‘Lord of the Flies’

The Exam:

You should be spending around 50 minutes on your Lord of the Flies question.

The exam is CLOSED BOOK, so you need to have memorised a number of key quotations in

preparation for this

You will be given a choice of two questions, you only need to answer one.

Spend 3-5 minutes mind mapping some points and quotes you hope to include in your response.

Gathering your ideas before writing will give your response a clear focus and prevent you getting

stuck or lost for ideas half way through!

Here’s a breakdown of the Mark Scheme and the skills you have to show the examiner in

this part of the exam

Exam Focus What does this mean?

AO1 Read, understand and respond to texts. Students should be able to: • maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response • use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations.

Analyse and explore the text; avoid simply retelling the story (use Point/Evidence/Explain/Zoom/Link). Present a point of view on the message(s) the writer was getting across

Your points are supported by references to the text – you will have therefore learned a wide range of key quotes in preparation for the exam

AO2 Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.

You look at key words and phrases from the quotes that you select. You explore the EFFECT of those word choices in detail

You are capable of identifying and exploring the effect of TECHNIQUES used by the writer

AO3 Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written.

You are capable of making LINKS between the text, and some of the messages that Russell was trying to communicate about society at that time.

AO4 Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

In this question, examiners will be looking at HOW you write (spelling, punctuation, word choices etc). 4 marks are available for the quality of your writing so it’s essential you proof read when you’ve finished.

This booklet is designed to help you revise the key characters and themes in the play. To support your revision, please complete the activities.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Answer one of the following questions.

William Golding: Lord of the Flies

0 1 What do you think Golding suggests about different types of leaders in Lord of the Flies? Write about:

who you think the leaders are what type of leader each of them is and how Golding

presents them.

[30 marks] AO4 [4 marks]

0 2

How does Golding show death in Lord of the Flies? Write about:

the deaths which occur in the novel the methods Golding uses to present these deaths.

[30 marks]

AO4 [4 marks]

Map This is a visual representation of where the action takes places within the novel.

Plot Summary

In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack, to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group. Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death. At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their attempt to catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied with the act of hunting.

When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and Piggy notice, to their horror that the signal fire, which had been the hunters’ responsibility to maintain, has burned out. Furious, Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned with his first kill, and all the hunters seem gripped with a strange frenzy, reenacting the chase in a kind of wild dance. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch shell and reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. At the meeting, it quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid. The littlest boys, known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entire group.

Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on the signal-fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at hand, they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them.

The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, travel up the mountain. They see the silhouette of the parachute from a distance and think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from office, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack.

Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he exists within all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic revelry—even Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack’s feast—and when they see Simon’s shadowy figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth.

The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack’s hunters attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy’s glasses in the process. Ralph’s group travels to Jack’s stronghold in

an attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up and fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy, Roger, rolls a boulder down the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell. Ralph barely manages to escape a torrent of spears.

Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day, while the others hunt him like an animal. Jack has the other boys ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his hiding place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow’s head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other boys will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he looks up, he sees a British naval officer standing over him. The officer’s ship noticed the fire raging in the jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop in their tracks at the sight of the officer. Amazed at the spectacle of this group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks Ralph to explain. Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking about what has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to sob as well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure.

Test Your Understanding

1) Where does the novel take place?

2) Why are the boys stranded?

3) Why does Ralph become the Chief?

4) What is the purpose of lighting fires?

5) Why does Jack hit Piggy?

6) Why doesn’t anybody notice the Parachutist landing?

7) What are the boys most scared about?

8) Why is there conflict between Ralph and Jack?

9) Explain why the Lord of the Flies is real and not imaginary.

10) Who kills Piggy?

11) Who warns Ralph that Jack is intent on killing him?

12) Who rescues the boys?

13) What is the moral of the story?

Context - Background Information

William Golding was born on September 19 1911, in Cornwall, England. Although he tried to write a novel as early as age twelve, his parents urged him to study the natural sciences. Golding followed his parents’ wishes until his second year at Oxford, when he changed his focus to English Literature. After graduating from Oxford, he worked briefly as a theatre actor and director, wrote poetry, and then became a schoolteacher. In 1940, a year after England entered World War II, Golding joined the Royal Navy, where he served in command of a rocket-launcher and participated in the invasion of Normandy.

