Two-Column Reader Response to Chapter Five: "Beast From Water"

Directions - the same as chapter three below!  Read the questions at the top and keep them in mind as you respond to the text.  Remember - you're not just paying attention to what is happening, you're paying attention to how you respond to it as a reader!

Reader Response: Chapter 5

What catches your attention? Does any of this remind you of something from your own life? What is the mood like? Are you noticing any patterns/repeating ideas? What is the point of this scene? What idea is the author exploring? What comment might the author make about that idea? Any other thoughts?

“What’s grownups going to say?” cried Piggy again. “Look at
‘em!”
The sound of mock hunting, hysterical laughter and real terror
came from the beach.
“Blow the conch, Ralph.”
Piggy was so close that Ralph could see the glint of his one glass.
“There’s the fire. Can’t they see?”
“You got to be tough now.
Make ‘em do what you want.”
Ralph answered in the cautious voice of one who rehearses a
theorem.
“If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then
we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like
animals. We’ll never be rescued.”
“If you don’t blow, we’ll soon be animals anyway.  I can’t see
what they’re doing but I can hear.”
The dispersed figures had come together on the sand and were
a dense black mass that revolved. They were chanting something
and littluns that had had enough were staggering away, howling.
Ralph raised the conch to his lips and then lowered it.
“The trouble is: Are there ghosts, Piggy? Or beasts?”
“ ‘Course there aren’t.”
“Why not?”
“ ‘Cos things wouldn’t make sense. Houses an’ streets, an’--TV-
-they wouldn’t work.”
The dancing, chanting boys had worked themselves away till
their sound was nothing but a wordless rhythm.
“But s’pose they don’t make sense? Not here, on this island?
Supposing things are watching us and waiting?”
Ralph shuddered
violently and moved closer to Piggy, so that they bumped
frighteningly.
“You stop talking like that! We got enough trouble, Ralph, an’
I’ve had as much as I can stand.  If there is ghosts--”

“I ought to give up being chief.  Hear ‘em.”
“Oh lord! Oh no!”
Piggy gripped Ralph’s arm.
“If Jack was chief he’d have all hunting and no fire. We’d be
here till we died.”
His voice ran up to a squeak.
“Who’s that sitting there?”
“Me. Simon.”
“Fat lot of good we are,” said Ralph. “Three blind mice. I’ll give up.”
“If you give up,” said Piggy, in an appalled whisper, “What ‘ud
happen to me?”
“Nothin.”
“He hates me. I dunno why. If he could do what he wanted-- you’re
all right, he respects you. Besides-- you’d hit him.”
“You were having a nice fight with him just now.”
“I had the conch,” said Piggy simply. “I had the right to speak.”
Simon stirred in the dark.
“Go on being chief.”
“You shut up, young Simon! Why couldn’t you say there wasn’t
a beast?”
I’m scared of him,” said Piggy, “and that’s why I know him. If
you’re scared of someone you hate him but you can’t stop thinking
about him. You kid yourself he’s all right really, an’ then when you
see him again; it’s like asthma an’ you can’t breathe. I tell you what.
He hates you too, Ralph--”
“Me? Why me?”
“I dunno. You got him over the fire; an’ you’re chief an’ he isn’t.”
“But he’s, he’s, Jack Merridew!”
“I been in bed so much I done some thinking. I know about people.
I know about me. And him. He can’t hurt you: but if you stand out of
the way he’d hurt the next thing. And that’s me.”
“Piggy’s right, Ralph. There’s you and Jack. Go on being chief.”
“We’re all drifting and things are going rotten. At home there was
always a grownup. Please, sir; please, miss; and then you got an
answer. How I wish!”
“I wish my auntie was here.”
“I wish my father... Oh, what’s the use?”
“Keep the fire going.”
The dance was over and the hunters were going back to the shelters.
“Grownups know things,” said Piggy. “They ain’t afraid of the dark.
They’d meet and have tea and discuss. Then things ‘ud be all right--”
“They wouldn’t set fire to the island. Or lose--”
“They’d build a ship--”
The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey
the majesty of adult life.
“They wouldn’t quarrel--”

“Or break my specs--”
“Or talk about a beast--”
“If only they could get a message to us,” cried Ralph desperately. “If
only they could send us something grownup...a sign or something.”
A thin wail out of the darkness chilled them and set them grabbing
for each other. Then the wail rose, remotely and unearthly, and turned
to an inarticulate gibbering. Percival Wemys Madison, of the Vicarage,
Harcourt St. Anthony, lying in the long grass, was living through
circumstance in which the incantation of his address was powerless to
help him.