chapter 8 quotes

• He’s like Piggy. He says things like Piggy. He isn’t a proper chief."

  Jack challenges Ralph’s leadership, trying to turn the boys against him by comparing him to Piggy, whom many of them look down on.

  Jack equates leadership with physical strength, rejecting Ralph’s logic and intelligence as weak.
• "I’m not going to play any longer. Not with you."

  After failing to overthrow Ralph, Jack, embarrassed, announces he is leaving to start his own tribe.

  Jack treats leadership like a game, revealing his immaturity. His departure is a turning point that leads to the boys’ division.

  very child like
• "I’m going off by myself. He can catch his own pigs."

  Jack, furious at Ralph’s continued leadership, abandons the group to focus on hunting

  This marks Jack’s complete rejection of Ralph’s authority and the beginning of his own tribe’s rise.
• "Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood."

  Jack and his hunters brutally kill a sow,

  This chant, first introduced earlier in the novel, now takes on a more savage and ritualistic tone, emphasizing their growing bloodlust.
• "The head is for the beast. It’s a gift."

  After the hunters kill the pig, they place its head on a stick as an offering to the beast.

  The boys have stopped questioning the beast’s existence and now worship it, showing their descent into primitive superstition.
• what is primitive superstision

  a belief or practice based on fear of the unknown, often rooted in early human cultures, where people attribute supernatural powers to natural phenomena and everyday objects, usually with explanations tied to animism, spirits, or taboos, and often lacking a complex theological framework; 
• "This head is for the beast. It’s a gift."

  Jack repeats his justification for mounting the pig’s head on a stick, reinforcing their belief that the beast is real.The offering symbolizes their surrender to savagery, as they now seek to appease, rather than fight, the beast.
• The forest glade was full of shadows and movement.

  Simon, alone in the forest, watches the pig’s head and starts experiencing a strange vision.

  The eerie imagery reflects Simon’s growing fear and the novel’s theme of nature vs. human savagery.
• "Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!"

  Simon hallucinates that the Lord of the Flies (the pig’s head) is speaking to him, mocking his belief that the beast is an external creature.

  This line reveals one of the novel’s central themes—the real beast is inside the boys themselves, not something physical they can kill.
• You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?"

  The Lord of the Flies continues speaking to Simon, confirming that the beast is actually within them all.The Lord of the Flies continues speaking to Simon, confirming that the beast is actually within them all.
• There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast.

  The Lord of the Flies tells Simon that he is alone and that it represents the true beast.This moment symbolizes the power of fear and savagery—the boys have created the beast in their minds, and now it controls them.
• This chapter shows the final break between civilization and savagery. Jack’s rebellion leads to the formation of his violent tribe, while Simon’s vision with the Lord of the Flies reveals that the true beast is within the boys themselves.