1. Facts
a. William Golding
b. Lord of the Flies
Faber and Faber Limited
First published in 1954
223 pages
2. First reaction
a.I chose this book because I had seen a documentary about Lord of The Flies on the Discovery Channel. I thought it was very interesting and I became curious about the book. So I went to the library and took it home.
b. I do think it is a good book. It has a very good ending. The end puts things in perspective and makes you think about yourself. The whole book makes you think about yourself. What would you do in a situation like that? Would you choose the ‘wrong’or the ‘good’ side? It is a very critical book. It has something to say about humanity, about the way we are. It is a pity that the story is sometimes very slow and even a little bit boring. More action would be good, but I realize this book is almost fifty years old, and in that time the books were not that ‘fast’and ‘exciting’.
3. Getting into depth
a. Summary
A plane crashes on an uninhabited tropical island. All the boys inside survive but the adults do not. They are all English boys. The books starts with Ralph and Piggy who are wandering on the island. Ralph finds a big shell, a conch, and Piggy comes up with the idea to blow it so that all the other boys would come to them. Ralph does so and from behind bushes and the beach all the boys come together. There are a lot of littluns and a few biguns. (These are boys who are 11 or 12 years old.) Ralph tells them they have to get organized and that there has to be a leader. Jack and his group come at this part. Jack is the leader of a boys choir. Jack says he also wants to be the leader of the rest of the boys. They let everybody vote and Ralph is chosen. He immediately sets up some rules. Some rules are that you can only speak in the group when you have the conch and that there should be a fire so that they can be spotted and rescued. After that they all run to the beach to make a huge fire. It runs out of control and one little boy (with a scar on his face) is killed.
From this point on Ralph is very strict with the rules, Things should be ordered and the boys should act decent. He is frustrated because some of the biguns do not do anything, they just wander around and the littluns do even less. They do not make any good huts for themselves. At the same time the littluns get scared of an imaginary beast who lives in the bushes. Ralph and Piggy try to calm down the littluns and say to them that it is just irrirational, that it is just ridiculous to believe in a beast. Still the litlluns are not conmpletely convinced.
This hectic situation reaches it climax when Ralph sees a ship passing the island and the fire is not burning. It was Jack's turn to take care of the fire but he did not. Ralph is furious- this was a big chance for them! Jack thought hunting was more important. This is the start of the split in the group.
The littluns are getting more scared of the beast. An expedition is set up by the biguns. On the first expedition day they do not find anything. But on the second day they see some weird movements in the bushes when they are on their way. Only Ralph is brave enough to go and see. When he is already walking in the dark jungle Jack comes running after him. They see a kind of beast, or at least they think they see one, and they get so frightened that they run back.
Everybody gets really scared at that time. Nobody dares to go to the mountain where the beast is. Then Ralph and Jack have an argument. It is again about the hunting. Ralph says it should not be that important but Jack wants to be important to the group! He says that Ralph is insulting the hunters and asks the group if they still want Ralph as a leader. They do, and Jack decides to leave the group. A few biguns go with him. Jack tries to convince more boys to join him. And he succeeds. With this group they go hunting and they kill pigs. One pig head is put on a stick as a gift to the beast. This is The Lord of the Flies. Simon meets him when he wanders alone. Simon also meets ‘the beast’. He sees that it is only a dead parachutist. He runs to the beach to tell the others, but they think Simon is the beast and he is killed. All the boys are there and Ralph and Piggy are disgusted and are shamed of themselves because they did not do anything. All the boys went to Jack's group. Piggy, Sam and Eric are only still with Ralph.
After this they go on the mountain again ( The ‘beast’ is death so they are not afraid anymore) and Jack makes his own little village there. Jack steals Piggy’s glasses because he wants to make his own fire. Ralph tries to get the glasses back and to make peace with him but while doing this Piggy is killed. Sam and Eric get very scared and decide they will also join Jack. Ralph is left alone. He is wounded and he is being hunted. He runs over the island, scared to death. At first Sam and Eric try to help him but then they betray him by telling where he is.
The hunters hunt him down and Ralph runs to the beach where he runs into a navy officer who saw their smoke. At once the game is over and everything is back to normal. The boys get to the ship and leave the island.
So the boys start out with a democracy but they end with a tyranny. A chaotic situation. This is in short the storyline.
b.
1. This book is written with difficult words and with a lot of feeling for the psychological side of things. The story is told very slowly. Every action is described in a very long way.
2. The story takes place on an island. An tropical, uninhabited island. The story takes place in the fifties. But it could also play nowadays. It is timeless. Because an uninhabited island will always be the same. It does not matter in what time you live. And a human being has the same insticts, no matter in what time you live.
