Plot Summary

Lord of the Flies starts off with the protagonist, Ralph and he meets a boy who goes by Piggy. At first Piggy is a nuisance but later is proven a great friend. A conch shell is discovered and is symbolism for law and order since it used to summon all the boys to a meeting.The boys arrive on this island because their plane is shot down due to World War II. Without adults to govern them, the boys are left to fend for themselves. Because of this, there is a vote for leader between Jack and Ralph. Ralph wins and Jack is angry but decides that he will be in charge of hunting.In order to be rescued, a fire needs to be built so they use Piggy's glasses to build a great fire. Jack and his hunters were responsible for keeping the fire burning and looking for food while Ralph and the others would build shelter.
One day there is a ship not far from shore and to his horror, Ralph looks up to see that the fire is not burning. As he, Simon and Piggy go up the mountain to see what the problem is, they see Jack and his hunters coming back with their first kill. Ralph chastises the boys for letting the fire go out because rescue is more important than meat. Jack disagrees and the boys reenact the scene showing that the boys are becoming much more uncivilized. A "beast" is discovered when a dead parachutist from the war gets hung in the tree and a few of the boys see it. As the boys try to find the beast, they find an unexplored part of the island which will later be Jack's home. A huge change starts to come over the boys when after a hunt, they act out what they did. In this frenzy they about beat a boy named Robert to death and Jack jokingly says they should use a littlun next time instead. Jack tries to overthrow Ralph but no one will agree so he leaves and eventually the other boys leave with him but a few. During a hunt, they kill a sow and put her head on a stake out in the woods which proves their more savage behavior. Simon sees the pighead and names it the Lord of the Flies. It speaks to him saying that it promises to have some "fun" with Simon. While Simon goes up the mountain and finds the parachutist, Ralph and Piggy attend a feast that Jack is throwing in attempts to regain control. Simon comes down to where the boys are and the boys mistake him at the beach and they tear at him until he trips and falls over the cliff to his death. Jack continues cruel leadership and attacks Ralph's camp for Piggy's glasses. Ralph and Jack fight when Ralph tries to make reason with Jack. Roger pushes a rock off the mountain in an attempt to kill Ralph but it kills Piggy instead and Ralph is now the prey of the other boys. He hides out in the jungle and takes the stake that the Lord of the Flies was on to defend against Jack. In an attempt to smoke him out, Jack sets the jungle on fire and Ralph runs for his life back to the shore. By fate when he is running from the other boys he sees a naval officer who came to the island because of the huge fire. Ironically fire did eventually get help at the moment Ralph needed it most.