Lord of the Flies is an excellent work to analyze using sociological concepts, since the story revolves around a group of children stranded on an island. Immediately, one can predict that the kids will struggle to instill and maintain social order, a concept which is the focus of chapter 6 in our sociology text. The conversation on the beach between Ralph and Piggy clearly reveals Piggy's demand for social order to prevent the chaos that would inevitably ensue. Ralph and Piggy come across their first symbol of order when they discover the conch swept up on the sand. They use this to gather up the two distinct groups into a session that does result in some productivity, yielding a distinguished leader in Ralph. But foreshadowing of conflict is evident in Jack's obvious desire for authoritarian rule. Consequently, leadership is established early in this work and leadership styles (between Ralph and Jack) will be the cause of divergence within the original group. Furthermore, the society will initially base their norms in synchrony with the society they left, but as their stay evolves into a struggle for life deviant behavior will begin to eventuate and their norms will shift internally. Deviance is foreshadowed when the pre-pubescents find a bloody pig lying on the ground. The battle between good and evil will unfold as the good will be represented by the group willing to sustain their former norms and evil by the group, which is willing to deviate from the norm. This is the inevitable result when resources are scarce and the competition is fierce.
             The formation of social groups ensues immediately as the boys find each other and realize they are stranded on an island. The boys represent a distinct category of middle-upper class school boys from England. Their category deserves a subdivision since it seems as if there are two distinct age groups, which are represented by boys in the early grammar stages and ...