3. Ralph- A fair boy. He is twelve and a few months old. He develops himself during the story. In the beginning he is an annoying, spoiled boy. He only cares about himself and he does not like Piggy. But he is chosen to be leader and tries to do the best for the group. He is first big friends with Jack. But after the hunting/fire-incident they split up. As the story continues he turns out to be one of the few boys who chooses the ‘right’ side (with Piggy and Simon) and he is the only one who stays alive from that group. His father is a commander in the navy. He stands for democracy and order in the story.
Jack Merridew- He is the head boy of a boys choir. He is fair-haired, tall, thin and bony. He is kind of ugly and has light blue eyes. He is a harsh boy who keeps strict order in his choir. He is the boss. Because of this he also wanted to be leader of the whole group. He was very disappointed when he was not chosen. He is always arguing with Ralph. He wants things to be done his way, and if it does not happen he just does the things he wants without permission, like hunting for pigs.
He starts his own group in the second half of the story. Almost all the boys join him as they are a little bit afraid of them, maybe he would turn against them! He uses a lot of violence against his ‘own’ boys and against the other ones, who he eventually wants to kill.
He is the personification of evil and savagery in this story.
Piggy- the ‘brain’ in the story. A fat boy with glasses, which he has had since he was three years old. He has asthma. This causes him trouble on the island. His father is dead. What happened to his mum is not clear, but he used to live with his auntie, who had a sweet shop. Piggy is not his real name. He actually hates the name and does not want to be called that on the island. He makes this clear to Ralph in the beginning of the story. But when everybody comes together, Ralph calls him Piggy and everybody picks that name up. Piggy is mad at Ralph because of this, but he forgets his anger quickly. He admires Ralph and advises him. Ralph and Simon are the only boys who do not make fun of him. He is of great importance to the group because he has glasses, and with the glasses they can make a fire.
He always looks at the rational side if things and speaks with his mind and not his emotions. He stands for intelligence in the story. He cheers Ralph up when he loses faith. He chooses the right side and because of this he is killed by Jack and Roger by pushing a big rock of his cliff. This rock hits Piggy.
Sam and Eric- The twins on the island. They share a great resemblance and do everything together. They stay on the ‘good’ side for a long time. Only when Piggy is killed they join Jack, as they are afraid for their own lives. Still they help Ralph who is hunted by giving him information.
On the other side they betray him by telling Roger where he is, but they did this out of fear.
Roger- The right hand of Jack. Every dirty job is done by him. He hates Ralph and Piggy very, very much. He likes being cruel to others and therefore gladly helps Jack. He stands for Evil.
Simon- The boy that is younger than the biguns and older than the littluns. He does not belong to a group. He is a lonely boy. He does not do very much on the island. He just walks alone in the jungle, thinking. He meets the Lord of the Flies, who warns him not to interfere in the fun of the boys, otherwise he will come after him! Simon does so and keeps very still, until one day he goes to the beast, or rather to the place the beast is thought to be, and he finds out it is just a dead parachutist. He runs to the group that is having a party on the beach. As he runs out of the dark jungle, screaming, they think he is the beast, and he is killed. The beast was part of their fun, of their game, unconsciously, and he is punished for trying to ruin this! He stands for pure goodness.
The Lord of the Flies- A big pig's head on a stick. Jack made this as a gift to the beast. To Simon it is the spirit of the island, who commands him. You could say that indeed is is the spirit of the island. It is ugly ( just as the spirit of the boys) and is just wants the to have ‘fun’. No thinking. He is the personification of the Devil.
4. The situations are simple and complex at the same time. Most of the situations are coloured with the background of the tropical nature. That is first described, then the characters come in the picture, and you come closer and closer to the character and to the behaviour of the character. That behaviour is the complex element against the simple background of nature.
5. This story is told by a personal story teller. A ‘he’. ‘Piggy does this, Ralph does that’.
Theme
1. I think the main theme of the story is the rawbehaviour of a human being. This is shown in a primitive surrounding, where the real human spirit comes to the surface.
2. Motives in the book are:
Being the boss- This is very important to both Ralph and Jack. Ralph is the ‘real’ boss and Jack wants to be it. This causes trouble. They believe there has to be a boss because somebody has to lead the group, or otherwise it will become a big mess. They are trying to be decent British boys. Too bad it cause rivalry.
Rules- ‘Rules are the only things we’ve got’. This is a quote of Ralph when Jack disobeys a rule. This is again an element of trying to be decent British boys. Both groups have rules. They are codes for how to behave and how to dress.
