Read the passages from Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

Passage 1

"The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don’t keep a fire going? Is a fire too much for us to make?”

He flung out an arm.

"Look at us! How many are we? And yet we can’t keep a fire going to make smoke. Don’t you understand? Can’t you see we ought to—ought to die before we let the fire out?”

There was a self-conscious giggling among the hunters. Ralph turned on them passionately.

"You hunters! You can laugh! But I tell you the smoke is more important than the pig, however often you k!ll one. Do all of you see?” He spread his arms wide and turned to the whole triangle.

"We’ve got to make smoke up there—or d!e.”

Passage 2

"The rules!” shouted Ralph. "You’re breaking the rules!”

"Who cares?”

Ralph summoned his wits.

"Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!”

But Jack was shouting against him.

"B0ll0cks to the rules! We’re strong—we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat—!”

He gave a wild whoop and leapt down to the pale sand. At once the platform was full of noise and excitement, scramblings, screams, and laughter. The assembly shredded away and became a discursive and random scatter from the palms to the water and away along the beach, beyond night-sight. Ralph found his cheek touching the conch and took it from Piggy.

The universal theme of Passage 1 is the tension between freedom and responsibility, and the universal theme of Passage 2 is the conflict between an individual’s desires and the community’s needs. How do these universal themes relate to each other?

They both show that putting desires before responsibility can put one’s community at risk.
They both show that responsibility to one’s community is the most important part of survival.
They both show that personal freedom is preferable to responsibility to community.
They both show that people demonstrate responsibility to community differently.