How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Piggy moved among the crowd, asking names and frowning to remember them. The children gave him the same simple obedience that they had given to the man with the megaphones. (1.179)
Question: is it "natural" for children to want to obey rules, any rule, or is this obedience just something that their upbringing has beaten into them?
Quote #5
"Shut up," said Ralph absently. He lifted the conch. "Seems to me we ought to have a chief to decide things."
"A chief! A chief!"
"I ought to be chief," said Jack with simple arrogance, "because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp." (1.228-30)
It's dumb of Jack to think he should be leader because he can sing C sharp, but is it any dumber that Ralph gets elected because he's cute and has the conch? Maybe Golding is saying that all rules and order are kind of made up—but that doesn't mean they're not important.
Quote #6
Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before the evacuation; before him small children squatted in the grass. (2.2)
Even after a plane crash, the kids sort themselves out in groups. It's just like a high school cafeteria.