The conch- The conch is a big shell. It is used to call meetings. If you have the conch you are allowed to speak up and everybody else had to keep their mouths shut. The Romans also had this kind of thing. This is a very important object to the boys because it gives you certain rights.
The fire-The fire is the number one priority to Ralph, because with the fire they can be rescued. The fire gives off smoke as a signal. Ralph constantly tells the boys this and says that everything else is secondary. Jack does not see this, he just wants to hunt. This is one of the reasons of the split up.
The Beast- The littluns are scared of a beast that they made up. At night, when they all lay together, they hear funny noises. At one point a parachutist falls down on the island. He is dead and hangs in the trees. He is thought to be the beast when the boys see him in the dark jungle. The beast causes great fear and that fear brings the littluns and most of the biguns in the arms of Jack, who says he is a hunter and that he will protect everybody.
Death- A couple of children are killed. At the beginning of the story a littlun is killed when the fire is not controlled. At that time most of the boys are shocked by it.
Then Simon is killed later on in the book because they think he is the beast. They think this because he comes out of the jungle, screaming ‘crazy’ things. At that point only Ralph’s little group cares. Almost the end Piggy is killed by a big rock, on purpose by Jacks’s group. That group also wants to kill Ralph and he is hunted by them.
3. The lord of the flies is a pig's head on a stick with flies crawling all over it. Simon hears the voice of the lord of the flies in his head. You could say this is the unconsciousness of Simon. The lord of the flies says that they are going to have fun on the island and that he shouldn’t stop it. The Lord of The Flies is the personification of evil, and more and more boys are touched by it and are becoming primitive. Every one of them, except Ralph and Piggy, who are on the death list. This is the instinct of the human being.
Literacy history
1. In 1954.
2. The British writer William Gerald Golding (1911-1993) was born on 19 September 1911 in Saint Columb Minor in Cornwall. His father was a well-known educationalist and moved, soon after William’s birth, with his family to Wiltshire, where he taught at Marlborouhg Grammar school. Golding also went to this school. After that he went to Oxford to study there. First he devoted himself to natural science, as his father wanted him to do that. Soon he switched to English literature. He had special interest in the Anglo-Saxon period. After his exams in 1934 he worked for a short time as an actor, producer and scriptwriter in small theatrical companies. After that Golding became a teacher. He worked in the navy in the second world war. In the navy he was a lieutenant. He was part of the landing in Normandy and he helped to sink the battleship “Bismarck”. He sometimes uses this experiences in his books.
While he was on the sea he also had a lot of time for another hobby of him: Greek language and literature. Other hobbies were archaeology, Egyptology, music (he played several instruments) and sailing. These topics are also referred to in his books. He made is debut in 1934 with small poems. But he was not very proud of these poems.
His first novel, "The Lord of the Flies" became an instant success and is considered as one of the greatest masterpieces of our time. Peter Brook made a movie of the story in 1963.
Golding wrote a big oeuvre. He created his own style in his realistic novels. One of his main themes is the meaning of life. Also guilt and innocence are of large importance. In 1955 he became a member of the Royal Society of Literature.
William Golding won a Nobel prize for literature in 1983. He became a knight in 1988 and because of this he was called sir William Golding from that time on. He died in Falmouth in 1993. His last book ‘The double tongue’ was published in 1995.
Other famous books of William Golding are:
The inheritors (1955) Close Quarters (1987)
Pincher Martin (1956) Fire Down Below (1989)
Rites of Passage (1980)
3. The 1950’s .Just after the second world war. This war became the founding point for existentialism, a kind of philosophy that influenced the whole of Europe. Existentialism is about humans being victimized by a chaotic world they did not ask for, but they do have their own will. They are free and can choose their own destiny.
There were different kinds of literature in that time
Resistance literature, this was still from the second world war but was also still published in that time.
War literature, of course about the second world war.
Literature where the writer opens himself up. Tells us about his private life and his own ideas.
The main themes in the 50’s were:
- people who are alienate from each other
- people who are driven by egoism and not by altruism, ideals do not exist.
- our civilization is just a small cover up for our primitive desires and needs. The human being is actually a beast.
4. In many books Golding reveals the dark places of the human heart, when an individual or small groups are pushed into extreme situations, and because of this they do extreme things. Ethical questions and morality also come forward in his books. Especially the first element comes forward in Lord of the Flies. I have not read any other books of William Golding so I cannot give any abstract examples of books where also such a thing, in a different form, happens.
5. Lord of the flies does perfectly fits in his time. As you can see by question number 3 one of the big themes in the 50’s was the primitive side of man. And does not Lord of the Flies makes this perfectly clear? That all our civilization is just a thin cover up for the beast in us. The beast that also came out in the second world war?
