Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies

Unit Notes

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

• While on a trip to Europe, your plane experienced mechanical difficulties and crashed on a desert island.

• You are abandoned. No adults survived.• You have no one (not even me) to ask for

advice.• Your goal: get enough supplies to last a

month.

Time’s Up

• How do you feel now?• What was the biggest obstacle you faced?• What was your best decision?• What was your worse?

9/24, Notes: Symbols

• Definition- using a concrete object or word to mean more than its literal meaning (usually an abstract idea).• Example: Roses stand for romance or

love.

9/30, Notes: Characterization• Characterization: the development of a character

throughout the text.• Direct Characterization: involves the author telling

the reader what a character is like.– “He was old enough, twelve years and a few months, to

have lost the prominent tummy of childhood and not yet old enough for adolescences to have made him awkward… but there was a mildness about his mouth and eyes…” (10).

• Indirect Characterization: is achieved through the characters’ dialogue and actions. – “’Listen, everybody. I’ve got to have time to think things

out. I can’t decide what to do straight off’” (23).

10/1, D.I.R.T Quiz (Did I Read This)Chapter 2: “Fire on the Mountain”1. What are the rules that the boys make?2. Who is the only one who may interrupt the

speaker holding the conch?3. Who saw the beast/beastie/snake-like thing?

What was the reaction of the group?4. What did the boys use to start the fire?5. Who said it: “I told you to. I told you to get a

list of names!”

10/2, Do Now: LOTF Chpt. 1 & 2

• Review the titles of Chapter One (The Sound of the Shell) and Two (Fire on the Mountain). • How are these titles significant to the

ideas presented in each chapter?

The Lord of the Flies - by William Golding

SIR WILLIAM GOLDING

1911-1993

Born in Britain

Served five years in the Royal Navy during WWII

Lord of the Flies published in 1954

As a child, Golding had witnessed WWI, “the war to end all wars.”

In the decade before Lord of the Flies was published, Britain had been involved in two more wars: World War II (which Golding served) and the Korean War.

These wars proved the idea of WWI wrong, and created a new sense that people are inherently warlike, power hungry, and savage.

Sir William Golding’s Influences

IMAGES FROM WWII

Point of View…• Lord of the Flies is

told from the third-person omniscient point of view:

• The narrator is “all-knowing” and tells of the events as they unfold.

On Writing Lord of the Flies…

“It was simply what seemed sensible for me to write after the war when everyone was thanking God they weren’t Nazis. I’d seen enough to realize that every single one of us could be Nazis.”

- William Golding

Themes to Look For…

• Civilization• Savagery & “The Beast”• The Weak and the Strong• Human Nature• Spirituality and Religion• Loss of Innocence

Symbols to Watch• Golding is the master of symbolism.– Nearly everything on the island serves a deeper literary

purpose:• Piggy’s Glasses• The Conch• The Beast• The Signal Fire• The Island• The Scar• The Ocean• Ralph• Simon• Jack

10/2, Notes: Human Nature

• Human Nature: the ways of thinking, acting, and reacting that are common to most or all human beings.

• Human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life.

10/8, DO NOW: Quote Response

• What do you think Golding means when he says, “They [Ralph and Jack] walked along, two continents of experience and feeling, unable to communicate” (55).

• Respond to this quote using a TAG paragraph:– TAKE the question and rephrase it as an opening

statement.– Answer it using support from the text.– Give an explanation for your support.

10/8, Notes: Literary Terms

• Symbolism: Person, place, or idea that represents something else.

• Allegory: a story with both literal and symbolic meanings, which characters, occurrences, and setting representing certain ideas.

• What’s the difference between symbolism and allegory? Good question…

Allegory:

• Added definition: A form of an extended metaphor in which characters, figures, or events symbolize abstract ideas.

• The difference between an allegory and a symbol is that an allegory is a complete work that conveys abstract ideas to get a point across, while a symbol is a representation of an idea or concept that can have a different meaning throughout a literary work.

