The story itself takes place on an isolated island. A plane has crashed, and it transpires that there are no adult survivors. Two English boys named Ralph and Piggy form the initial focus, as they begin to make sense of their new surroundings. The boys soon find a conch shell and Piggy suggests that Ralph uses the conch as a horn to call for any other survivors who might be nearby. The boys include "biguns" (several older children) and "littluns" (younger children), and rapidly divide into two camps headed by Ralph, and another older boy named Jack (the head of a choir group that also landed on the island). Ralph is voted in charge and calls everyone together to work toward two common goals, the first being to have fun and the second to be rescued by creating a constant fire signal, to be lit using Piggy's glasses.
