Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Passage 1 (page 38-39)

     “I said before we’ll be rescued sometime. We’ve just got to wait, that’s all.”
     Daring, indignant, Piggy took the conch.
     “That’s what I said! I said about our meetings and things and then you said shut up–”
     His voice lifted into the whine of virtuous recrimination. They stirred and began to shout him down.
     “You said you wanted a small fire and you been and built a pile like a hayrick. If I say anything,” cried Piggy, with bitter realism, “you say shut up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon–”
     He paused in the tumult, standing, looking beyond them and down the unfriendly side of the mountain to the great patch where they had found dead wood. Then he laughed so strangely that they were hushed, looking at the flash of his spectacles in astonishment. They followed his gaze to find the sour joke.
     “You got your small fire all right.” Smoke was rising here and there among the creepers that festooned the dead or dying trees. As they watched, a flash of fire appeared at the root of one wisp, and then the smoke thickened. Small flames stirred at the trunk of a tree and crawled away through leaves and brushwood, dividing and increasing. One patch touched a tree trunk and scrambled up like a bright squirrel. The smoke increased, sifted, rolled outwards. The squirrel leapt on the wings of the wind and clung to another standing tree, eating downwards. Beneath the dark canopy of leaves and smoke, the fire laid hold on the forest and began to gnaw. Acres of black and yellow smoke rolled steadily toward the sea. At the sight of the flames and the irresistible course of the fire, the boys broke into shrill, excited cheering. The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of the pink rock. They flapped at the first of the trees, and the branches grew a brief foliage of fire. The heart of flame leapt nimbly across the gap between the trees and then went swinging and flaring along the whole row of them. Beneath the capering boys a quarter of a mile square of forest was savage with smoke and flame. The separate noises of the fire merged into a drum-roll that seemed to shake the mountain.
     “You got your small fire all right.”

     This is a pretty long passage, but I really liked it. There's a lot going on. First of all, it's evident that the conch is used as a symbol as authority, because Piggy needed to have it before he spoke. Also, it's obvious that Piggy cares about rules and order. Normally, someone who had been insulted would speak immediately, but Piggy chose to wait until he had the conch to speak. Next, it is shown that Piggy gets little respect from the group. (The very first time this is shown is earlier in the story, when people don't even bother learning his name, and they just call him "Piggy.") This is clear because people don't bother listening to him. To make this abundantly clear, Piggy says "You say/said shut up..." twice in quick succession. Even if he has a good idea, it is ignored until somebody else mentions the same idea.
     The next thing I really liked about this passage is the explanation of the fire. Golding uses strong image-creating words like "flash," "wisp," "crawled," "sifted," "eating," "rolled," and "laid hold" to make it feel like you are actually watching the fire happen. He also uses a simile to compare flames to a squirrel, and later to a jaguar.
     The final thing I found amusing about this passage was Piggy's use of understatement. He says "small fire" 3 times, as if to mock the other boys for letting the fire get out of hand.