The boys did have a civilization. They learned that at school. They refer to that themselves. They were not brought up like this! They should be decent! What would grown-ups think? But the rules they learned can not control their behaviour. Their primitive desires come up. The human being is wicked and evil. Just what the people thought after all the cruel things that happened in the war. And what people still think if you hear about torture stories. About murder cases, and so on.
But the existentialism does NOT come forward. Only this theme.
Judgement
1. A positive influence? That is a hard one as the book is very pessimistic about us. We are all bad, almost everybody will go to the ‘wrong ’side if it comes down to it. We are manipulated by terrorism and cruelty. We let evil rule us. We don not stand up. But now I am thinking about it, the fact that one boy does stand up. That Ralph keeps his head together, that he uses his mind, that he does not fall into the hands of Jack. That he fights for his ideas and principles although almost everybody is against him, although nobody thinks about that stupid fire. He does go on! I think that is very hopeful. It shows the strength of the human mind. That you have a own free will and that you can choose what you want to do. That there always will be strong minds and people who will stand up, although the situations are very scary. Ralph is tho one positive element in this story. He makes me think of and Martin Luther King and Ghandi. Only they had followers and he did not. For this fact you could say he is even braver.
I hope I could be a positive element in a group. I once read a book by Jan Terlouw ‘A prison with a open door’. In the book there was a boy who had a tremendous positive influence on his class and even on the whole school. I always hope I could be a little bit like that. Ralph is also such a kind of figure. He inspires me to do the right thing.
2. Actually the last pages of the book, that is kind of stupid maybe, but then all of a sudden all the terror and rage go away and they are little boys again. Just in a few sentences everything is turned around and put into perspective. Their little world, that was so serious to them, was actually just a game, it was nothing compared with the real world. All of a sudden the game stops and they are just boys with painted faces, screaming. No big hunters trying to kill somebody. I will put the part of the text here:
‘Hullo’
The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered. ‘Are there any adults--any grown-ups with you?’ Dumbly, Ralph shook his head, He turned a half pace on the sand. A semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with coloured clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all.
‘Fun and games’ said the officer. ( ….) ‘We saw your smoke. what have you been doing? Having a war or something? Ralph nodded. The officer inspected the little scarecrow in front of him. The kid needed a bath, a hair cut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of ointment. ‘Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?
‘Only two, and they’ve gone’.
The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph
‘Two? Killed?’
--
I should have thought, said the officer as he visualized the search before him, I should have thought that a pack of British boys- you’re all British aren’t you?- would have been able to put up a better show that that – I mean----
“’ It was first like that at first’ said Ralph, ‘before things-----
‘He stopped. ‘We were together then-----
‘The officer nodded helpfully.
‘I know, jolly good show. Like the Coral Island.
This is the end of the fragment.
The officer brings them back into the real world as you read. I think it is a very strong part of the book. Ralph is again a dirty, small boy, no leader. And the shame of the officer symbolizes the shame of every reader. That boys could go that far. That people would go that far. We are just embarrassed by it.
It is almost painful to read.
I also liked the part where Coral Island comes up. I read that that is a book that came out before ‘Lord of the Flies’. It is a kind of Robinson Crusoe story. Where everything goes perfect. This book is the ironic version of that book and Golding even uses the same names. I think that is very cool. He shows the other side. And is even so sharp to mention the other book.
3. Well, this answer will be the opposite of the answer to question 1! The huge negativity of course. That boys in an extreme situation would act like that. It is horrifying. That we would do crazy things if there were no authority if there would not be any rules if there would not be any values. If we would have to start all over again. That being the strongest and the most daring one would make you leader. And not being the most clever one. And that we would use violence against one another. For fun and to let other people do what you want. Are we really that bad? Would my classmates act like this? Who would be Jack and who would be Ralph? And who would be Piggy? Questions you get to wonder about. And you realize that most people would choose the ‘wrong’ side because it is the most easiest side. You are safe at that side, nobody will be against you, no troubles. And it makes me sad. Even more when I realize that history has proven that people act that way. This book reminds you of it.
4. I have mentioned the book of Jan Terlouw at question number 1. You could also compare the book to the nazi regime. Where one man terrorized other people, and a lot of people followed him just because he used violence against them, and they were afraid that violence would turn against them. Jack would be Hitler then. But it is not really like any other book I read or a film that I saw. Of course you could compare it to that ‘Coral Island’book and to Robinson Crusoe. But then Robinson Crusoe gone mad!
