Focus on characters

Hey readers! Since I have already made a post about the characters in “lord of the flies”, I thought I would make one about their relationship to each other, and my personal opinion on each one of them (the main ones).

First of we have Ralph and Jack, they are our main characters and the ones whom got the most influence in the story. As I have said before Ralph is our protagonist and Jack our antagonist. Early in the story, we see a clear difference between them, when Jack wants Ralph’s seat in the leader position. Therefore, Jack has had it out for him from the start. Nevertheless, what kind of a relationship is this? They did not hate each other in the start, they were friends like every one of them, but as the story progressed they grew further away from each other, and Jack became villain in the story, while Ralph had the position as the hero. My personal opinion on them is that their story is that the characters really fill their roles well. Jack for instance, is a god in his role; he becomes a villain that anyone would be terrified off, and Ralph rather fills his role well. He definitely is not a superhero, but he tries and that is what really matters.

Then we have Piggy and Roger, which I would say is the right hand man for Ralph and Jack, Piggy being Ralph’s and Roger being Jack’s. Piggy is a chubby kid with glasses (as I have said before), he is not very brave, but when push comes to show he helps Ralph in serious matters. He was Ralph’s advisor and probably his best friend and the same is Roger to Jack. So you can kind off understand their relationship to each other, much like Ralph and Jack’s. As Ralph and Jack right hand man’s I think they also fill their role, it is kinda dull that I repeat that, but it is the truth. They help the main characters though advising them and helping them in difficult situations.

Then we have the last of them Simon, Sam and Eric. Not much to say here, but what I already mentioned a previous post. Simon is the neutral one, keeping to himself, not really picking sides or fights. Not much else to say about him, he is a kind person, and likes to help others. Then we have Sam and Eric, which are twins. They are inseparable, and allied to Ralph. They pretty much look alike, and do what Ralph tells them. They do not agree with Jack, and are for keeping the peace. However, what I like about them is their devotion to Ralph. How they keep their mouth even under torture. Not much else to say, then all of these characters fulfilling their role, as they should and did.  

Focus on social studies

Hi readers! In this post, I will be discussing how “Lord of the Flies” relates to social studies. First off, how does it relate? Politics. Politics is something we talk a lot about in our social studies class, 

especially the politics in America and the UK. Now why does specifically politics relate to “lord of the flies”? The reason for this is the small civilization our protagonist Ralph is trying to make. When the boys first arrived to the island, they did not really know what to do with themselves, so naturally they chose a leader to guide them (tell them what to do). They started voting; there were two people they could choose from, Ralph or Jack (antagonist). Eventually Ralph was the one chosen for the job, and he started giving the boys tasks, which helped them with their longing for going home. The way this relates to social studies is how they chose the leader in a democratic way, the one with the most votes won the “Campaign”, and how there were two parties; Jack and Ralph.

Another thing in this novel that relates to social studies, is how later in the story the boys separated into two groups. Where then Jacks group starts becoming aggressive towards Ralph’s group, which then could have created a “civil war”. The reason I say “civil war” is because I rather compare it to the American civil war, which we have gone through in class, and is relevant to the social studies class.

As I did mention how they somehow created this democratic voting system, I did not go far enough into their civilization they are trying to build. Ralph as there leader gives the boy’s tasks, two of this tasks are to make a signal fire, and a hut for the small kids. With the small steps they are trying to create this civilization, even though their attempt fails, it still has a resemblance to how civilizations where formed through history.

These are just a few examples on how this novel by William Golding, ties into social studies. Thank you for your time, and please stay tuned for more updates. 

A Small Biography about William Golding for my devoted readers!

British author Sir William Golding was born on the 19^th of September 1911. He is the novelist whom wrote the classic “Lord of the Flies”, and for this, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983.

As well as being, a writer Golding had other occupations, such as: A lecturer (English and Philosophy), actor, sailor and a musician. In his early life, he went to a school, which his father was a schoolmaster, Marlborough Grammar School. As a child Golding was quite frustrated, and according to Biography.com Golding described, himself as a brat and even went so far as to say “I enjoyed hurting people”. Which then, might have given him some inspiration to how, “Lord of the Flies” turned out.

At an age of 23 years old, Golding published his first book, a book about poetry entitled “Poems”. However, in later years Golding felt some regret that they had been published, and according to william-golding.co.uk, Golding supposedly bought a second-hand copy of them so he could tear them apart.

Despite being very fond of teaching, Golding, quit the job and joined the royal navy. During his six-years on a boat, he started to develop a liking to the boat and the seas. In WWII, Lieutenant Golding, were put in charge of the rocket-launching craft, under the sinking of the Bismarck. This experience made him realize what men a capable of, and proved to be fruitful material for his fiction. After the war had ended in 1945, Golding went back to his life of teaching and writing.

During the last few years of his life, Golding quietly spent them living with his wife, Ann Brookfield, at their house in Cornwell. After his life ended of a heart attack on June 19, 1993, Golding had published 18 books. 

Chapter 8 through 12 short summary

Chapter 8 through 12 short summary

Chapter 8, Gift for the Darkness.

Continuing from chapter seven the next morning, the rumours about the monster had all the boys scared as they meet up at the beach. Jack uses the conch shell to assemble to boys, to tell them that the monster is real and how much of a coward Ralph is, and proposes to vote him out of leadership. Jack’s request does not go through; because of this, he becomes furious and storms away from the beach claiming he is leaving the group and that anyone who wants should join him. Ralph does not know how to react to this situation; however, Simon suggests that they should go together to the mountain to search for this “Beast”. The boys did not like this idea, but Piggy’s idea to recreate the signal fire got the boys hopes up and set them to work. As the night comes some boys sneak off from the group to join up with Jack, Piggy assures Ralph that they do not need these deserters.

