The Hunters

• ‘something dark was fumbling along’ ch1
• ‘The creature stepped from the mirage… [they] saw that the darkness was not all shadow but mostly clothing’ ch1
• ‘ the creature was a party of boys’ ch1
• 'Jack slammed his knife into the tree and looked around challengingly' ch2
• 'All the same you need an army – for hunting' ch2
• 'We need hunters to get us meat' ch2
• 'But if there was a snake we’d hunt it and kill it.' ch2
• 'We’ll make sure when we go hunting' ch2
• 'After all, we’re not savages' ch2
• "Jack pointed suddenly. ‘His specs – use them as burning glasses!’ "
• The choir arrive, marching, in black uniforms with silver badges - an image not dissimilar to the German SS (Schutzstaffel) - a 1950s reader may observe the physical likeness and later, the brutal ideology of the group.
• Th choir have no conductor to direct.
• Jack needs the choir/hunters as much as they need him.
• Choirs, through their association with the church, symbolise innocence - Golding suggests that even the most moral amongst us harbour evil within.
• 'Something dark was fumbling along... the creature was a party of boys, marching approximately in step' ch1
• 'The choir, noticeably less of a group, had discarded their cloaks' ch2
• 'Each of them wore the remains of a black cap and ages ago they had stood in two demure rows and their voices had been the song of angels' ch8
• 'A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still' ch12