Lord Of The Flies Chapter 10 Summary {Step By Step Guide}
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Lord Of The Flies Chapter 10 Summary | The Shell and the Glasses Summary
Piggy watches Ralph come out of the trees. Ralph is scraped up and dirty. He asks Piggy if any older boys remain in their camp. Piggy says only Sam and Eric are still members of Ralph and Piggy’s group, and there are also some littluns.
Ralph sits facing the chief’s log. Piggy kneels beside him. They look at the conch, but its ability to bring civilized meetings and behavior is gone.
Piggy holds his glasses. Sometimes he holds the good lens over the eye that would normally just stare through the broken lens.
Note: As the chapter’s title, “The Shell and the Glasses,” suggests, this chapter shows readers how two symbols of the story point to the lesson (theme) the author is teaching.
Ralph and Piggy are back at the assembly area where they had first established order, but now Jack’s wildness and love of blood, power, and violence have taken over.
Throughout the book, the author has spoken of Ralph’s long hair getting in his eyes and being out of control. Ralph’s growing hair represents him becoming wilder and being in less control.
The conch represents civilized behavior which now rarely exists. Ralph is finding it more and more difficult to behave well. He helped bring about Simon’s death.
Piggy’s glasses, which represent science, technology, and careful thought, are broken. The parachutist who represented adult behavior is gone.
Simon’s caring nature is gone. The Lord of the Flies – the devil – remains. Since the boys did not understand Simon’s explanation of the parachutist being mistaken for a beast, in the boys’ minds, the beast remains.
Ralph and Piggy discuss the dance from the night before. Piggy tries to say that he and Ralph were not responsible for Simon’s death, but Ralph says Simon’s death had been murder.
They are ashamed and agree to tell Sam and Eric that they had left before the dance.
Note: As this chapter develops, the author adds in characters whom readers have not met before. This makes it more believable that Piggy and Ralph might not have been noticed in a crowd of fifteen or more boys yelling and dancing in a dark storm.
Piggy says he and Ralph had been on the outside of the dance circle. Simon’s death had been an accident caused by the storm, fear, and Simon crawling up unexpectedly on them.
Ralph says that he and Piggy should get over feeling uncomfortable about talking to Sam and Eric, so he and Piggy walk down to the pool where Sam and Eric have gone to bathe after dragging a big log back to the beach signal fire.
All four boys are uncomfortable and ashamed of their part in Simon’s death. Sam and Eric say they had gotten lost in the forest after they had left the feast the night before.
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Sam asks Ralph and Piggy if it had been a good dance. Piggy says that he and Ralph had left before the dance. All four boys know that they had each participated in the dance and in Simon’s murder, but none of them admit it.
After a long night, Roger goes to Castle Rock to see if Jack and others are there. Robert calls out, “Halt! Who goes there?” Roger thinks the question is silly because Robert can see him clearly. Robert says Jack, the chief, is giving the orders.
Robert shows Roger how Jack has planned to defend Castle Rock. Above the narrow walkway leading to Castle Rock, there is now a lever and a log under a big rock. When Robert pushes on the lever stick, the rock moves.
If an enemy comes to Castle Rock, a guard could push a little harder on the lever to send the rock crashing down on the enemy below.
Robert tells Roger that Jack has had a boy named Wilfred (a character we have not heard of before) tied up for hours. Jack is making Wilfred wait in fear for a promised beating.
Roger asks why Jack wants to beat Wilfred. Robert does not know. Roger thinks about this misuse of power but says nothing.
Roger and Robert go to sit below Jack who is talking to other boys at the mouth of a cave entrance. Jack has ordered boys to untie the crying and beaten Wilfred.
Jack says they will hunt again the next day, but some boys will need to stay behind to improve the cave and defend Castle Rock from Ralph’s group. One boy asks why Ralph’s group would come. Jack says Ralph’s group will try to spoil things.
Note: Piggy and Ralph could not use reason because Jack’s need to hunt kept spoiling things. Jack still doesn’t feel he can do whatever he wants as long as Ralph and Piggy can express a different view – that shelter and a signal fire are more important than hunting.
Jack says that the defenders will also have to defend Castle Rock from the beast. Jack says that the beast can disguise itself like it had the night before, crawling in and looking like Simon.
