Numerous scenes can be argued as the most important in any novel, and the Lord of the Flies is no exception. No one scene had quite the impact (even the climax) that this one had. The scene I am referring to, of course, is the scene I will call "The Broken Specs" Scene.
In "The Broken Specs" scene the boys are on the island and the "biguns" are scattered. Jack took the hunters off in thirst for meat, while Ralph and the others stayed and played in a bathing pool. While searching the horizon, Ralph spotted the smoke swirling upward in a “tight little knot” (66). With excitement and tight nerves they focused on the smoke. When sure of the sight, they turned towards their beacon fire. Ralph was shocked and horrified when the spot where their smoke should billow from was dormant. His vehemence was met with opposing excitement when Jack and the hunters returned with their kill. The hunters danced and sang, unaware of Ralph fuming. Not until it was revealed what they had missed did the hunters realize the error in their ways. All dancing and story-telling and excitement ceased when Jack and the others recognized that their absence from the fire allowed potential rescuers to float right past. Piggy stood to repeat their offense and was met with an angry crack in the head by Jack, sending his specs flying and shattering one lens. It was at this point that "not even Ralph knew how a link between him and Jack had been snapped"(73).
At this scene, something definitely snaps and this can be argued as the point in the novel where problems begin to run downhill. The lit fire represented their hopes of survival, and up to this point they had kept it lit until the precise moment when it was needed. The quote used above, about the “knot” of smoke, shows how the boys were bound to the smoke of their own fire and the rescue of others. Jack and the hunters refused to acknowledge their fault, because their minds had long since drifted away from rescue and instead moved to survival. The hunters turned into savages without the presence of adults, a common theme throughout the novel. The savages were so caught up in their thirst for blood that they no longer thought as a human would and focus on getting off the island. With their first taste of blood they felt “that they had taken away life with a long satisfying drink”(70) of blood, the blood that caused the end of their human stay on the island. The hunters had been long on the turning point of going from human to savage, but their first success in the hunt tipped the balances and they were suddenly swept up by primal instinct.
There was one symbol in this scene that stands out above all else, Piggy’s specs. Going along with the end of humanity and beginning of savagery, his specs represented human intelligence. When they were destroyed, so too was any chance that the hunters had at going back to being human and looking for a way out. The specs were the boys' fire starter, and the fire represented escape. When Jack attacked Piggy, he shattered one of the lenses. One shattered lens represented the beginnings of the boys dividing. The broken specs would answer when the boys’ separation began; it is at this point that Jack and Ralph would be divided, snapped like a broken pair of glasses. Only having one lens leaves Piggy partially blind and helpless and “islanded in a sea of meaningless color” (73), he was now even more of a burden placed upon Ralph more and more as the novel goes on. But this blindness is not limited to Piggy. There were two lenses before the snapping, and each represents a leader: Jack and Ralph. Ralph was focused on fire, which is why his lens did not snap when the specs flew. Jack, on the other hand, was so overcome by savage instincts. This is represented by the lack of lens. The specs were necessary for fire and when Jack chose hunting over rescue his lens for fire broke. Because the lens had broke, there would be no fire for the hunters because “Jack had no means of lighting it”(73). He and the other hunters are now forced to travel the forest blindly, without the lens of fire and the human thought that Ralph possesses. The damaged specs represents so much more than just a broken piece of glass, it shows the beginnings of a schism within the boys and one groups turn towards savagery: the turning point in the novel.
