Lord of the Flies: Diary Entry

Lord of the Flies

Diary Entry –Ralph, Chapter 8

Tony Yoon–Grade 10

He’s left. You know – the one leading the hunters. Most of his hunters followed him into the other place – the forest. Now there’s only a bunch of biguns and the littluns left on this side of the island. Why does he hate me so much? Is it because he isn’t the leader? He still shouldn’t have left like that. I had the conch – I was voted chief. And he wasn’t thinking about the important things. All he cared about was pig, pig, pig! Why can’t his lot see that we need the fire and the smoke! The smoke is the important thing. The smoke signals other ships so we can be… you know, rescued. And he never cared much about the conch. The conch is what keeps us… keeps us acting like grown-ups. We had rules – we needed them to look after ourselves, and the rules were the only things we had left from… home. We needed assemblies so we can decide on things and get things done. But his lot was obsessed with hunting. Sucks to their pigs, sucks to their hunts. Piggy’s sure we can do without ’em – I hope so too. I mean… he always just went and made trouble. He’s the one who made fights during assemblies. He never followed the rules. He always argued with me, when I’m the leader. Everyone’s happier now he’s left, right? I mean, Piggy is happier now that he’s not here. He even helped me and the biguns fetch wood, even when he had ass-mar. We should be fine on our own. We have the fire, the conch, the rules – they have nothing. They can hunt and catch pig as much as they want – my lot is going to be rescued. We don’t need him and his group of boys armed with sticks to protect us. They can’t beat the beast with sticks. We can keep the fire going. All their lot did was put it out and miss the ship. Most of all, we don’t need the meat. The meat makes everyone go crackers. We have plenty of fruits.

Anyways, we are going to stay on this side of the island, away from the… other place. The littluns are scared of the beast, and now that we have him and his lot in there as well… There’s no way we can fight the beast. It was huge, black eyes, large teeth. It was sitting next to our fireplace. If Piggy weren’t here, we still would have no fire. We would have been stuck in this island. Thanks to Piggy, we have the fire on the beach now, so we have our smoke as well. The littluns like the fire – they get excited when it’s burning. Better keep it alive to keep them happy. Then they’ll forget about the beast and the other group.

Talking about Piggy… He’s clever, and he can think. These days my head goes numb. Sometimes I forget why we need the smoke and the conch and the rescue. I don’t even know what we should do, actually. But every time I go numb, Piggy helps me. His head is full of ideas like his body’s full of fat. Maybe

he should be chief – even the littluns seem to think I’m not good anymore. Piggy knows sundials and mirages – I don’t. Still, Piggy says that I’m a better leader than… than the other one who left. He’s right. If I give up, the rest of us will be nothing but animals. We’re not looking exactly… normal. Our hair is long. Really long. Our clothes are brown and filthy. We just do our business anywhere on the beach. We have to stop thinking that this is normal. We need to focus. We need to have a place where we do our business. We can think of ways to cut our hair. We can try washing our clothes. That’d make us much more ‘human’. I’m worried we’ll just stay like this forever. Am I becoming… more like him and his savages? Yesterday, I hunted with them. I hit the pig with my spear – no one else did, not even him. It felt so good! And everyone was looking up to me. But then I felt, for that one moment, that hunting was more important and fun than the fire. And then there was the pig game. After the hunt, Robert acted the pig and we pretended to hunt, but they… alright, we… got carried away and ended up hurting him. But I ‘felt’ good hurting Robert! What is getting into me? Better stay focused… just proves hunting in the forest can make you lose it.

The grownups would have been fine on this island. They would have fires. They would have meetings. They would build boats. They would get food. They would decide on things and get them done. If only… if only they could send a message. If only they could show us what we have to do! If only daddy… Oh, what’s the use? Where did things start to go wrong? Everything was fine at the beginning. We had the fire, we had the rules, the smoke, the fruits… everyone was happy. Now we’ve gone split ourselves. I hope we can get rescued before this turns any worse. I miss the school, my parents, the cornflakes I used to eat, the books… Everything back home is perfect and happy. Every night when I hear the littluns moan about home and the beast, I wish I could go back. 