5. The theme is the primitive man. Of course it made me think! Are we really primitive deep inside? How far has our civilization gone? How much does it mean? Are we pure evil or are we pure good? These are two different theories. I always like to believe that we are born pure good. That everybody has something good inside him or her. This book shows it the other way around. But I am not that pessimistic about us. When I look at all the organizations that help other people. When I listen at school to my classmates, everybody would be glad to help and a lot of people want to become doctors. That is a very good thing. And more and more countries are trying to live peacefully. Are for world peace. So I think we are going the right way, and that we are not that evil.
6. I think it was kind of difficult be he also uses funny words. Real child liked words like ‘littluns’
and ‘biguns’. And ‘Hullo’. And ‘grown ups’ , ‘auntie’ and ‘samneric’. And he lets the boys talk to each other in a child like way. I enjoyed that. It makes a big contrast to the serious language and the serious topic of the rest of the book.
7. I think it is a very good book. It is pessimistic about us, but also gives us a strain of hope as one boy stays good. We can hold on to Ralph. It is just a very self-critical book. Who are we actually and how do we react on certain circumstances? And how should that be judged? It is always good to look at yourself with a critical view, it makes you think about yourself.
8. I would certainly recommend others to read the book. It is an unique book and different from any other book. It is exciting, it has a good plot, it has a very good ending, it makes you think about yourself, what do you want more?
a. William Golding
b. Lord of the Flies
Faber and Faber Limited
First published in 1954
223 pages
2. First reaction
a.I chose this book because I had seen a documentary about Lord of The Flies on the Discovery Channel. I thought it was very interesting and I became curious about the book. So I went to the library and took it home.
b. I do think it is a good book. It has a very good ending. The end puts things in perspective and makes you think about yourself. The whole book makes you think about yourself. What would you do in a situation like that? Would you choose the ‘wrong’or the ‘good’ side? It is a very critical book. It has something to say about humanity, about the way we are. It is a pity that the story is sometimes very slow and even a little bit boring. More action would be good, but I realize this book is almost fifty years old, and in that time the books were not that ‘fast’and ‘exciting’.
3. Getting into depth
a. Summary
From this point on Ralph is very strict with the rules, Things should be ordered and the boys should act decent. He is frustrated because some of the biguns do not do anything, they just wander around and the littluns do even less. They do not make any good huts for themselves. At the same time the littluns get scared of an imaginary beast who lives in the bushes. Ralph and Piggy try to calm down the littluns and say to them that it is just irrirational, that it is just ridiculous to believe in a beast. Still the litlluns are not conmpletely convinced.
This hectic situation reaches it climax when Ralph sees a ship passing the island and the fire is not burning. It was Jack's turn to take care of the fire but he did not. Ralph is furious- this was a big chance for them! Jack thought hunting was more important. This is the start of the split in the group.
The littluns are getting more scared of the beast. An expedition is set up by the biguns. On the first expedition day they do not find anything. But on the second day they see some weird movements in the bushes when they are on their way. Only Ralph is brave enough to go and see. When he is already walking in the dark jungle Jack comes running after him. They see a kind of beast, or at least they think they see one, and they get so frightened that they run back.
Everybody gets really scared at that time. Nobody dares to go to the mountain where the beast is. Then Ralph and Jack have an argument. It is again about the hunting. Ralph says it should not be that important but Jack wants to be important to the group! He says that Ralph is insulting the hunters and asks the group if they still want Ralph as a leader. They do, and Jack decides to leave the group. A few biguns go with him. Jack tries to convince more boys to join him. And he succeeds. With this group they go hunting and they kill pigs. One pig head is put on a stick as a gift to the beast. This is The Lord of the Flies. Simon meets him when he wanders alone. Simon also meets ‘the beast’. He sees that it is only a dead parachutist. He runs to the beach to tell the others, but they think Simon is the beast and he is killed. All the boys are there and Ralph and Piggy are disgusted and are shamed of themselves because they did not do anything. All the boys went to Jack's group. Piggy, Sam and Eric are only still with Ralph.
After this they go on the mountain again ( The ‘beast’ is death so they are not afraid anymore) and Jack makes his own little village there. Jack steals Piggy’s glasses because he wants to make his own fire. Ralph tries to get the glasses back and to make peace with him but while doing this Piggy is killed. Sam and Eric get very scared and decide they will also join Jack. Ralph is left alone. He is wounded and he is being hunted. He runs over the island, scared to death. At first Sam and Eric try to help him but then they betray him by telling where he is.
The hunters hunt him down and Ralph runs to the beach where he runs into a navy officer who saw their smoke. At once the game is over and everything is back to normal. The boys get to the ship and leave the island.
