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Lord Of The Flies Chapter 12 Summary {Step by Step Guide}
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Lord Of The Flies Chapter 12 Summary | Cry of the Hunters Summary
Ralph lies hidden in a thicket of bushes and trees. He is badly injured. The skin over his ribs is torn and bruised. He has cuts everywhere from running through the trees and bushes.
He wants to wash his wounds, but he knows he must be quiet and still, so the boys, the savages, will not kill him. Ralph is so close to
Castle Rock that he can see Bill, painted and savage
Ralph cannot understand how that savage had once been a civilized British boy. Ralph sees smoke and knows that Jack’s savages are cooking a pig and feasting.
He sees a savage give Robert, who is on guard duty, a piece of cooked meat. Since the savages are busy eating, Ralph thinks it is safe to go to the fruit trees to get something for himself to eat.
Two littluns see him and run away screaming because Ralph is bruised, cut, and scary to look at.
Note: Ralph cannot believe that Bill and the others have become savages, and he does not know that he looks equally savage.
After eating, Ralph feels better. He knows Jack has different beliefs and hates Ralph, but Ralph cannot believe, even after the deaths of Simon and Piggy, that Jack and the others will kill him.
In the daylight, with nothing for Jack to fear from Ralph, would it be safe for Ralph to go and talk to Jack? Ralph walks by the shelter
area, but knows there is no shelter for him from Jack.
There is no hope of rescue without fire and smoke. It is now evening. If he hopes to talk to Jack in the daylight, Ralph must go now.
Ralph passes the clearing in the forest where Simon had enjoyed the butterflies and nature. He is scared when he sees the smiling pig’s skull. He sees an ant crawling in the empty eye socket and thinks that a dead pig cannot hurt him.
Then, just like Simon had thought in Chapter 4, Ralph feels as if the pig’s skull knows something. The author says, “The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won’t tell.”
Ralph hits the skull with his fist. It breaks into two pieces and its smile seems six feet wide. Ralph takes the stick that had held it up. It is the stick Roger had sharpened at both ends – one end sharp to push into the rock on the ground, one end sharp to push into the dead pig’s head.
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Note: Ralph destroyed Jack’s symbol of power the Lord of the Flies, and Roger destroyed the conch- Ralph’s symbol of power.
It is the night when Ralph gets back to the thicket of bushes, his shelter near Castle Rock where he will have to try to sleep. He thinks again of going to Castle Rock in peace.
The author says, “Daylight might have answered yes, but darkness and the horrors of death said no.” Ralph realizes that he is an outcast because, as he says, he “had some sense.”
He cannot go to Castle Rock and he cannot sleep. He hears the boys chanting. “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” Ralph cannot experience the dark circle of savages, the comfort of the fire, or the eating of meat.
Ralph sees that Sam and Eric are on guard duty. He goes to Castle Rock to talk to them. He has to climb up to them very carefully, so no one will hear him.
He has to be careful not to fall to his death. It is hard to climb while holding the stick that had held the pig’s head, but he gets close enough to Sam and Eric to talk to them.
At first, Sam and Eric are afraid that the beast has come to attack them, but Ralph says that it is only him. Sam says Ralph has to leave, but Sam and Eric are Ralph’s only hope.
They have not painted their faces. Simon, Piggy, the signal fire, and the conch are gone, so Ralph stays to talk to the twins. Sam tries to do his duty, and he orders Ralph again to leave.
Ralph says that if it were light, they would be ashamed to be savages ordering him away, but the twins say they have been forced to do what Jack wants. Roger hurts them.
Ralph does not understand why Jack hates him. Ralph says, “What have I done? I liked him and I wanted us to be rescued” Eric says it is useless to talk sense.
Jack and Roger are planning to hunt Ralph the next day. The plan is for the boys to make a line and search the island, leaving Ralph no chance to escape.
If Sam, Eric, or any boy finds Ralph, he is supposed to scream “Ah!” very loudly and pat his mouth with his hand, like an American Indian in old movies to make a loud, screaming (ululating) sound. After the cry of the hunter, all of the other hunters will come.
Ralph can’t believe that Jack will hunt him just because Ralph had wanted a signal fire. Ralph asks the twins to come with him. They say they can’t because Jack and Roger are both terrors.
They hear someone coming, so they tell Ralph to leave to save himself. Ralph says he is hungry, and Sam gives him some meat. Ralph tells the twins that he will hide in the thicket near Castle Rock.
He asks the twins to keep Jack away from that thicket. Ralph asks Sam if he thinks Ralph will be okay. Ralph asks what they will do when they catch him. Sam says Roger has asked Roger to sharpen a sharpened both ends of a stick. Ralph does not understand.
Note: Remember that in Chapter 8 Jack had asked roger to sharpen a stick at both ends to put the pig’s head on.
Ralph returns to his thicket and decides to sleep in the ferns and grass just outside of the thicket. He will hide inside the thicket the next day when Jack and the other savages come.
As he tries to go to sleep, he hears angry voices and cries of pain from Sam and Eric. Ralph wakes up the next morning to the sounds of Jack, Roger, and the rest of the tribe beginning their hunt for Ralph.
Ralph pushes his way deep into the thicket. He discovers that the big rock that had killed Piggy had bounced through the thicket, creating a flat spot in the middle where he can sit.
As Ralph listens to the hunters’ war cries grow farther away, he has a moment of hope that he will not be found. Then he hears Jack and Roger questioning one of the twins.
Jack and Roger want to know if the thicket they are standing by is the one where Ralph had told Sam and Eric he would hide. Ralph hears the twin cry out in pain and answers yes.