World War II had a profound effect on his view of humanity and the evils of which it was capable. After the war, Golding resumed teaching and started to write novels. His first and greatest success came with Lord of the Flies (1954), which ultimately became a bestseller in both Britain and the United States after more than twenty publishers rejected it. The novel’s sales enabled Golding to retire from teaching and devote himself fully to writing. Golding wrote several more novels. Golding died in 1993, one of the most acclaimed writers of the second half of the twentieth century.

Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of English schoolboys marooned on a tropical island after their plane is shot down during a war. Though the novel is fictional, its exploration of the idea of human evil is at least partly based on Golding’s experience with the real-life violence and brutality of World War II. Free from the rules and structures of civilization and society, the boys on the island in Lord of the Flies descend into savagery. As the boys splinter into factions, some behave peacefully and work together to maintain order and achieve common goals, while others rebel and seek only anarchy and violence. In his portrayal of the small world of the island, Golding paints a broader portrait of the fundamental human struggle between the civilizing instinct—the impulse to obey rules, behave morally, and act lawfully—and the savage instinct—the impulse to seek brute power over others, act selfishly, scorn moral rules, and indulge in violence.

Golding employs a relatively straightforward writing style in Lord of the Flies, one that avoids highly poetic language, lengthy description, and philosophical interludes. Much of the novel is allegorical, meaning that the characters and objects in the novel are infused with symbolic significance that conveys the novel’s central themes and ideas. In portraying the various ways in which the boys on the island adapt to their new surroundings and react to their new freedom, Golding explores the broad spectrum of ways in which humans respond to stress, change, and tension.

Readers have interpreted Lord of the Flies in widely varying ways over the years since its publication. During the 1950s and 1960s, many readings of the novel claimed that Lord of the Flies dramatizes the history of civilization. Some believed that the novel explores fundamental religious issues, such as original sin and the nature of good and evil. Others approached Lord of the Flies through the theory that that the human mind is the site of a constant battle among different impulses—the id (instinctual needs and desires), the ego (the conscious, rational mind), and the superego (the sense of conscience and morality). Still others maintained that Golding wrote the novel as a criticism of the political and social institutions of the West.

How do you think Golding’s life story influenced the story of ‘The Lord of the Flies’?

Chapter One: The Sound of the Shell Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

Ralph, Jack and Simon decide to explore the island.

The most impressive entrance is made by a group of choirboys led by the red-haired Jack Merridew, head boy and leader of the choir.

Piggy’s name is revealed to the boys’ general amusement.

A group of boys is marooned on an island after evacuation from a war zone.

The three boys come across a piglet, which Jack almost kills before hesitating. He declares he will spill blood “Next time-!”

Ralph and Piggy are the first on the scene and use a conch to summon other survivors.

One of the choirboys, Simon, faints near the platform where the boys are gathering.

Ralph, Jack and Simon decide to explore the island.

Refer to the opening of the novel. Make a note of the differences between Ralph and Piggy:

Ralph Piggy

Look at pages 26-28. Fill in the table:

POINT EVIDENCE EXPLAIN

The way the choir is introduced makes it seem quite scary.

“The creature was a party of boys.”

Jack “vaulted on to the platform with his cloak flying.”

“Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger.”

Jack is insensitive to the choir’s suffering.

On the following page is the description of the island from the first chapter. Around it are questions for you to consider. Please record your ideas in the spaces provided.

It was roughly boat-shaped: humped near this end with

behind them the jumbled descent to the shore. On either

side rocks, cliffs, treetops and a steep slope: forward there,

the length of the boat, a tamer descent, tree-clad, with hints

of pink: and then the jungly flat of the island, dense

green, but drawn at the end to a pink tail. There, where the

island petered out in water, was another island; a rock,

almost detached, standing like a fort, facing them across the

green with one bold, pink bastion.