So the boys start out with a democracy but they end with a tyranny. A chaotic situation. This is in short the storyline.
b.
1. This book is written with difficult words and with a lot of feeling for the psychological side of things. The story is told very slowly. Every action is described in a very long way.
2. The story takes place on an island. An tropical, uninhabited island. The story takes place in the fifties. But it could also play nowadays. It is timeless. Because an uninhabited island will always be the same. It does not matter in what time you live. And a human being has the same insticts, no matter in what time you live.
3. Ralph- A fair boy. He is twelve and a few months old. He develops himself during the story. In the beginning he is an annoying, spoiled boy. He only cares about himself and he does not like Piggy. But he is chosen to be leader and tries to do the best for the group. He is first big friends with Jack. But after the hunting/fire-incident they split up. As the story continues he turns out to be one of the few boys who chooses the ‘right’ side (with Piggy and Simon) and he is the only one who stays alive from that group. His father is a commander in the navy. He stands for democracy and order in the story.
He starts his own group in the second half of the story. Almost all the boys join him as they are a little bit afraid of them, maybe he would turn against them! He uses a lot of violence against his ‘own’ boys and against the other ones, who he eventually wants to kill.
He is the personification of evil and savagery in this story.
Piggy- the ‘brain’ in the story. A fat boy with glasses, which he has had since he was three years old. He has asthma. This causes him trouble on the island. His father is dead. What happened to his mum is not clear, but he used to live with his auntie, who had a sweet shop. Piggy is not his real name. He actually hates the name and does not want to be called that on the island. He makes this clear to Ralph in the beginning of the story. But when everybody comes together, Ralph calls him Piggy and everybody picks that name up. Piggy is mad at Ralph because of this, but he forgets his anger quickly. He admires Ralph and advises him. Ralph and Simon are the only boys who do not make fun of him. He is of great importance to the group because he has glasses, and with the glasses they can make a fire.
He always looks at the rational side if things and speaks with his mind and not his emotions. He stands for intelligence in the story. He cheers Ralph up when he loses faith. He chooses the right side and because of this he is killed by Jack and Roger by pushing a big rock of his cliff. This rock hits Piggy.
Sam and Eric- The twins on the island. They share a great resemblance and do everything together. They stay on the ‘good’ side for a long time. Only when Piggy is killed they join Jack, as they are afraid for their own lives. Still they help Ralph who is hunted by giving him information.
On the other side they betray him by telling Roger where he is, but they did this out of fear.
Roger- The right hand of Jack. Every dirty job is done by him. He hates Ralph and Piggy very, very much. He likes being cruel to others and therefore gladly helps Jack. He stands for Evil.
Simon- The boy that is younger than the biguns and older than the littluns. He does not belong to a group. He is a lonely boy. He does not do very much on the island. He just walks alone in the jungle, thinking. He meets the Lord of the Flies, who warns him not to interfere in the fun of the boys, otherwise he will come after him! Simon does so and keeps very still, until one day he goes to the beast, or rather to the place the beast is thought to be, and he finds out it is just a dead parachutist. He runs to the group that is having a party on the beach. As he runs out of the dark jungle, screaming, they think he is the beast, and he is killed. The beast was part of their fun, of their game, unconsciously, and he is punished for trying to ruin this! He stands for pure goodness.
The Lord of the Flies- A big pig's head on a stick. Jack made this as a gift to the beast. To Simon it is the spirit of the island, who commands him. You could say that indeed is is the spirit of the island. It is ugly ( just as the spirit of the boys) and is just wants the to have ‘fun’. No thinking. He is the personification of the Devil.
5. This story is told by a personal story teller. A ‘he’. ‘Piggy does this, Ralph does that’.
Theme
1. I think the main theme of the story is the rawbehaviour of a human being. This is shown in a primitive surrounding, where the real human spirit comes to the surface.
2. Motives in the book are:
Being the boss- This is very important to both Ralph and Jack. Ralph is the ‘real’ boss and Jack wants to be it. This causes trouble. They believe there has to be a boss because somebody has to lead the group, or otherwise it will become a big mess. They are trying to be decent British boys. Too bad it cause rivalry.
Rules- ‘Rules are the only things we’ve got’. This is a quote of Ralph when Jack disobeys a rule. This is again an element of trying to be decent British boys. Both groups have rules. They are codes for how to behave and how to dress.
The conch- The conch is a big shell. It is used to call meetings. If you have the conch you are allowed to speak up and everybody else had to keep their mouths shut. The Romans also had this kind of thing. This is a very important object to the boys because it gives you certain rights.