• Example of the difference between allegory & symbolism in Lord of the Flies:– Piggy’s glasses represent clear thinking, but they also represent

knowledge, intelligence, and necessity.• Example of Allegory in movies:

– Avatar (2009) Directed by James Cameron: The attack on the Na'vi people in Avatar makes an allegory to the real history of the oppression on Native Americans or an colonized culture, in the name of resources.

How is Lord of the Flies an allegory?

• The island represents society.• The boys represent humanity.• The two tribes formed represent government.• The chaos on the island is war.

Different Types of Allegories• Writers use allegory to illustrate abstract

meanings by using concrete images.  • Characters in allegories personify some

abstract quality.  While it is possible to read Lord of the Flies as allegory, the work is so complex that it can be read on many levels.  – It is a political allegory: commenting on the

political state of the world post war; – as a psychological allegory: a Freudian,

psychological understanding of human nature; – or as a religious allegory: highlighting the

understanding of the fall of humankind.

SYMBOLS1. Conch

Shell2. Piggy’s

Glasses3. Fire4. Beast

1. Conch Shella) rules and laws in a civilized society; order

and democracy in their new world.2. Piggy’s Glasses

a) Necessity to make fire, science and technology, ability to see clearly, to perceive what is best, knowledge/intelligence.

3. Firea) Technology (atomic bomb), connection to

civilization, warmth, hope, community, threatens destruction if out of control, and security.

4. Beasta) the devil, evil, the dark side of humans.

SYMBOLS

5. Ralph 6. Simon7. Jack8. The island9. The scar10.Roger11.The

Sea/Ocean

5. Ralph = democracy and order6. Simon = pure goodness,“Christ

figure”7. Jack = savagery, anarchy8. The island = a microcosm (mini-

version) of the world9. The scar = man’s destruction,

the start of destructive forces on a pristine island.

10.Roger = evil, Satan11.Sea/Ocean= unconscious

thought, thoughts and desires buried within all humans.

THEME

• Theme:

Theme according to Golding:

• William Golding explained the theme of his book as, “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature.”

• JIGSAW ACTIVITY:– Count off numbers 1-5– Each number will meet at the assigned table to find

evidence to support your assigned theme. – When time is up, you will me in a group with the other

numbers to teach them what your theme group discovered.

Theme 1: CivilizationAlthough Golding argues that people are fundamentally savage: drawn towards pleasure and violence, human beings have successfully managed to create thriving civilizations for thousands of years. So this disproves Golding’s theory about human nature being savage, right? Wrong.

The famous psychologist Sigmund Freud argued that without the innate human capacity to repress desire, civilization would not exist. Golding is making a similar argument. He sees civilization as a veil that through its rules and laws masks the evil within every individual. So, even while civilization thrives, they are merely hiding the beast. They have not destroyed it.

Theme 2: Savagery & “The Beast”• The “beast” is a symbol Golding uses to represent the savage impulses

lying deep within every human being. Civilization exists to suppress the beast. By keeping the natural human desire for power and violence to a minimum, civilization forces people to act responsibly and rationally, as seen in Ralph and Piggy. Savagery arises when civilization stops suppressing the beast. Savages not only acknowledge the beast, they thrive on it and worship it like a god. As Jack and his tribe become savages, they begin to believe the beast exists physically— they even leave it offerings to win its favor to ensure their protection.

• Civilization forces people to hide from their dark impulses, to suppress them.

• Savages surrender to their darkest impulses, which they then blame on the demands of gods who require their obedience.

Theme 3: The Weak and the Strong• Within the large battle of civilization and savagery

ravaging the boy’s community on the island, LOTF also depicts in great detail the relationships and power dynamics between the boys. In particular, the novel shows how boys fight to belong and be respected by other boys. The main way in which boys seek this belonging and respect is to appear strong and powerful. In order to appear strong and powerful, boys give in to the savage instinct to ignore, pick on, mock, or even abuse boys who are weaker than them.

