Think about what is happening in this text, but also your own reactions to it. I should see responses that answer the first of the following questions and at least two others (if you have a lot to say about those two other questions - more if you don't).
Questions to keep in mind (to be answered next to the reading, where your thoughts come up):
- What are your first thoughts about it?
- What are you "seeing"?
- What does it make you think of?
- What are you imagining might happen next (as you read it)?
- What clues did that conversation give you about Jack's personality? Simon's? Ralph's?
- What other events/conversations in the book did this make you think of?
- Other events/conversations in your own life it makes you think of?
Chapter 3 Two-Column Reader Response
Jack flushed.
“We want meat.”
“Well, we haven’t got any yet,” [said Ralph] “And we
want shelters. Besides, the rest of your hunters came
back hours ago. They’ve been swimming.”
“I went on,” said Jack. “I let them go. I had to go on. I--”
He tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill
that was swallowing him up.
“I went on. I though, by myself--”
The madness came into his eyes again.
“I thought I might kill.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I thought I might.”
Some hidden passion vibrated in Ralph’s voice.
“But you haven’t yet.”
His invitation might have passed as casual, were it not
for the undertone.
“You wouldn’t care to help with the shelters, I
suppose?”
“We want meat--”
“And we don’t get it.”
Now the antagonism was audible.
“But I shall! Next time! I’ve got to get a barb on this
spear! We wounded a pig and the spear fell out. If we
could only make barbs--”
“We need shelters.”
Suddenly Jack shouted in rage.
“Are you accusing--?”
“All I’m saying is we’ve worked dashed hard. That’s all.”
They were both red in the face and found looking at
each other difficult. Ralph rolled on his stomach and
began to play with the grass.
“If it rains like when we dropped in we’ll need shelters
all right. And then another thing. We need shelters
because of the--”
He paused for a moment and they both pushed their
anger away. Then he went on with the safe, changed
subject.
“You’ve noticed, haven’t you?”
Jack put down his spear and squatted.
“Noticed what?”
“Well. They’re frightened.”
He rolled over and peered into Jack’s fierce, dirty face.
“I mean the way things are. They dream. You can hear
‘em. Have you been awake at night?”
Jack shook his head.
“They talk and scream. The littluns. Even some of the
others. As if--”
“As if it wasn’t a good island.”
Astonished at the interruption, they looked up at
Simon’s serious face.
“As if,” said Simon, “the beastie or the snake-thing, was
real. Remember?”
The two older boys flinched when they heard the
shameful syllable. Snakes were not mentioned now,
were not mentionable.
“As if this wasn’t a good island,” said Ralph slowly.
“Yes, that’s right.”
Jack sat up and stretched out his legs.
“They’re batty.”
“Crackers. Remember when we went exploring?”
They grinned at each other, remember the glamor
of the first day. Ralph went on.
“So we need shelters as a sort of--”
“Home.”
“That’s right.”
Jack drew up his legs, clasped his knees, and frowned
in an effort to attain clarity.
“All the same-- in the forest. I mean when you’re
hunting, not when you’re getting fruit, of course,
but when you’re on your own--”
He paused for a moment, not sure if Ralph would
take him seriously.
“Go on.”
“If you’re hunting sometimes you catch yourself
feeling as if--” He flushed suddenly. “There’s nothing
in it of course. Just a feeling. But you can feel as if
you’re not hunting, but-- being hunted, as if something’s
behind you all the time in the jungle.”
They were silent again: Simon intent, Ralph incredulous
and faintly indignant.
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