1. Without enforcing social structure, we devolve into savage chaos.
Without the enforcement of society’s conventions, the hygiene of the boys diminishes to the point that they become a pack of identical filthy savages.
One physical symbol that is repeated that shows the growing savagery, and animal-like imagery is that the boy become more and more dirty. Ralph finally recognizes that he would like to take a bath and have a “proper wallow with soap.”
Without rules to stop them, the boys begin to destroy the island.
Without the structure of a society the boys lack accountability, therefore, they become more violent.
Without enforcing social structure, we devolve into savage chaos.
Ralph reprimands the boys for using the area where they gather food as a toilet. Ralph calls it “dirty.” Even animals separate their toilets.
Roger is throwing rocks around a “littlun” bathing, but he does not hit him. Roger’s arm is still “conditioned” by “parents,” “police,” and “teachers” of the “lawful world.”
The boys senselessly enjoy rolling big rocks down the mountain, punching holes in the canopy of the forest. For five minutes “they savored the rights of domination.”
Thinking that Simon is the beast, the boys kill him. They “leapt onto [Simon]…[and] screamed, struck, bit, tore.” Without investigating who he is at first, Simon is murdered by the boys.
Ralph looks at all the boys and realizes that they are all dirty and have long hair. And for the rest of the story, the boys get dirtier, to the point that makes it difficult to be identified individually. The symbolic image of them together gives the impression that they have become savages, like anonymous wild dogs in a pack.
Near the end of the story, Jack lights the entire island on fire, all for the sake of exposing Ralph to kill him. None of the boys had the wherewithal anymore to predict that they are destroying what they need to survive.
Without a plan or thought about the consequences, the boys start a fire and burn “ a quarter mile wide strip of forest” down the slope of the island. In the process, the boy with the “mulberry-colored birthmark” is lost and killed.
In a calculated, murderous moment, Roger kills Piggy by rolling a rock off a cliff to fall on Piggy, killing him. Roger does this without remorse and without any fear of consequences, thus showing the rest that jungle law is in place on the island.