The boys surveyed all this, then looked out to sea.

They were high up and the afternoon had advanced; the

view was not robbed of sharpness by mirage.

“That’s a reef. A coral reef. I’ve seen pictures like

that.”

The reef enclosed more than one side of the island,

lying perhaps a mile out and parallel to what they now

thought of as their beach. The coral was scribbled in the sea

as though a giant had bent down to reproduce

the shape of the island in a flowing chalk line but tired

before he had finished. Inside was peacock water, rocks and

weeds showing as in an aquarium; outside was the dark

blue of the sea. The tide was running so that long streaks of

foam tailed away from the reef and for a moment they felt

that the boat was moving steadily astern…

Beyond falls and cliffs there was a gash visible in

the trees; there were the splintered trunks and then the drag,

leaving only a fringe of palm between the scar and the sea.

There, too, jutting into the lagoon was the platform, with

insect-like figures moving near it.

What is the

significance of

the boat shape?

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What does this

remind you of?

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at the end of

your reading.

What does this

become?

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‘Astern’ means

backwards. Is

this important?

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How does this

paragraph

present the

island as

isolated?

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How are humans presented as destructive in the final paragraph?

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Chapter Two: Fire on the Mountain

Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

Jack offers to keep the fire going – ordering his hunters to work in rotation.

The younger boys (the “littluns”) express their concern about a “beastie” on the island.

Jack points out that an army is required for hunting, with Ralph is more concerned with immediate practical issues.

The fire on the mountain top, started using Piggy’s glasses, burns out of control.

Piggy discovers the boy with the birth mark has disappeared.

The three explorers – Ralph, Simon and Jack – return and Ralph blows the conch to call a meeting. He confirms they are on an uninhabited island.

Piggy tells the boys they need to “act proper” if they are to be rescued.

At Ralph’s suggestion, the boys agree to start a fire to attract the attention of passing ships.

Make a note of the differences between Ralph and Jack:

Ralph Jack

Chapter Three: Huts on the Beach

Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

Ralph shows his sense of responsibility by attempting to build shelters, but they are only partially successful due to lack of help from the rest of the boys, apart from Simon.

Ralph view Jack’s hunting as enjoyment.

Ralph and Jack have a difference of opinion; Jack’s obsession with hunting irritates Ralph, who is more concerned with the general well-being of the boys.

Jack goes pig hunting – unsuccessfully.

Simon goes off into the forest on his own.

Jack develops a fascination for hunting pigs.

Chapter Four: Painted Faces and Long Hair

Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

The hunters return with a dead pig.

Jack paints his face with clay and charcoal and goes hunting.

Ralph is angry and Piggy backs him up. Jack smashes a lens in Piggy’s glasses.

Ralph spies the smoke of a ship on the horizon.

The littluns play on the beach but their play is disturbed by Roger and Maurice, who destroy their sandcastles. Roger throws stones close to Henry.

Ralph, upset about the fire going out, calls a meeting.

Ralph discovers the fire has gone out.

Chapter Five: Beast from Water

Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

The opinions of Simon and Piggy are ignored.

At the meeting, Ralph lays down the ground rules for behaviour on the island.

Ralph thinks about the seriousness of the forthcoming meeting and of his role as chief.

Simon, Piggy and Ralph discuss what grownups would do, and wish for a signal from them.

Simon and Piggy, fearing what Jack is capable of, urges Ralph to remain as chief.

Discussion turns to the beast, and some of the boys wonder if they are not alone on the island. Jack and Piggy dismiss the idea.

Jack and Ralph have a further disagreement and the meeting ends.

Chapter Six: Beast from Air

Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

At a meeting, Jack announces that the beast should be hunted down and he ridicules the importance of the conch.

The boys discover that the end of the island would be a good place for a fort.

As Sam and Eric tend the fire, they mistake the parachutist for the beast.

Ralph stresses the boys’ practical needs and the others reluctantly go on with the journey.

The bigger boys, without Piggy, set off to find the beast.

A dead parachutist lands on the island.

Ralph bravely goes first to the unexplored part of a rocky outcrop. He is soon joined by Jack.