A previously unmentioned boy named Stanley asks if they had killed the beast that looked like Simon the night before. Jack says, “No.” The boys do not know how to think or feel.
They are happy to think they have not become murderers, but they are afraid of a living beast who can come at any time in any shape or form.
Jack says if any group of boys decides to go out hunting, that group must leave a pig’s head as a gift for the beast. He and those he chooses will hunt the next day, and they will have a feast.
Bill asks how they will start a fire to cook a pig. Jack is embarrassed, and there is an uncomfortable silence. Then Jack says that he and two others will steal fire from the others when night comes.
Roger and Maurice agree to go with Jack in the evening to steal fire from Ralph’s camp. They will walk along the beach to avoid the beast. Maurice is worried about the beast, but Jack says they can do the dance if the beast comes for them. Maurice is nervous about only the three of them fighting the beast.
The wood is wet because of all of the rain, so the fire is hard for Ralph and Piggy to start and keep going. They have had to start the fire three times.
Ralph says they must keep the fire going at night. He knows but has not said before, that the fire brings the boys to comfort at night, even though it may not bring rescue as it might during the day with a lot of smoke.
Piggy wishes they could build a radio, a plane, or a boat anything that could get them rescued quickly.
Note: Readers see again that the story is an allegory, a story where each character represents a quality of human society: Ralph responsibility and order, Piggy- intelligence, science, and technology, and Jack – wildness and a need for power.
Ralph says that if they do get off the island, they might get captured by Reds. (The term “Reds” was used by democratic governments to refer to communist governments and military forces. The Reds are the enemy in the atomic war that the adult British are fighting in Lord of the Flies.)
Eric says that it would be better to be captured by Reds than by Jack. (This statement shows how afraid Ralph’s group is of Jack’s group.)
Ralph says they need to get more wood, but Piggy says he can’t help because of his asthma. Ralph, Sam, and Eric go and get wood for the fire.
They stop where the fruit trees are, so they can eat. When the boys return, the fire is almost out. They are too tired to keep the fire going all night, so they decide to just pile the wood to use the next day.
Eric says there is no good reason to keep the fire going during the day or night, and Ralph is shocked. When Ralph is too tired and upset to talk to Eric, Piggy reminds Eric that the fire is their hope of rescue.
Note: Fire represents hope, security, technology, and civilization, but if fire gets out of control, it represents death and destruction.
The boys go to their shelter to spend the night. They lie down on their beds of leaves. Ralph listens to the nearby waves and imagines arriving home by jet then car, or train.
He thinks of the wild ponies but stops that thought because he hates wildness now. He starts to imagine a civilized town with a bus center and relaxes until he imagines a strange bus coming at him.
Ralph makes a sound, and Piggy tells him to stop. Then they have to tell Eric and Sam to stop wrestling each other. Piggy says they must be rescued soon or they will all go crazy.
Ralph jokes that Piggy should write a letter to his aunt. Piggy says that he does not know where she is, and he doesn’t have an envelope, stamp, or postman. Ralph laughs, but Piggy does not think his words were funny.
Piggy hears something and tells Ralph to be quiet. They hear noises and a voice whispering, “Piggy – Piggy.” Piggy thinks the beast has come, and Ralph prays the beast will go to the next shelter and take a littlun instead of him
They hear something touch the back of the shelter. Ralph tells Piggy to be silent, but Piggy has an asthma attack and he tries so hard to breathe that his legs kick the leaves and make a lot of noise.
Ralph moves away from Piggy and suddenly Ralph, Sam, and Eric find themselves fighting enemies they cannot see. When the fight ends, Ralph, Sam, and Eric pull Piggy out of the broken shelter.
Ralph tells the littluns in the other shelter that the fight had been with some of Jack’s group, not the beast. He tells them to stop crying.
Ralph and Eric are bruised from the attack, but they each have hurt their attackers. Eric has a loose tooth, but he has hurt his attacker by bringing his knee up hard between the legs of his enemy.
Piggy says he is okay, but he had thought Jack had come for the conch. Jack had not. Piggy is very upset and says he does not know what to do. Jack, Roger, and Maurice run down the beach. Jack has Piggy’s glasses and thinks he is now a true chief.
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