Chapter One: The Sound of the Shell: The novel begins in the aftermath of a plane crash in the Pacific Ocean during an unnamed war in which a group of English schoolboys are isolated on what they assume to be an island under no adult supervision. The pilot died in the crash and the plane has been swept to sea by a storm. Among the survivors are a young, fair-haired boy of twelve named Ralph …showed first 75 words of 10985 total…

…showed last 75 words of 10985 total…represented by Piggy in favor of the barbarism and anarchy of Jack. This completes the inversion of the Eden myth that Golding has constructed. The paradise of the island comes to an end when the boys choose nature and instinct over rationality and awareness. Ralph loses his innocence when he realizes that the violence and sin inherent in humanity is part of instinct, barely controlled by the constraints of order and morality that civilization constructs.