Chapter Seven: Shadows and Tall Trees

Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

Ralph, Jack and Roger hunt for the beast on the mountain top. They discover the dead parachutist whim they assume is the beast.

Simon tries to reassure Ralph that he’ll get home safely.

Terrified by their discovery, they flee down the mountain.

Ralph is dismayed by the dirty state of the boys and considers the harsher terrain on the other side of the island.

The boys make up a ritual dance to celebrate the hunt. They claim it is just a game, but Robert is hurt.

Jack discovers the tracks of a wild boar.

Chapter Eight: Gift for the Darkness

Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

A fire is relit by the platform.

Ralph describes the hunters as “boys armed with sticks”, which hurts Jack.

They sever the sow’s head and put it on a stick.

Ralph, Jack and Roger report what they have seen. Jack argues that the hunters can kill the beast.

Jack goes off with his hunters to kill pigs. They kill a sow that has piglets and decide to invite the others to a feast in order to steal their fire.

Simon, alone in the forest, sees the pig’s head and has a ‘conversation’ with it before losing consciousness.

Jack tries to overthrow Ralph as leader but he is rejected as the new chief and leaves, soon joined by most of the older boys.

Chapter Nine: A View to a Death

Number the events so that they are in the correct order:

Jack asks who will join his tribe and he and Ralph argue over where the conch can be used.

Simon stumbles into the dancing circle.

The boys see Simon as the beast and kill him in a frenzied attack.

Ralph and Piggy join Jack’s party where they are eating meat and having a feast.

Jack encourages his tribe to perform their dance.

The bodies of Simon and the parachutist as washed out to sea.

Simon sees the dead parachutist and discovers the truth about ther beast. He heads off to tell the others.

There is a thunderstorm and Piggy senses trouble.

Chapter Ten: The Shell and the Glasses

Ralph, Piggy and the twins try, unsuccessfully, to relight the fire. Ralph shows signs of confusion and the give up on the fire for the evening.

Piggy and Ralph talk about the events of the previous night.

Jack and two of his hunters attack and steal Piggy’s glasses.

Jack is delighted with his achievement – “He was a chief now in truth”.

Samneric join Piggy and Ralph. Guilt-ridden, the four boys lie to each other about their involvement.

In their shelters that night, Ralph and the others hear noises outside.

Jack and his hunters set up camp at the far end of the island.

Chapter Eleven: Castle Rock

Roger leans on the lever with catapults a heavy rock towards Piggy.

The conch group decide to confront Jack and his hunters.

Samneric are captured by the hunters.

Ralph is unable to light the fire without Piggy’s glasses.

Ralph is now alone, forced to escape as the hunters hurl spears in his direction.

Piggy is killed by the falling rock and the conch is destroyed.

A scuffle breaks out between the two groups at Castle Rock.

Chapter Twelve: Cry of the Hunters

Ralph encounters the pig’s head and experiences fear and anger, lashing out at it and taking away the spear that supported it.

Ralph becomes aware that he is totally alone.

Ralph, exhausted, collapse on the beach. He looks up to see the friendly face of a rescuing naval officer.

Jack sets most of the island on fire to smoke Ralph out.

Ralph considers his options as he tries to hide and avoid danger.

The smoke from the fire is seen by a passing ship.

Ralph goes to speak to Samneric and Castle Rock, but their manner is discouraging, telling Ralph that Roger has “sharpened a stick at both ends”.

Jack and the hunters track Ralph as if he were and animal.

The Ending of the Novel

How does the naval officer view what he sees, that is, the aftermath of the hunt for Ralph? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

How does the naval officer view Ralph?

How does the naval officer view Jack?

What is the significance of Percival forgetting his name?

Why does Ralph weep?

Why do the other boys weep?

What kind of world do you think the boys are returning to?

Decent into Savagery

Below is a selection of events from the novel. First, put them in the right order by numbering

them. Then, plot them on the graph to show whether you think the boys’ behaviour is

civilised or savage.

Jack paints his face and does a war dance.