With more boys joining Jack’s group, he declares himself chief, and gathers the boys for a hunt. They find and kill a sow, and proceeds to impale it on a spike for an offering to the beast in the forest. With blood dripping down on the sow’s teeth, the boys run off.

Jack’s hunters group up on the beach where Ralph is and picks up burning wood from the signal fire, Jack then proceeds to offer the boys to join him at his feast tonight. Because the boys are so hungry, they really get tempted to join him.

Under the raid, Simon gets away from the camp and return to his favourite place on the island, the place he previously was marvelling at the nature’s beauty. He stumbles on the sow’s impaled body and starts to imagine it talking to him; it spoke to him in the voice of Lord of the Flies, telling him that he will not escape the island, shocked Simon faints.

Chapter 9, A View to a Death

With blood running from his nose, Simon wakes up in is quite hazy about what happened. He walks down the hill and finds the dead pilot hanging from the parachute stuck in the tree. Watching the dead pilot Simon realizes that the boys probably had mistaken him for a beast, so to prove this to them he got him down from the tree, and proceeds to walk to Jacks lair to tell the boys about what he has seen.

As the feast is progressing, Jack comfortably sits on his throne and issues commands. After the feast was done, Jack reaches out to Ralph’s boys and issues them an invitation to join him. Most of the boys do join him, even though Ralph continuously tries to dissuade them. Jack then orders the boys to dance the “wild hunting dance”.

Hyped about the hunt the boys start roaring and it becomes some sort of a frenzy. Simon emerges comes out of the forest, but the boys mistakes him for the beast, and starts to attack him. Simon desperately tries to tell the boys who he is but they do not listen Simon dies from their attack.

With the storm hitting the island, Simon’s body drifts out into the ocean, where it then disappears.

Chapter 10, The shell and the glasses.

The day after the storm, Piggy and Ralph feel ashamed of their behaviour the other day. Ralph then reaches for the conch shells and yells about the murder they have done, Piggy denies this. Almost everyone had left Ralph’s group to join jack, the only exception to this is Sam and Eric, and a few littluns. The others had joined Jack in his HQ at Castle Rock (the mountain on the island).

At Jacks kingdom he rules with absolute authority, randomly punishes the boys for his own purposes. He even goes as far as to beat up a boy named “Wilfred and warns the others about Ralph’s small group. He also suggests that they should have guard themselves from the group because he can never truly die. Jack also suggests that they should raid Ralph’s camp and acquire more flaming wood to go hunting.

Jacks hunters descend upon Ralph’s lair, beats Ralph badly, and proceeds to steal the power to make fire from piggy, his glasses.

Chapter 11, Castle Rock.

Without Piggy’s glasses, Ralph’s boys are unable to light a fire, Piggy then suggests that they should hold a meeting to talk about their options. Ralph then blows the conch shell, and the remaining boys gather up. They stupidly decide that their only option is to go to Jack’s castle and reason with him.

Outside Jacks castle, Ralph is meet with armed guard telling him to leave the area. Jack then emerges from the forest and tells Ralph to leave, but Ralph did refused to leave telling him he will not without piggy’s glasses. They then start to fight, in the struggle Ralph tries to reason with him, but he will not listen. Jack then tells his hunters to capture Sam and Eric and tie them up, this enrages Ralph and he once more attacks Jack. They proceed to fight for a second time. During this struggle, Piggy tries shouts out reasons why this is madness and that they need rules and such things. While this is happening Roger pushes off a rock from the mountainside, and it strikes Piggy to his death. Jack throws his spear at Ralph, and the other boys join in. Ralph manages to escape into the forest, but Sam and Eric were captured. They both got tortured and were told to join Jack’s tribe.  

Chapter 12, Cry of the Hunters.

While hiding in the forest, Ralph reflects upon these recent events and realizes that all hope for a civilization is gone. He then finds the Sow’s head/skull, and takes the spear that was impaled into its body to use against Jack. During the night, Ralph sneaks down the mountain, to the camp at Castle Rock and finds the twins guarding the entrance. Sam and Eric give him food, but does not join him. They tell Ralph about Jacks plans to send them after him the tomorrow (the next day).

The next morning Ralph wakes up hearing Jack yelling. He is torturing one of the twins for Ralph’s location. The boys tries to break into the thicket (dense forest) where Ralph is hiding, but they find out that it is too dense to get through. Ralph then smells smoke and realizes that Jack had set the jungle ablaze in order to smoke him out. Ralph manages to fight himself past the boys, and runs into the forest trying to find a place to hide. He manages to run all the way to the beach, where he collapses from exhaustion.

Ralph looked to look into the skies, and then he notices a naval officer in front of him. The naval officer tells Ralph that he notices the forest fire, and came to rescue the boys. Jack’s hunters then reaches the beach, and stops right in their tracks then they see the officer. The officer, assumes the boys are have been playing games, but is shocked when he hears about what has really happened here. He is really shocked over how fast these English school boys had managed to lose all sense of reality being on this island. The officer had then rescued the boys. 

My opinion on these chapters and other stuff

In these last few chapters we see alot of development in these boys. for example: Jack and Roger, they have gradually developed into these savages whom lust for blood. This has made the book so much more intresting though, because of the action and survival these boys have to go through on a day-to-day basis. Also the book is not hard to read, there might be some instances where it gets harder, but nothing to complain about, all-in-all the experience has been good,