In the beginning there is a sense of struggle for the weak and young against the older more athletic individuals. Golding in the Lord of Flies sets his opening scene much like Steinbeck would, with a description of the setting, and one can liken the scaling away of the boys' civility to Kino, in The Pearl.
He becomes more instinctual as he senses his need to protect his newfound source of wealth from the ravenous eyes of the doctor and envious villagers. In both cases man becomes more of a beast especially when faced with an external environment outside of his control.
There are distinctions between who has the ability to reflect stoically as Ralph does in Lord of the Flies when he takes it upon himself to discover their whereabouts and Kino who is more instinctive following the inclinations on getting to The Pearl by listening to the "Music of the Undersea".
There, Steinbeck is more metaphorical by using references to music where no real music is heard except in the head of Kino. There are social differences between the educated children's group that gets marooned on an island and tries initially to keep their civilized appearances and the life of Kino characterized by social oppression having limited resources and few outlets to improving his lifestyle.
Again metaphors are use in The Pearl to describe certain attitudes present in the culture depicted by the author, like the "poison sacs" of the town which was taken in reference to the nascent ability of the townspeople to weave wicked tales about how Kino got The Pearl and how would using it. Metaphors would repeat themselves as a music of The Pearl, or music of evil where the search for something supposedly beneficial would end up being the source of problems for Kino and his family.
Ralph, Piggy and the other have other needs unlike Kino, that is primarily to survive and to get help. They were after all on an island away from the safety of their homes whereas Kino once had the safety of his home, which was rudely disturbed by thieves in the night forcing him eventually to escape. It was not apparent that the boys Lord of the Flies knew what their needs were in the beginning and the same could be said for Kino who was probably more trusting of his fellow man. The boys in Lord of the Flies probably thought that food would be readily accessible except for Piggy and perhaps some older boys at the beginning.
There was no need to escape the restriction of their social class as Kino felt. Then boys will be boys until they become men and so the reader sees a variety of character traits that can later be associated to being more manly and other like Piggy's early chattiness which is more childlike.
