Castle Rock is a place in the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Its a literary reference to a corrupted seat of power.

Its an excellent book, I will sum it up quickly for you here.

Plot is a group of schoolkids get shipwrecked on a tropical island, and need to build a nation to survive on this New Land. Before long, they fracture into 2 groups - the rational who want to be disciplined, free and prosperous ... and the assholes that want to run wild, and control everybody else's lives.

Early in the book, 2 of the leading characters discover a spot on the top of the cliff overlooking the sea, and name it Castle Rock.

The rational leader sees it as a nice spot, but doesn't like the potential for corruption that it represents.

Asshole leader sees it as the perfect place for a Fort. Eventually they split into 2 tribes, and Asshole leader collects together the savage kids, and sets up a throne on Castle Rock where they can rule the island.

At the end of the story, conflict between the groups ends up centering on Castle Rock, where Asshole leader has fortified the savages together, and forced the biggest and strongest kid to "stand guard" over Castle Rock, by guarding a great boulder set on a lever.

From their fort, they broadcast hate and threats for the "loser" kids who are not in awe of the king, and are not interested in playing their game.

At the last moment, an unexpected accident occurs, and one of the good kids gets killed due to the dumb mistakes of the Asshole kids.

When this happens, Asshole king - rather than face the fact their behaviour led to the death of an innocent kid, sets fire to the place, and blames it on the other leader.

Then they chase him into the jungle to try to kill him. The twist at the end of the story is that the careless fire that they set creates so much smoke that its enough to alert the Navy, which has until then been searching without luck for the lost generation of boys.

When the professional military turn up to rescue the kids, they set up Military Tribunal type thing to interrogate the kids and work out what happened. One by one, the savage kids burst into tears. to quote :

"They are transformed from murderous savages back into scared children. The quickness of the boys’ transformation suggests their experience on the island has been a form of mass hysteria they weren’t fully aware of as it was happening."

Interesting ...