William Golding's novel, The Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of boys who are left stranded on a tropical island when their plane is shot down. The story starts off with two boys, Ralph and Piggy, meeting each other on the island. Later they find and blow a conch shell and many other boys who've survived the plane crash show up. Their first meeting is held at the lagoon and the boys elect Ralph as "chief". Eventually, there are problems within the group, mainly between Ralph, the mature leader with high morals, and Jack, the traditional villain who represents cruelty and anarchy. Ralph wants to build shelter, and keep a large fire burning on the mountain to alert ships of their predicament. Jack becomes obsessed with hunting pigs and a creature that they've seen and call "the beast". He eventually leaves the group and most of the boys follow him, except for Ralph, Piggy, a boy named Simon, and twins named Sam and Eric. Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe, and organizes the violent slaughtering of a pig to celebrate. They behead the pig and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Soon after encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking to him. A voice tells him that he will never escape because he exists within all men. Simon faints and when he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees "the beast" which is actually a dead parachutist and his parachute. Realizing that the monster never existed, Simon heads to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the boys are having a frenzied party - even Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack's feast. When they see Simon's figure emerge from the jungle, they mistake him for the beast and beat him to death. The next morning, Jack's tribe kidnaps the twins and attack Ralph and Piggy. A boy named Roger rolls a boulder down the mountain, which knocks Piggy off a cliff.
