Lord of the Flies: Chapter Twelve -Cry of the Hunters.
Consider your responses to the following:
- ‘Ralph lay in a covert, wondering about his wounds….How could you listen for naked feet if you were splashing in the water?’ Whose point of view dominates in this description and how are effective are the literary techniques in communicating Ralph’s perilous predicament? Does the use of alliteration bring together the boys’ fascination with violence? Why does Golding shift around his use of the omniscient narrator around in this chapter?
- ‘But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill. This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt.’ Consider the implications of this realisation or epiphany. What does this evaluation reveal about both Ralph and Bill? What is the effect of the adjective ‘ancient‘ in this description? Do you think that the contamination of the transformation can ever be reversed?
- ‘Then there was that indefinable connection between himself and Jack; who therefore would never let him alone; never.’ Again, evaluate the significance of this revelation about Jack. How does the punctuation reinforce this revelation? Are we eavesdropping on the process of Ralph’s recognition?
- Why does Ralph destroy the skull and mentally call it the ‘filthy thing’? What does the destruction of the pig’s skull seem to foreshadow? Is it the irony of this foretelling of Ralph’s impending fate that fuels his loathing or something else?
- How do Sam and Eric feel about Ralph in this chapter? Why have they been differentiated from ‘Samneric’? What are the implications of: ‘Roger sharpened a stick at both ends’ and why do we sense the answer can’t be acknowledged openly? What does Roger’s premeditation suggest about his mental state? Is Roger the novel’s most morally fallen or irredeemable character?
- ‘They had smoked him out and set the island on fire.’ What have the boys learned about hunting? What does their behaviour reveal about their attitudes to the island and to Ralph? Has their need to obliterate Ralph( and what he represents) overwhelmed their desire for self-preservation? Is this shocking?
- Golding uses the word ‘ululation’ several times in this final chapter. Why does he show such an affinity for this term? Is the sound related to a form of mourning for the island? Do we remember how the liturgic chants of the former choir boys became transformed into ‘kill the pig‘ ? Is the sound the chorus of their ‘bestiality’ as they are seen as a ‘pack’ by the naval officer who rescues them?
- ‘It was a white-topped cap, and above the green shade of the peak was a crown, an anchor, gold foliage.’ Why does Ralph fail to recognise the naval officer initially and how does the use of synecdoche heighten the sense of disbelief and alienation? Are we as shocked as Ralph? Why does Ralph still claim he is the leader?
- ‘A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of glasses at his waist.’ Why does the naval officer’s point of view disorientate our view of Jack? Is Golding emphasising the ‘fallenness of Jack, once again? Do we recognise him (now), as Satan cast out of heaven, with his ‘red hair’ and ‘extraordinary black cap’? How does such use of defamiliarization heighten the tragedy of the rescue?
- Why does Ralph weep for his ‘wise friend called Piggy’ in the penultimate paragraph and with what effect? Look at the emphasis on the act of falling in the novel and think of the effect of original sin in Paradise Lost.
- Why does the ‘embarrassed ‘ officer focus his attention on the ‘trim cruiser in the distance’ at the end of the novel? Is there any irony in the apparent orderliness of the ‘trim cruiser’ and if so why does Golding want to remind us of the illusion of self-government? How fitting is this final, understated gesture as the conclusion to Golding’s text?
