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The earliest recorded ancestors of humans were the apes that lived in Africa 2.4 million years ago. 1.4 million years ago, the first use of fire was found in what is now Kenya. This discovery and harness over the power of fire changed the course of mankind from savage animals, to developing the earliest forms of civilization. This importance of fire is shown in the book The Lord of the Flies by William Golding where the boys have a waning interest in keeping the fire going. Fire is symbolic of a tool that separates humankind from the animals. This fuels the waning interest in the fire that directly corresponds with the descent from civility to savagery throughout the book.
In the beginning of the book, when the boys hold importance to the fire, they retain their civility, and ability to make rational decisions. When Ralph is first elected to be leader, he has a list of tasks that should be done by the boys in the groups. One of the tasks is to light a signal fire for the reason that “If a ship comes near the island they may not notice [them]. So [they] must make smoke on top of the mountain”(Golding, 38). this decision is made by Ralph when most of the boys retain most if not all of their civility. Fire helps the boys keep a civilization running, with active efforts to get off the island. With the fire being very important to Ralph, it is clear that the boys are still on the civilized track. Barely a few hours after this declaration, Jack is already starting to lose some of his civility when he proposes letting the fire burn out. Jack says “Well let the fire burn out now. Who would see smoke at night-time, anyway?”(Golding, 43). This shows that Jack would rather live without fire like an animal as opposed to living civilized with fire.Jack does not care about the importance of fire, or the benefits of having fire. Jack is slowly starting to slip into savagery at this point. At the beginning most of the people value the fire, and what it stands for: a tool that will preserve their civility and get them rescued. This starts to change at the end of the book.
Toward the end of the book, when Jack breaks off from Ralphs group, and creates his own group of hunters, he doesn’t have the fire to keep his and the other boys’ civility. Ralph complains to Piggy that “we’d have given [Jack] fire if [he’d] asked”(Golding, 170). This shows that when Jack formed his own group, he did not care to take