Common sense could also be understood, however, as communal sentiment, a shared sensibility of what’s important and what’s allowed. Ralph “knew he was an outcast. @‘Cos I had some sense,’” he tells himself — not just common sense but a sense of his identity as a civilized person, a sense of the particular morality that had governed the boys’ culture back home. When Jack threw the spear at Ralph, Jack made him an outcast, disallowing his easy assimilation into the group even if he had wanted to forsake rescue in favor of hunting. When Ralph tries to reason with the newly tribal twins and gain an understanding of Jack’s hatred of him, Eric says “Never mind what’s sense. That’s gone.” Jack’s tribe lacks sense in terms of logically justifiable attitudes and behaviors.
In response to his desperate situation, bereft of any companion and the conch as well, Ralph reverts to a childish state. He “whimpered and yawned like a littlun” when facing the coming night with its attendant fears. Later, as he is hunted, he reverts back not in time but in character to his primal self, squatting in a thicket, baring his teeth, and snarling. Becoming the prey brings out the animal survival instincts coupled with innate human intellect in him: He seeks a “lair” in which to spend the night and thinks ahead to his hiding place the next day. He prepares himself to poke whoever discovers him with his spear so that the manhunter “would be stuck, squealing like a pig.” Acting purely out of the fundamental drive for survival, he attacks two savages who stand between him and escape, and wounds a third from his hiding place. The members of Jack’s tribe have ceased to be human for him; he thinks of them as “those striped and inimical creatures.” Hunting has become their identity rather than their activity. In contrast, Ralph still thinks sensibly even when on the run: when the forest fire burns the fruit trees, he curses the tribe for failing to think ahead when they set the fire: “Fools! . . . what would they eat tomorrow?”