Ralph, Piggy and the twins go to talk to Jack’s gang. Roger pushes a rock off the cliff, killing Piggy and Breaking the conch.

Jack challenges Ralph’s authority and goes off alone, joined later by the other boys.

Jack has the opportunity to kill a pig does not “because of the enormity of the knife descending…because of the unbearable blood.”

Jack’s gang steal Piggy’s glasses, leaving Ralph, Piggy and Samneeric with no fire.

Samneric are forced to join Jack’s tribe. They tell Ralph that there are plans to hunt him down and that Roger has sharpened a stick at both ends.

Jack and his gang kill a pig and put the head on a “stick sharpened at both ends” as a gift to the beast.

Jack’s gang hunt Ralph down.

The boys decide that whoever wants to talk in a meeting must hold the conch.

As Simon stumbles out of the forest to tell the boys about the parachutist, the other boys attack and kill him.

“And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for

the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise

friend called Piggy.”

Leadership

Consider the different ways in which Ralph and Jack each become leaders and their ways of

leading ‘their people’.

Why does Ralph become leader?

How does Jack become ‘Chief’?

How does Ralph lead?

Do you think he’s a good leader? Why?

How does Jack lead?

Do you think he’s a good leader? Why?

“Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!”

“Bollocks to the rules!”

Context: Golding and War

Golding was horrified by what war revealed about people's capacity to harm their fellow

humans. He was appalled by what happened in the Nazi concentration camps, and by the way

the Japanese mistreated their prisoners. He was appalled too by the consequences of the

British and American mass bombing against civilians - and even by what he himself did as a

naval officer.

During the war the British justified all the destruction they wrought on the grounds that they

had 'right' on their side, but Golding came to question this smug assumption. He gradually

learned to see all human nature as savage and unforgiving: he knew that even the 'goodies'

can become 'baddies'. In the novel Ralph and Piggy get as involved in the dance that leads to

the killing of Simon as Jack and his tribe are.

World War 2 ended in 1945. The United Nations was set up after the war to try to ensure that

a global conflict never happened again, but in 1954, when Lord of the Flies was published,

the threat of a nuclear war was still very real. It was entirely plausible to the novel's original

audience that an atom bomb really could destroy civilisation.

Context: Desert Islands

Most imaginary desert islands are peaceful paradises where the shipwrecked traveller

manages to continue living pretty much as before - think of Robinson Crusoe or Desert Island

Discs!

In a book called Coral Island by RM Ballantyne, published in 1857, 100 years before Golding's

book, three young British boys are shipwrecked on a desert island and have to survive without

any adults. Brave and resourceful, they thoroughly enjoy their experience and there is never

a hint of trouble. As one of the characters, Peterkin, says, “There was indeed no note of

discord whatever in that symphony we played together on that sweet coral island.”

From his experience as a teacher, Golding knew that the idyllic life of Coral Island could

never exist in real life. So, he set out to write a novel that showed his ideas about the darker

side of human nature starting from the same basis: boys stranded on a desert island, away

from all civilising influences. Lord of the Flies was the result.

Revision Tasks

1. At the beginning of the novel Ralph is elected chief. Some of the boys disagree with

this choice. Who do you think would have been the best leader? Choose one of the

following boys: Jack, Piggy, Ralph, Simon.

You should write about: • what qualities he has that would make him a good leader • your opinion of him as a person • how the writer shows the good qualities of your chosen character • why your choice would be better that the other three.

2. How much do you think Ralph is to blame for what goes wrong on the island? Write

about:

• the ideas Ralph has about life on the island at the start of the novel • the decisions Ralph makes • how the writer presents the character of Ralph • other reasons for things going wrong.

3. What do you think Golding has to say about evil in the lord of the flies? How does he

convey his ideas to the reader?

4. At the end of the novel, the naval officer says ‘I know, jolly good show. Like Coral

Island.’ Why does Golding choose to end the novel with such a mistaken view?

5. What is the importance of Simon in Lord of the Flies?

the importance of the part Simon plays in the plot

how Simon is different from the other boys

what Simon might represent

the ways the writer uses Simon to convey his ideas.