Chapter 8 through 12 short summary

Chapter 8 through 12 short summary

Chapter 8, Gift for the Darkness.

Continuing from chapter seven the next morning, the rumours about the monster had all the boys scared as they meet up at the beach. Jack uses the conch shell to assemble to boys, to tell them that the monster is real and how much of a coward Ralph is, and proposes to vote him out of leadership. Jack’s request does not go through; because of this, he becomes furious and storms away from the beach claiming he is leaving the group and that anyone who wants should join him. Ralph does not know how to react to this situation; however, Simon suggests that they should go together to the mountain to search for this “Beast”. The boys did not like this idea, but Piggy’s idea to recreate the signal fire got the boys hopes up and set them to work. As the night comes some boys sneak off from the group to join up with Jack, Piggy assures Ralph that they do not need these deserters.

With more boys joining Jack’s group, he declares himself chief, and gathers the boys for a hunt. They find and kill a sow, and proceeds to impale it on a spike for an offering to the beast in the forest. With blood dripping down on the sow’s teeth, the boys run off.

Jack’s hunters group up on the beach where Ralph is and picks up burning wood from the signal fire, Jack then proceeds to offer the boys to join him at his feast tonight. Because the boys are so hungry, they really get tempted to join him.

Under the raid, Simon gets away from the camp and return to his favourite place on the island, the place he previously was marvelling at the nature’s beauty. He stumbles on the sow’s impaled body and starts to imagine it talking to him; it spoke to him in the voice of Lord of the Flies, telling him that he will not escape the island, shocked Simon faints.

Chapter 9, A View to a Death

With blood running from his nose, Simon wakes up in is quite hazy about what happened. He walks down the hill and finds the dead pilot hanging from the parachute stuck in the tree. Watching the dead pilot Simon realizes that the boys probably had mistaken him for a beast, so to prove this to them he got him down from the tree, and proceeds to walk to Jacks lair to tell the boys about what he has seen.

As the feast is progressing, Jack comfortably sits on his throne and issues commands. After the feast was done, Jack reaches out to Ralph’s boys and issues them an invitation to join him. Most of the boys do join him, even though Ralph continuously tries to dissuade them. Jack then orders the boys to dance the “wild hunting dance”.

Hyped about the hunt the boys start roaring and it becomes some sort of a frenzy. Simon emerges comes out of the forest, but the boys mistakes him for the beast, and starts to attack him. Simon desperately tries to tell the boys who he is but they do not listen Simon dies from their attack.

With the storm hitting the island, Simon’s body drifts out into the ocean, where it then disappears.

Chapter 10, The shell and the glasses.

The day after the storm, Piggy and Ralph feel ashamed of their behaviour the other day. Ralph then reaches for the conch shells and yells about the murder they have done, Piggy denies this. Almost everyone had left Ralph’s group to join jack, the only exception to this is Sam and Eric, and a few littluns. The others had joined Jack in his HQ at Castle Rock (the mountain on the island).

At Jacks kingdom he rules with absolute authority, randomly punishes the boys for his own purposes. He even goes as far as to beat up a boy named “Wilfred and warns the others about Ralph’s small group. He also suggests that they should have guard themselves from the group because he can never truly die. Jack also suggests that they should raid Ralph’s camp and acquire more flaming wood to go hunting.

Jacks hunters descend upon Ralph’s lair, beats Ralph badly, and proceeds to steal the power to make fire from piggy, his glasses.

Chapter 11, Castle Rock.

Without Piggy’s glasses, Ralph’s boys are unable to light a fire, Piggy then suggests that they should hold a meeting to talk about their options. Ralph then blows the conch shell, and the remaining boys gather up. They stupidly decide that their only option is to go to Jack’s castle and reason with him.

Outside Jacks castle, Ralph is meet with armed guard telling him to leave the area. Jack then emerges from the forest and tells Ralph to leave, but Ralph did refused to leave telling him he will not without piggy’s glasses. They then start to fight, in the struggle Ralph tries to reason with him, but he will not listen. Jack then tells his hunters to capture Sam and Eric and tie them up, this enrages Ralph and he once more attacks Jack. They proceed to fight for a second time. During this struggle, Piggy tries shouts out reasons why this is madness and that they need rules and such things. While this is happening Roger pushes off a rock from the mountainside, and it strikes Piggy to his death. Jack throws his spear at Ralph, and the other boys join in. Ralph manages to escape into the forest, but Sam and Eric were captured. They both got tortured and were told to join Jack’s tribe.  

Chapter 12, Cry of the Hunters.

While hiding in the forest, Ralph reflects upon these recent events and realizes that all hope for a civilization is gone. He then finds the Sow’s head/skull, and takes the spear that was impaled into its body to use against Jack. During the night, Ralph sneaks down the mountain, to the camp at Castle Rock and finds the twins guarding the entrance. Sam and Eric give him food, but does not join him. They tell Ralph about Jacks plans to send them after him the tomorrow (the next day).

The next morning Ralph wakes up hearing Jack yelling. He is torturing one of the twins for Ralph’s location. The boys tries to break into the thicket (dense forest) where Ralph is hiding, but they find out that it is too dense to get through. Ralph then smells smoke and realizes that Jack had set the jungle ablaze in order to smoke him out. Ralph manages to fight himself past the boys, and runs into the forest trying to find a place to hide. He manages to run all the way to the beach, where he collapses from exhaustion.

Ralph looked to look into the skies, and then he notices a naval officer in front of him. The naval officer tells Ralph that he notices the forest fire, and came to rescue the boys. Jack’s hunters then reaches the beach, and stops right in their tracks then they see the officer. The officer, assumes the boys are have been playing games, but is shocked when he hears about what has really happened here. He is really shocked over how fast these English school boys had managed to lose all sense of reality being on this island. The officer had then rescued the boys. 

My opinion on these chapters and other stuff

In these last few chapters we see alot of development in these boys. for example: Jack and Roger, they have gradually developed into these savages whom lust for blood. This has made the book so much more intresting though, because of the action and survival these boys have to go through on a day-to-day basis. Also the book is not hard to read, there might be some instances where it gets harder, but nothing to complain about, all-in-all the experience has been good,