There are several themes that the book The Lord of the Flies has. The major theme is the conflict between civilization and savagery. This theme is built up during the course of the story through the boy's actions. The theme is shaped through three different parts of the story: Ralph's reign as leader, the fight between Ralph and Jack, and Jack's reign as leader. The boys start out civilized under the rule of Ralph, and revert back to savages with Jack as ruler.
First of all, the story starts out with all the boys separated. After blowing the conch shell, Ralph gathers all the kids together to have their first meeting. During the meeting, the boys choose Ralph as their leader, and, knowing Jack wanted to be leader, Ralph declares the choirboys the hunters and Jack their leader. With this election, the civilized time of the story begins. ""We"ll have rules!" (Jack) cried excitedly. "Lots of rules!"" At this time everyone was glad to be on the island and they all wanted rules. They had rules such as only the person holding the conch could talk, leaving the hunters responsible for keeping the fire going, and everyone helping in building huts. At first, everyone listened to these rules and everyone was civilized on the island.
After a while of listening to the rules, the boys, especially Jack, start disobeying the rules. This actually starts soon after the rules are made, during the same meeting. The first rule was that only the person with the conch could talk, but, after Ralph makes the plan to build a fire, all the boys start shouting, and Jack tells everyone to follow him, even though Ralph still had the conch. Another problem was with the building of the huts. While Ralph and Simon tried building the huts for everyone to live in, the other boys were playing. Along with not following the rules, the boys become too intent on catching the pig and the beastie. When they go to hunt and almost catch the boar, they reenact it and almost kill one of their own.