren’t there any grownups at all?”
“I don’t think so.”
The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition overcame him.
In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy. “No
grownups!”
The fat boy thought for a moment. “That pilot.”
The fair boy allowed his feet to come down. “He must have flown off after he dropped us.
He couldn’t land here. Not in a place with wheels.”
“We was attacked! When we was coming down I looked through one of them windows. I
saw the other part of the plane. There were flames coming out of it.” He looked up and down the
scar. “And this is what the cabin done.”
The fair boy reached out and touched the jagged end of a trunk. “What happened to it?”
he asked. “Where’s it got to now?”
“That storm dragged it out to sea. It wasn’t half dangerous with all them tree trunks
falling. There must have been some kids still in it.” He hesitated for a moment, then spoke
again. “What’s your name?”
“Ralph.”
The fat boy waited to be asked his name in turn but Ralph began to make his way
toward the lagoon. The fat boy hung steadily at his shoulder. “I expect there’s a lot more of us
scattered about. You haven’t seen any others, have you?”
Ralph shook his head and increased his speed.
The fat boy breathed hard. “My auntie told me not to run,” he explained, “on account of
my asthma.”
“Ass-mar?”
“That’s right. Can’t catch my breath. I was the only boy in our school what had asthma,”
said the fat boy with a touch of pride. “And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.”
He took off his glasses and held them out to Ralph, blinking and smiling.
“Them fruit. Them fruit,” he said, “I expect—”
He put on his glasses, waded away from Ralph, and crouched down among the tangled
foliage. “I’ll be out again in just a minute—”
Ralph stole away through the branches. In a few seconds the fat boy’s grunts were
behind him and he was hurrying toward the lagoon. He climbed over a broken trunk and was out
of the jungle.
Ralph stood, one hand against a tree trunk, and screwed up his eyes against the
shimmering water. The sand was thick over his black shoes and the heat hit him. He became
conscious of the weight of clothes, kicked his shoes off and ripped off each stocking. Then he
leapt back on the terrace, pulled off his shirt. He undid his belt, lugged off his shorts and pants,
and stood there naked.
He was old enough, twelve years and a few months, to have lost the prominent tummy of
childhood and not yet old enough for adolescence to have made him awkward. You could see
now that he might make a boxer, as far as width and heaviness of shoulders went. He patted
the palm trunk softly, and laughed delightedly again and stood on his head. He turned neatly on
to his feet, jumped down to the beach. Then he sat back and looked at the water with bright,
excited eyes.
“Ralph—” The fat boy lowered himself over the terrace and sat down carefully.
“I’m sorry I been such a time. Them fruit—”
He wiped his glasses and adjusted them on his button nose. He looked critically at
Ralph’s golden body and then down at his own clothes. He laid a hand on the end of a zipper
that extended down his chest.
“My auntie—” Then he opened the zipper with decision and pulled the whole
windbreaker over his head. “There!”
Ralph looked at him and said nothing.
“I expect we’ll want to know all their names, ”said the fat boy, “and make a list. We ought
to have a meeting.”
Ralph did not take the hint so the fat boy was forced to continue.
“I don’t care what they call me,” he said confidentially, “so long as they don’t call me what
they used to call me at school.” The fat boy glanced over his shoulder, then leaned toward
Ralph.He whispered. “They used to call me Piggy.”
Ralph shrieked with laughter. He jumped up. “Piggy! Piggy!”
“Ralph—please!”
Piggy clasped his hands in apprehension.
“I said I didn’t want—”
“Piggy! Piggy!”
Piggy grinned, pleased despite himself at the recognition.
“So long as you don’t tell the others—”
Ralph giggled into the sand. The expression of pain and concentration returned to
Piggy’s face.
“Half a sec’.”
He hastened back into the forest. Ralph stood up and trotted along to the right. A great
platform of pink granite thrust up through forest. The top of this was covered with a thin layer of
coarse grass and shaded with young palm trees. Ralph hauled himself onto this platform. He
picked his way to the edge of the platform and stood looking down into the water. It was clear to
the bottom and bright with coral. Beyond the platform there was more enchantment. Some act
of God had banked sand inside the lagoon so that there was a long, deep pool in the beach.
The incredible pool was so deep at one end as to be dark green. Ralph inspected the whole
thirty yards carefully and then plunged in. The water was warm and he might have been
swimming in a huge bath.
Piggy appeared again, sat on the rocky ledge, and watched Ralph’s green and white
body enviously.
“You can’t half swim.”
“Piggy.”
Piggy took off his shoes and socks, ranged them carefully on the ledge, and tested the
water with one toe.
“It’s hot!”
“What did you expect?”
“I didn’t expect nothing. My auntie—”
“Sucks to your auntie!”
Ralph did a surface dive and swam under water with his eyes open. He turned over,
holding his nose. Piggy was looking determined and began to take off his shorts. Presently he
was palely and fatly naked. He tiptoed down the sandy side of the pool, and sat there up to his
neck in water smiling proudly at Ralph.
“Aren’t you going to swim?”
Piggy shook his head. “I can’t swim. I wasn’t allowed. My asthma—”
“Sucks to your ass-mar!”
Piggy bore this with a sort of humble patience. “You can’t half swim well.”
Ralph paddled backwards down the slope, immersed his mouth and blew a jet of water
into the air. Then he lifted his chin and spoke.
“I could swim when I was five. Daddy taught me. He’s a commander in the Navy. When
he gets leave he’ll come and rescue us. What’s your father?”
Piggy flushed suddenly.
“My dad’s dead,” he said quickly, “and my mum— I used to live with my auntie. She kept
a candy store. I used to get ever so many candies. As many as I liked. When’ll your dad rescue
us?”
“Soon as he can.”
Piggy rose dripping from the water and stood naked, cleaning his glasses with a sock.
“How does he know we’re here?”
Ralph lolled in the water. Because, thought Ralph, because, because. “They’d tell him at
