Golding's Lord Of The Flies-Guided Reading Questions
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Lord of the Flies Guided Reading Questions
Showing the reader the island, instead of telling them about it, allows the audience to picture the scene at the same pace that Ralph is experiencing it. Thus, a certain amount of mystery and intrigue adds to the setting, especially to the “party of boys… dressed in strangely eccentric clothing” (19). Thin and wavering, the lines of heat rising from the ground are an instantly recognizable aspect of a sweltering day. Emphasis on the weather forces the reader to picture the island distinctly, and perhaps imagine themselves on it. Perhaps the author even compares the tropical island the boys crashed on to the most notorious hot environment known- hell.
Symbolically, the boys stripping off their clothes…show more content… However, such as most rule-less games, it fell apart; Golding included this scene to showcase how easily the boys become carried away and descend into savagery.
Attempting to supersede Ralph as chief, Jack proclaims “He’d [Ralph] never had got us meat’ (126), as if that is the one qualifier necessary for being in charge. Also, Jack twists Ralph’s words around to slander him. Despite Jack giving it his all, the domineering boy is unable to wrestle power away from Ralph during the confrontation.
Because it reduces the precarious situation on the island to a game, Jack’s quote, “I won’t play with you” (127) is unintentionally ironic. Immaturely worded, Jack’s refusal to play with Ralph anymore sounds like a sandbox-quarrel between kindergarteners, not a legitimate political fight between the two dominant leaders of a population. Humiliated, but with great dignity, Jack sets the conch down after his speech, and then runs into the forest to “play” by himself, until his hunters…show more content… Elevated by this position, Simon does not take sides in the petty power struggles between Ralph and Jack. Emotionally, Simon’s perceptions are different from the others, partly because as a savior figure the boy displays more of them than the others.
Horrified and aghast, the mother pig blunders into a serene paradise dripping blood and screeching wildly. Inevitably, the boys hack and torture the sow to death, while the only other witnesses present are the dancing butterflies. Much like the island, the clearing began as a beautiful wonderland, but then the savages descended upon it and desecrated the utopia. The abrupt juxtaposition of butterflies and blood conjures disgust and unease in the reader.
Hallucinating in the heat and the stillness, Simon’s “ancient, inescapable recognition” is simple and profound- the boy recognizes the devil, the purest form of evil comprehensible, the evil that lives within each and every boy on the island, save perhaps Simon