Ralph wonders what Jack will do next. If Jack sends in one hunter to crawl in through the thicket’s tangled branches, Ralph can easily fight back with his pointed stick.
If Jack decides to send in more than one hunter, it will take a week to break the branches and clear a path. Ralph hears some boys leave. Others stay.
Ralph hears Jack’s voice coming from Castle Rock saying, “Heave. Heave. Heave.” Then a large rock bounces into the thicket near Ralph.
Leaves and small pieces of branches fall on Ralph’s head as the boulder rolls towards the beach.
Again Ralph hears Jack tell the boys to “heave.” A huge rock shakes the ground and Ralph shoots up in the air! Broken branches and leaves fly everywhere. Bushes are pulled out by the roots.
Ralph is shaken up, and it is hard for him to think, but the large rock had hit the thicket and ground, not him, before rolling off. Now there are cracks in the wall of his protective thicket. Ralph can hear voices and he sees a spear point poking through one of the cracks.
Ralph pokes his own sharp stick through the crack and wounds a savage who cries out in pain. Another savage says that Ralph is dangerous.
Ralph hears the savages discussing what to do next, but he does not hear the plan. He just hears a sound of surprise and then laughing, but then Ralph hears the sound of a burning fire and smells smoke! Ralph crawls out of the smokey thicket.
Ralph stabs a savage who had been coughing from the smoke. Ralph runs into the forest.
In the forest, Ralph thinks about what he should do – climb a tree, break through the line of hunters, or hide and let the hunters pass. If the savages see him in a tree, they will just wait until he has to come down.
If he breaks through the line, they will just turn around and hunt him until he is too tired to run more. If he hides, they might find him.
Ralph hears war cries and decides to hide under bushes and vines. He cannot be seen from above, but the leaves of the bushes are not thick on the bottom.
He also hears the sound of a wildfire destroying the island’s fruit trees. What will they eat tomorrow? Ralph sees the legs and spear of a savage coming towards him.
He hears the sounds of frightened pigs, mice, and other animals running away from the fire. Ralph gets his spear ready to poke at the savage, and now, for the first time, Ralph sees that his spear is sharp at both ends.
Ralph sees the savage’s eyes staring at him through the bushes! Ralph screams, shoots out of his hiding place and swings his stick at the savage. Other savages appear and Ralph runs for his life!
Ralph forgets “his wounds, his hunger, and thirst,” and becomes “fear; hopeless fear on flying feet, rushing through the forest toward the open beach.”
There, on the beach, near where the shelters had been, but which have now burned, Ralph tries to ask for mercy. A naval officer stands on the beach, looking at Ralph and the burning island.
The man asks if there are any adults on the island. Ralph says there are none. The officer sees Jack’s tribe, now standing silently behind Ralph. The man says he and his men had seen the smoke.
He asks jokingly if the boys have been “having a war or something.” Ralph nods, and the officer jokes again, asking if there are any dead bodies from the boys’ war. Ralph says there were two, but they are gone now.
The man is shocked because he realizes Ralph is telling the truth. The officer looks at the boys. He sees a boy holding a broken pair of glasses and wearing an old, ragged black hat.
He sees other dirty, scratched boys. He asks who the boss is, and the boy carrying the glasses steps forward, but Ralph says loudly that he is the boss. No one disagrees.
A little boy steps forward, but little Percival can no longer remember how to state his name and address. The officer learns that no one knows exactly how many boys are on the island.
He looks at them and says he thought that a group of British boys should “have been able to put up a better show than that…” The officer says he thought it would have been more like Coral Island (a fun children’s book full of adventures of boys on a deserted island). Ralph says it had been like that at first when they had been together.
Ralph thinks of children’s books and games, and then he thinks of death and murder. Ralph cries “for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.” The officer looks away at his ship.
Note: When we look at the end of the novel, we see how William Golding created a brilliant, but dark, work of literature when he wrote Lord of the Flies.
We see how confused and evil humans can be. The officer can’t believe he sees British boys (like Jack and Roger) who have behaved so badly, but the officer himself is carrying a gun and is proud of his military ship.
How many men have the officer and his ship killed? The irony is when the opposite of what we expect to happen happens. The end of the book is ironic because even though Ralph had wanted to save the boys with a safe signal fire, it is Jack who saves the boys by starting a wildfire to smoke out Ralph for the hunters to kill.
Golding says that the boys are like the men- with evil and savagery inside them. Choir uniforms and military uniforms don’t civilize people.
People who are wise, because of their connection to nature or God, or their ability to think logically, may try to save us, but they can’t. People will kill their saviors Simon, Piggy, or Jesus. Humans will destroy every paradise.
Even if readers don’t believe in outside forces -a god or a devil-like the Lord of the Flies, Golding shows that human psychology makes us capable of evil.
Freudian psychology says that we all have three conflicting forces inside ourselves. We have an id – a wild side that is based on instinct and feelings and when we let it control us, we are like Jack.
We have a superego – our conscience to know what is right and what is wrong. When we let it control us, we are most like Piggy (and Simon) because we do what is right even when we might want to do something else. We respect rules and authority.
We have an ego that allows us to make decisions based on the expected result of our decision. When we let our ego control us, we are like Ralph.
Now that you have completed reading Lord of the Flies, which character do you respect? Do you follow the conch, the Lord of the Flies, or something else?
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Also Read:
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- Lord Of The Flies Chapter 2 Summary
- Lord of the Flies Chapter 11 Summary
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