Lord of the Flies recap

A plane crash strands a group of British schoolboys on a deserted island with no adults. Ralph, who finds a conch shell and is elected chief, tries to keep order, build shelters, and maintain a signal fire for rescue, helped by the clever, bespectacled Piggy and the gentle Simon. But Jack, leader of the choir turned hunters, is drawn to the power and savagery of killing pigs, and the boys' fear of a mysterious beast, in truth only a dead parachutist caught on the mountain, splits the group. Jack forms his own tribe, and during a frenzied night ritual the boys beat Simon to death, mistaking him for the beast just as he learns the truth. Jack's tribe steals Piggy's glasses to make fire, and when Ralph's group comes to Castle Rock to get them back, Roger kills Piggy with a boulder and shatters the conch. Ralph is hunted across the island as the boys set it on fire, and he collapses on the beach before a naval officer whose arrival finally rescues them and ends their descent into savagery.

A plane carrying a group of British schoolboys crashes on a deserted tropical island, leaving them without any adults. Among the survivors, a fair-haired boy named Ralph finds a conch shell and blows it to summon the others, and the boys elect him chief. A choir led by the proud, red-haired Jack becomes the island's hunters. The boys agree on rules and on the importance of keeping a signal fire burning so a passing ship might rescue them, and they light one using the thick spectacles of the clever, asthmatic Piggy. But the fire rages out of control across the mountainside, and a small boy who had spoken of a frightening beast in the forest is not seen again. As the days pass, Jack grows obsessed with hunting pigs while Ralph and the thoughtful Simon struggle almost alone to build shelters, and the first cracks appear between the boys who want order and those who want the thrill of the hunt.

Order on the island keeps slipping. The cruel older boy Roger torments the smaller ones, and Jack, painting his face like a mask, leads his hunters after a pig with growing ferocity, letting the signal fire go out just as a ship passes on the horizon. When Ralph rages at him, Jack strikes Piggy and breaks one lens of his glasses. Fear of a beast spreads, and at a stormy assembly Simon suggests that the thing they dread may be something inside themselves, but the meeting dissolves into panic and argument. That night, unseen by the boys, the body of a dead parachutist drifts down and catches on the mountain. In the dark the twins on fire-watch glimpse it moving and flee, certain it is the beast. Ralph, Jack, and the others set out to hunt the creature and discover a rocky fortress at the far end of the island, but the divisions between Ralph's authority and Jack's hunters have grown dangerous.

The hunt for the beast draws even Ralph into the excitement of the chase, and a game of reenacting a pig hunt nearly turns to real violence against one of the boys. Climbing the mountain in the dark, Ralph, Jack, and Roger see the dead parachutist stir in the wind and flee, more convinced than ever that the beast is real. Jack breaks away from Ralph entirely and sets up his own tribe, luring boys with the promise of meat and freedom from rules. His hunters kill a sow and jam its head on a stake as an offering to the beast, the head that becomes the Lord of the Flies. Alone in the forest, Simon falls into a trance before it and then discovers the truth, that the beast on the mountain is only a dead man. He stumbles down to tell the others, but arrives in the middle of a wild, chanting ritual dance in a storm, and the frenzied boys, mistaking him for the beast, beat and kill him.

With Simon dead and the boys split into two camps, Jack's tribe, needing fire, raids Ralph's shelter in the night and steals Piggy's glasses. Ralph, Piggy, and the loyal twins go to Jack's fortress at Castle Rock to demand them back and to appeal to reason. The confrontation ends in disaster: Roger levers a great boulder down onto Piggy, killing him and smashing the conch that had stood for order, and the twins are seized and forced to join Jack's tribe. Ralph, now hunted as an enemy, flees for his life as the tribe spreads across the island to find him, finally setting the whole island ablaze to drive him out of hiding. Exhausted and desperate, Ralph bursts onto the beach and collapses at the feet of a naval officer, whose ship has been drawn by the smoke of the fire. The sudden presence of an adult ends the hunt at once, and the filthy, weeping boys are confronted with what they have done and become.

The boys' attempt to govern themselves collapses entirely into violence. After Simon is killed by the mob and Jack's tribe seizes control of the island by force, they steal Piggy's glasses to command fire. When Ralph, Piggy, and the twins go to Castle Rock to reclaim them, Roger deliberately rolls a boulder that crushes Piggy to death and destroys the conch shell, the last symbol of order and reasoned debate. The twins are captured and beaten into joining Jack's tribe, and Ralph is left completely alone, declared an enemy and hunted. The tribe sets the whole island on fire to flush him from cover, and Ralph runs for his life until he stumbles onto the beach and falls at the feet of a British naval officer, whose warship has been drawn by the column of smoke. The arrival of an adult instantly halts the hunt, and the painted, weeping boys are returned to childhood in a moment. Ralph weeps for the loss of innocence and for the darkness he has seen in human beings, while the officer, faintly embarrassed, looks away. The boys are rescued in body, but only after order, friendship, and two of their number have been destroyed.