The fire-The fire is the number one priority to Ralph, because with the fire they can be rescued. The fire gives off smoke as a signal. Ralph constantly tells the boys this and says that everything else is secondary. Jack does not see this, he just wants to hunt. This is one of the reasons of the split up.
The Beast- The littluns are scared of a beast that they made up. At night, when they all lay together, they hear funny noises. At one point a parachutist falls down on the island. He is dead and hangs in the trees. He is thought to be the beast when the boys see him in the dark jungle. The beast causes great fear and that fear brings the littluns and most of the biguns in the arms of Jack, who says he is a hunter and that he will protect everybody.
Then Simon is killed later on in the book because they think he is the beast. They think this because he comes out of the jungle, screaming ‘crazy’ things. At that point only Ralph’s little group cares. Almost the end Piggy is killed by a big rock, on purpose by Jacks’s group. That group also wants to kill Ralph and he is hunted by them.
3. The lord of the flies is a pig's head on a stick with flies crawling all over it. Simon hears the voice of the lord of the flies in his head. You could say this is the unconsciousness of Simon. The lord of the flies says that they are going to have fun on the island and that he shouldn’t stop it. The Lord of The Flies is the personification of evil, and more and more boys are touched by it and are becoming primitive. Every one of them, except Ralph and Piggy, who are on the death list. This is the instinct of the human being.
Literacy history
1. In 1954.
2. The British writer William Gerald Golding (1911-1993) was born on 19 September 1911 in Saint Columb Minor in Cornwall. His father was a well-known educationalist and moved, soon after William’s birth, with his family to Wiltshire, where he taught at Marlborouhg Grammar school. Golding also went to this school. After that he went to Oxford to study there. First he devoted himself to natural science, as his father wanted him to do that. Soon he switched to English literature. He had special interest in the Anglo-Saxon period. After his exams in 1934 he worked for a short time as an actor, producer and scriptwriter in small theatrical companies. After that Golding became a teacher. He worked in the navy in the second world war. In the navy he was a lieutenant. He was part of the landing in Normandy and he helped to sink the battleship “Bismarck”. He sometimes uses this experiences in his books.
While he was on the sea he also had a lot of time for another hobby of him: Greek language and literature. Other hobbies were archaeology, Egyptology, music (he played several instruments) and sailing. These topics are also referred to in his books. He made is debut in 1934 with small poems. But he was not very proud of these poems.
His first novel, "The Lord of the Flies" became an instant success and is considered as one of the greatest masterpieces of our time. Peter Brook made a movie of the story in 1963.
Golding wrote a big oeuvre. He created his own style in his realistic novels. One of his main themes is the meaning of life. Also guilt and innocence are of large importance. In 1955 he became a member of the Royal Society of Literature.
William Golding won a Nobel prize for literature in 1983. He became a knight in 1988 and because of this he was called sir William Golding from that time on. He died in Falmouth in 1993. His last book ‘The double tongue’ was published in 1995.
The inheritors (1955) Close Quarters (1987)
Pincher Martin (1956) Fire Down Below (1989)
Rites of Passage (1980)
3. The 1950’s .Just after the second world war. This war became the founding point for existentialism, a kind of philosophy that influenced the whole of Europe. Existentialism is about humans being victimized by a chaotic world they did not ask for, but they do have their own will. They are free and can choose their own destiny.
There were different kinds of literature in that time
Resistance literature, this was still from the second world war but was also still published in that time.
War literature, of course about the second world war.
Literature where the writer opens himself up. Tells us about his private life and his own ideas.
The main themes in the 50’s were:
- people who are alienate from each other
- people who are driven by egoism and not by altruism, ideals do not exist.
- our civilization is just a small cover up for our primitive desires and needs. The human being is actually a beast.
4. In many books Golding reveals the dark places of the human heart, when an individual or small groups are pushed into extreme situations, and because of this they do extreme things. Ethical questions and morality also come forward in his books. Especially the first element comes forward in Lord of the Flies. I have not read any other books of William Golding so I cannot give any abstract examples of books where also such a thing, in a different form, happens.
The boys did have a civilization. They learned that at school. They refer to that themselves. They were not brought up like this! They should be decent! What would grown-ups think? But the rules they learned can not control their behaviour. Their primitive desires come up. The human being is wicked and evil. Just what the people thought after all the cruel things that happened in the war. And what people still think if you hear about torture stories. About murder cases, and so on.
But the existentialism does NOT come forward. Only this theme.
