Lord of the Flies - Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis
Summary and analysis of Lord of the Flies, Chapter 3
Hello! BuffEnglish here and the title to Chapter 4 in Lord of the Flies says it all: “Painted Faces and Long Hair.” I like it when the titles of chapters tell us exactly what to pay attention to.
But before we get to those details, Golding opens the chapter with descriptions associated with rhythm. He first points out that the days themselves - the swing from dawn til dusk - has a natural rhythm of its own, and that the boys, being good northern european citizens, adopt their own corresponding rhythm of work, play, and food.
We also get an overview of the littluns - the “little ones” of the island, going all the way down to six years old. Can you imagine a six year old on this island? Their days are spend charmingly playing and eating, mostly in a world unto themselves. And for the most part, they are generally irrelevant to the lives of the biguns - like Ralph and Jack - and to the story on the whole. They’re youth and complete innocence are on full display, and serve as an appropriate counter to the older children who are on the verge of coming of age. Though their description does reinforce the kind of rhythm of life that Golding is giving us a birds-eye view of.
But it’s an interaction with the littluns that the action of the chapter sinisterly begins. Roger and Maurice, two of the older boys, stumble onto the beach amidst a few of the little kids playing in the sand. And their actions …concerning…to say the last. First, Roger barrels through the children’s sand castle and destroys some of their work - a rather mean thing to do to little kids. Maurice follows, laughing, and kicks sand in one of the children’s eyes. They’re like two big bullies, taking pleasure in causing pain to smaller, weaker kids. But when it comes to Maurice, he does still feel a bit of guilt at his behavior. “In his other life Maurice had received chastisement for filling a younger eye with sand. Now, though there was no parent to let fall a heavy hand, Maurice still felt the unease of wrongdoing.” There is this growing sense among the boys that their life in England among the grownups is this “other life” governed by civilized rules…but they begin to recognize that those rules are no longer enforced. Thankfully here, Maurice’s upbringing still allows him to recognize that what he did was wrong.
This notion is further illustrated by the much more menacing Roger. First of all, just look at his description: he has a “shock of black hair” and darkened skin, ominously hovering low over his forehead which seemed to “suit his gloomy face and made what had seemed at first an unsociable remoteness into something foreboding.” After Maurice leaves, Roger remains and darkly broods at the littluns from the cover of shade in the trees. Roger is a creepy guy! He proceeds to watch the littlun named Henry play for some time, just standing there staring at him. Then, giant nuts apparently as big as rugby balls fall next to Roger…and he “looked from the nuts to Henry and back again,” and we can see he is developing an awful idea. There is something patiently sinister about the twistedness emerging from within Roger.
Roger then finds a few stones and begins to throw them at Henry. But, thankfully, he “threw to miss.” Much like Jack in Chapter 1 with his knife poised over the piglet, there was something about the situation that Roger couldn’t quite bring himself actually try to hit Henry with the stone. Golding explains, “Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger's arm was conditioned by a civilization.” Like the description of Maurice’s remorse earlier, we see here too that civilized society still wields a waning influence over Roger’s behavior…for now anyways.
At the beginning of chapter 3 we first recognized through descriptions of Jack’s appearance that the boys’ connection to civilization and all it represents is still there, but starting to diminish. They still have hair, but it is growing long. They still have clothes, but they’re tattered. And like we saw with Maurice and Roger, they still have morals, but they’re starting to question those boundaries.
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