Chapter by Chapter Summary - Lord of the Flies

Chapter 1 The Sound of the Shell The opening chapter begins with two boys, Piggy and Ralph, making their way through the jungle. We learn, through their dialogue, that they had been travelling in an airplane with a group of British school children. The plane had presumably been shot down and crashed on a an island in the Pacific. It is hinted that the rest of the world is at war, and that most of it …

…realizing what they’ve done. The officer sees the spears and asks, “ ‘We saw your smoke. What have been doing? Having a war or something?’ ” He learns that two children have been killed and they are taken off the island to the waiting cruiser. As they are taken away, “...Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”