Judgement
1. A positive influence? That is a hard one as the book is very pessimistic about us. We are all bad, almost everybody will go to the ‘wrong ’side if it comes down to it. We are manipulated by terrorism and cruelty. We let evil rule us. We don not stand up. But now I am thinking about it, the fact that one boy does stand up. That Ralph keeps his head together, that he uses his mind, that he does not fall into the hands of Jack. That he fights for his ideas and principles although almost everybody is against him, although nobody thinks about that stupid fire. He does go on! I think that is very hopeful. It shows the strength of the human mind. That you have a own free will and that you can choose what you want to do. That there always will be strong minds and people who will stand up, although the situations are very scary. Ralph is tho one positive element in this story. He makes me think of and Martin Luther King and Ghandi. Only they had followers and he did not. For this fact you could say he is even braver.
I hope I could be a positive element in a group. I once read a book by Jan Terlouw ‘A prison with a open door’. In the book there was a boy who had a tremendous positive influence on his class and even on the whole school. I always hope I could be a little bit like that. Ralph is also such a kind of figure. He inspires me to do the right thing.
2. Actually the last pages of the book, that is kind of stupid maybe, but then all of a sudden all the terror and rage go away and they are little boys again. Just in a few sentences everything is turned around and put into perspective. Their little world, that was so serious to them, was actually just a game, it was nothing compared with the real world. All of a sudden the game stops and they are just boys with painted faces, screaming. No big hunters trying to kill somebody. I will put the part of the text here:
‘Hullo’
The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered. ‘Are there any adults--any grown-ups with you?’ Dumbly, Ralph shook his head, He turned a half pace on the sand. A semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with coloured clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all.
‘Fun and games’ said the officer. ( ….) ‘We saw your smoke. what have you been doing? Having a war or something? Ralph nodded. The officer inspected the little scarecrow in front of him. The kid needed a bath, a hair cut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of ointment. ‘Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?
‘Only two, and they’ve gone’.
‘Two? Killed?’
--
I should have thought, said the officer as he visualized the search before him, I should have thought that a pack of British boys- you’re all British aren’t you?- would have been able to put up a better show that that – I mean----
“’ It was first like that at first’ said Ralph, ‘before things-----
‘He stopped. ‘We were together then-----
‘The officer nodded helpfully.
‘I know, jolly good show. Like the Coral Island.
This is the end of the fragment.
The officer brings them back into the real world as you read. I think it is a very strong part of the book. Ralph is again a dirty, small boy, no leader. And the shame of the officer symbolizes the shame of every reader. That boys could go that far. That people would go that far. We are just embarrassed by it.
It is almost painful to read.
I also liked the part where Coral Island comes up. I read that that is a book that came out before ‘Lord of the Flies’. It is a kind of Robinson Crusoe story. Where everything goes perfect. This book is the ironic version of that book and Golding even uses the same names. I think that is very cool. He shows the other side. And is even so sharp to mention the other book.
4. I have mentioned the book of Jan Terlouw at question number 1. You could also compare the book to the nazi regime. Where one man terrorized other people, and a lot of people followed him just because he used violence against them, and they were afraid that violence would turn against them. Jack would be Hitler then. But it is not really like any other book I read or a film that I saw. Of course you could compare it to that ‘Coral Island’book and to Robinson Crusoe. But then Robinson Crusoe gone mad!
5. The theme is the primitive man. Of course it made me think! Are we really primitive deep inside? How far has our civilization gone? How much does it mean? Are we pure evil or are we pure good? These are two different theories. I always like to believe that we are born pure good. That everybody has something good inside him or her. This book shows it the other way around. But I am not that pessimistic about us. When I look at all the organizations that help other people. When I listen at school to my classmates, everybody would be glad to help and a lot of people want to become doctors. That is a very good thing. And more and more countries are trying to live peacefully. Are for world peace. So I think we are going the right way, and that we are not that evil.
6. I think it was kind of difficult be he also uses funny words. Real child liked words like ‘littluns’
and ‘biguns’. And ‘Hullo’. And ‘grown ups’ , ‘auntie’ and ‘samneric’. And he lets the boys talk to each other in a child like way. I enjoyed that. It makes a big contrast to the serious language and the serious topic of the rest of the book.
7. I think it is a very good book. It is pessimistic about us, but also gives us a strain of hope as one boy stays good. We can hold on to Ralph. It is just a very self-critical book. Who are we actually and how do we react on certain circumstances? And how should that be judged? It is always good to look at yourself with a critical view, it makes you think about yourself.
8. I would certainly recommend others to read the book. It is an unique book and different from any other book. It is exciting, it has a good plot, it has a very good ending, it makes you think about yourself, what do you want more?
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