• LOTF shows instances where a boy who feels vulnerable will save himself by picking on weaker boys.

Theme 4: Human Nature• By leaving the boys to fend for themselves on a remote island,

Golding creates a kind of human nature laboratory in order to examine what happens when constraints of civilization vanish and raw human nature take over. In LOTF, Golding argues that human nature, free from the constraints of society, draws people away from reason towards savagery.

• The civilization created by the boys collapses under the weight of their innate savagery. Rather than follow rules and work hard, they pursue fun, succumb to fear, and fall to violence. Golding’s underlying argument is that human beings are savage by nature, and are moved by primal urges towards selfishness, brutality, and dominance over others. Though the boys think the beast lives in the jungle, Golding makes it clear that it lurks only in their hearts.

Theme 5: Spirituality and Religion

• Most of the boys on the island either hide behind civilization, denying the beast’s existence, or succumb to the beast’s power by embracing savagery. This is a life of religion and spiritual truth-seeking, in which men look into their own hearts, accept that there is a beast within, and face it head-on.

• Simon occupies this role in LOTF, and in doing so he symbolizes all the great spiritual and religious men, from Jesus to Buddha to nameless mystics and shamans, who have sought to help other men accept and face the terrible fact that the beast they fear is themselves.

11/11, Do Now: Irony

• In your own words, define “irony.”

• 11/11, Notes: Irony• Irony: the contrast between what is expected,

or appears to be, and what actually is.• What do the hunters do out of desperation?

Why is this a foolish act? Based on the eventual outcome, why is it also ironic?

Examples of IRONY in LOTF• The survivors of the plane crash are boys evacuated from a

battle zone in a world war; however, the society they form eventually breaks down, and the children go to war with one another.

• Piggy's eyesight is weak, but his insight is strong. • The British naval officer who arrives to rescue the boys at

the end of the novel appears to represent civilization. But, he and the society he represents, are actually a mirror image of the boys and their corrupt island society.

• When Jack sets a fire to extract Ralph from the forest, he unintentionally saves the lives of all the remaining boys. It was this fire that attracted the attention of the British ship. Also, the fire (previously used as a source of rescue) is now being used as a part of hunting/savagery.

LOTF Final Assessment

• Review the handout: ask questions.• We will review all week, play Jeopardy on

Thursday, and the assessment is Friday.• You are permitted to use your book for the

entire assessment.• Chalk Talk: What do you already know about

OPEN-ended responses? 7th graders on one side, 8th graders on another.

11/12, Do Now: Loss of Innocence

• While reviewing theme, we didn’t spend much time discussing “loss of innocence.”

• Loss of innocence: the character(s) grow up and lose their childlike ways of seeing the world. This may mean taking on new responsibilities or realizing different priorities. It often involves entering a new phase of understanding and learning new skills, so as to claim new knowledge (power).

• The author writes, “Ralph wept for the end of innocence…” (202). Prove that the boys lost their innocence.

11/12, Class Work• As the boys on the island progress from well-behaved, orderly children

longing for rescue to cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no desire to return to civilization, they naturally lose the sense of innocence that they possessed at the beginning of the novel. The painted savages in Chapter 12 who have hunted, tortured, and killed animals and human beings are a far cry from the guileless children swimming in the lagoon in Chapter 3. But Golding does not portray this loss of innocence as something that is done to the children; rather, it results naturally from their increasing openness to the innate evil and savagery that has always existed within them. Golding implies that civilization can try to manage but never wipe out the innate evil that exists within all human beings.

• Complete the “Theme” handout.• 3rd Person Omniscient Narrator: define.• Plan 2 OE responses.

11/13 in review of symbols

What symbols can you list from LOTF? What does each symbolize?Complete the Allegory Chart.Return to Characterization chart: complete in order to review for the test.Plan 2 OE questions.

11/14, Do Now: Jeopardy Time!

• After SSR, come up with a LOTF-related name for your table group. These students are our teammates for Jeopardy.

11/15: Final Assessment!

• Clear your desks!