Understandably, Ralph is really annoyed to find out that
all the boys have been hunting pigs when they should have been looking after the fire
and in fact let it go out at a crucial time when a ship was passing that could have
saved the boys. Even Jack's joyous and frenzied declaration that he has killed a pig and
enjoyed it immensely is dampened with this realisation. Ralph is therefore incredibly
frustrated and annoyed that he, as chief of the boys, gave an order that was not
obeyed:
You
and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home... I was
chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can't even build
huts--then you go off hunting and let out the
fire-
It is interesting how
this confrontation between Jack and Ralph actually presents us with a confrontation
between two different points of view, between savagery and rational thought, or, in the
words of Golding, between the "brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration,
skill" and then the world of "longing and baffled common-sense." This is a divide that
only is heightened as the novel goes on and Ralph tries desperately to hang on to his
reason and not to give in to his primal hunting instincts.
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