Seeing the twins bound, Ralph’s language gets to the heart of the matter quickly. He shouts at Jack, calling him “a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!” This emotional accusation is in fact truthful. Jack is living out the beast’s urges, the beast that spoke to Simon in the guise of a swine head. Jack stole not only Piggy’s glasses, but also hope, rescue, Simon’s life, Ralph’s authority, and the vestiges of civilization from their small island culture. Ralph’s use of “bloody” works not only as an expletive but also as an accurate adjective, considering the deaths Jack has caused by fostering an environment of enmity coupled with ferocity.
Initially, Jack and Ralph feel some reluctance to engage fully in combat. When Ralph calls him a thief, Jack rushes at Ralph threateningly with his spear, but they each wield their spears more like sabers, unwilling to use the “the lethal points.” They verbally square off, daring each other to come fight but remaining out of each other’s reach. Up to this point, none of the boys have fought to the death one on one. Simon’s death occurred in the midst of a group frenzy. Even Roger does not engage in hand-to-hand combat but acts more as a physically removed assassin. Until Jack acts after Piggy’s death and flings his spear dead-on at Ralph, he is no doubt at some level reluctant to kill another boy for the same reason he couldn’t kill the first piglet he encountered in Chapter 1: “because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh.”
