I tried my best to make notes. (There might be some typos.)
Lord of the Flies
Author: William Golding
Setting: Uncharted Tropical Island
Note: Lord of the Flies is an allegory.
Plot: A group of schoolboys survive a plane crash that strands then on an uncharted tropical island. Protagonist, Ralph, befriends Piggy, a portly intellectual type, and they eventually for a group with the other boys crashed on the island. They elect Ralph to be the leader over a power hungry Jack, but Jack is instead made the chief hunter. Meanwhile, will trying to adjust and create a new civilization, the boys become afraid of something they call the Beast, whom they believe is lurking through the forest as some kind of hungry God of the island. They try to build a signal fire, but the boys goof-off instead of following Ralph’s orders to keep it going. As it can be assumed, the fire dies. Through time, the boys get used to the new setting but are also becoming tempted to give into savage urges as they realized that adults are nonexistent in their world now; Roger is the prime example of this. Later, Simon has a vision where a pig's head that Jack had impaled on a stick tells Simon that darkness is lurking within the boys and it will be his death. Sadly, that is true. Simon is kill when the boys mistake him for the Beast the boys feared. Jack rallies the boys to an anarchy-type dictatorship. They murder Piggy and try to kill Ralph as well. Ralph makes it to the beach where some naval officers have arrived to rescue them. Ralph cries with anguish.
Themes/Motifs (depending on how they are used): Civilization vs. Savagery / Order vs. Freedom / Reason vs. Emotion
Characters:
Ralph: Protagonist / The voted leader of the boys / Represents civilization
Piggy: Close Friend of Ralph / He shows Ralph how to use the conch shell as a way to maintain order / Represents reason, wisdom, and/or intelligence
Jack: Antagonist/ The chief hunter with a terrible bloodlust / Represents savagery
Simon: Represents essential goodness of mankind / Argued in some cases to be a Christ Figure / Simon creates a sanctuary that is closed off from the other boys
Roger: Represents temptation of bare evils in mankind
The Smaller Children: [Insert what they’re called in the book] Represents responsibility / Simon, Ralph and Piggy know at first that precautions and priorities are called for in order to help keep the little children alive with the rest of the bigger boys.
My Personal Favorite Image: Simon’s “Burial” - When he’s being swept by the water, Golding talks about a glowing fish the hovers over Simon’s head, kind of like a halo.
Question to Think About:
Does the fact that Ralph survive show that his decency kept him alive long enough, or that his goodness was not even to save himself?
Is Simon being swept away from the savage island with the symbolic glow fish hovering by his head mean that his goodness was not enough and he has been sentenced to sink in darkness, or that his goodness has him rewarded by being taken away from the chaos to come?
I tried my best to make notes. (There might be some typos.)
ReplyDeleteLord of the Flies
Author: William Golding
Setting: Uncharted Tropical Island
Note: Lord of the Flies is an allegory.
Plot: A group of schoolboys survive a plane crash that strands then on an uncharted tropical island. Protagonist, Ralph, befriends Piggy, a portly intellectual type, and they eventually for a group with the other boys crashed on the island. They elect Ralph to be the leader over a power hungry Jack, but Jack is instead made the chief hunter. Meanwhile, will trying to adjust and create a new civilization, the boys become afraid of something they call the Beast, whom they believe is lurking through the forest as some kind of hungry God of the island. They try to build a signal fire, but the boys goof-off instead of following Ralph’s orders to keep it going. As it can be assumed, the fire dies. Through time, the boys get used to the new setting but are also becoming tempted to give into savage urges as they realized that adults are nonexistent in their world now; Roger is the prime example of this. Later, Simon has a vision where a pig's head that Jack had impaled on a stick tells Simon that darkness is lurking within the boys and it will be his death. Sadly, that is true. Simon is kill when the boys mistake him for the Beast the boys feared. Jack rallies the boys to an anarchy-type dictatorship. They murder Piggy and try to kill Ralph as well. Ralph makes it to the beach where some naval officers have arrived to rescue them. Ralph cries with anguish.
Themes/Motifs (depending on how they are used): Civilization vs. Savagery / Order vs. Freedom / Reason vs. Emotion
Characters:
Ralph: Protagonist / The voted leader of the boys / Represents civilization
Piggy: Close Friend of Ralph / He shows Ralph how to use the conch shell as a way to maintain order / Represents reason, wisdom, and/or intelligence
Jack: Antagonist/ The chief hunter with a terrible bloodlust / Represents savagery
Simon: Represents essential goodness of mankind / Argued in some cases to be a Christ Figure / Simon creates a sanctuary that is closed off from the other boys
Roger: Represents temptation of bare evils in mankind
The Smaller Children: [Insert what they’re called in the book] Represents responsibility / Simon, Ralph and Piggy know at first that precautions and priorities are called for in order to help keep the little children alive with the rest of the bigger boys.
My Personal Favorite Image: Simon’s “Burial” - When he’s being swept by the water, Golding talks about a glowing fish the hovers over Simon’s head, kind of like a halo.
Question to Think About:
Does the fact that Ralph survive show that his decency kept him alive long enough, or that his goodness was not even to save himself?
Is Simon being swept away from the savage island with the symbolic glow fish hovering by his head mean that his goodness was not enough and he has been sentenced to sink in darkness, or that his goodness has him rewarded by being taken away from the chaos to come?
This novel has a lot of symbolism and its quite interesting. It shows how society behaves without rules and regulations.
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