Polished Response

“Oh the horror... the horror…”
-Kurtz, from Heart of Darkness

In the novel The Heart of Darkness, Kurtz (the protagonist) says: “Oh the horror… the horror…” while he is dying. His life experiences have shown him the dark side of humanity. This quote can be  related to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. In the story some of the kids also saw the darkest side of humanity. The fact of being all by themselves in a deserted island transformed them into savages without realizing all the horrible things they were doing. Jack, a 12 year old kid, turns into an evil dictator that punish his tribe with physical aggression. Roger, also a 12 year old, becomes a psychopath killer. 

Character Sketches. Ralph and Jack

Ralph

Ralph is the protagonist in Lord of the Flies. He is a twelve-year old boy, athletic, charismatic, with fair hair and representative of leadership. He is elected “chief” by the group of boys at the beginning of the story. Ralph is mainly focused on being rescued and in surviving. When the boys are investigating Castle Rock, Ralph takes his chef responsibility and goes by himself despite his fear for the “beast”.

 He can be considered as the most mature boy of the group. When Simon dies, he is the only one that recognizes the act as murder. Ralph is the boy with most common sense, and even so, he falls in the savage attitude once when he is pursuing a boar. Ralph is always trying to maintain hope between the boys. Even though he makes a great effort, when Jack makes his own group, most of the boys leave Ralph alone.

Jack

Jack is the antagonist in Lord of the Flies. He represents evil and the dark side of humanity. Jack wants power more than anything. He is the leader of the choir boys; therefore he has experience on having control over people. He expected to be chosen the leader of the group of boys but instead Ralph is chosen chief. This makes Jack angry. At the beginning of the story it seems like Jack was only an aggressive boy even though we can see some tension between him and Ralph. When Ralph gives him control over the choir boys, he decides they will be his “hunters”.

 Jack gets obsessed on hunting a pig after the first time when he saw one and couldn't catch it. The boys came from a civilization in which physical aggression is not accepted. However, Jack realizes there is nothing that can stop him now. He uses the fear the boys had for the beast to control them. Jack learns how to manipulate the kids by telling them how Ralph never gets them meat and he does while in a group meeting. At the end, Jack becomes an evil chief that tortures his group members.

4th Quarter, Lord of the Flies

“Lord of the Flies”

 4^th quarter

(Chapter 10 – Chapter 12)

Synopsis
 The next day after killing Simon, Ralph’s group feels ashamed because of their behavior from the previous night. Piggy tries to convince Ralph that it was not a murder but rather an accident. Ralph does not believe him. Ralph’s group was now only Piggy, Samneric and some littluns.
Meanwhile at Castle Rock, Jack has his own kingdom and he beats a boy named Wilfred. The entire group thinks that Simon was actually the real beast. Jack says that they must prepare to fight it again because it never dies.
Ralph’s group goes to sleep since they were feeling depressed. They are attacked during the night by Jack’s hunters. They beat Ralph's group and stole Piggy’s glasses so that they could not make fire.
The next day, Ralph’s group tries to create fire without the glasses but found it was practically impossible. Ralph calls a meeting and decides to go to Castle Rock to talk to Jack and his now called “tribe”. When Ralph and his group arrived to Castle Rock they are welcomed with a storm of rocks. Interestingly though the hunters intentionally missed the visitors. Jack and some hunters came out of the forest carrying a dead pig, Jack tells Ralph and his group to leave but Ralph demands the return of Piggy’s glasses. Jack and Ralph start fighting. Ralph tries to explain to the group about the importance of keeping the fire signal so that they can be rescued. Jack captures Sam and Eric. Piggy starts talking and tries to explain the boys the importance of being rescued and being civilized. Instead Roger throws a big rock at him and kills him. The conch is also broken. The tribe tries to catch Ralph but he escapes. Jack’s tribe force Sam and Eric to join his group.
Ralph is now completely by himself. In the night he decides to go to Castle Rock and sees Sam and Eric guarding the entrance. Samneric give Ralph food. They tell him that Jack is planning to look for him the next day. Ralph hides in a thicket through the night. In the morning the twins betray him by telling Jack where Ralph was hiding. Ralph made it through the bushes and escaped of the hunters. He runs from the tribe until he arrives at the beach. There he found himself next to a naval officer. The officer tells Ralph that they saw his smoke. Suddenly, all the boys began to weep.

Characters Introduced

There are no new characters introduced this time.

Point of view

 The narrator speaks in third person. This kind of narrator is omniscient (seeing and knowing everything) and gives us access to the deep thoughts of the characters. This gives the reader a better perspective of what is going on in the novel.

Setting

 The setting of the story is a deserted island with no adults and no civilization.

Writer's style

 William Golding uses symbolism though not so many metaphors, compares this situation to civilization's problems of that time (1940 – 1950) and looks within human natural behavior. 

3rd Quarter, Lord of the Flies

“Lord of the Flies”

  3^rd quarter

(Chapter 7 – Chapter 9)

“It had teeth and big black eyes” –Ralph.

Synopsis
 The kids continued their search for the beast leaving Piggy and the littluns back at the beach. Ralph begins thinking and feeling homesickness. He imagined to himself how things were before they came to the island. We can see that he really misses his old life. A boar is soon spotted by the kids and they pursued it, but unfortunately it escapes. In frustration of the boar getting away, the kids make Robert the “pig” and start pulling and grabbing at him. Later on, Simon offers himself to go back to the beach to check out how Piggy was doing. As night comes the boys get afraid. Only Ralph, Roger and Jack continued to the mountain and see the beast.

Ralph and his group returns to the beach. Ralph tells Piggy about the beast and how big and ferocious it was “it had teeth and big black eyes”. The tension between Ralph and Jack increases and Ralph calls his hunters “boys with sticks” so Jack gets mad and creates a revolt to remove Ralph from being the chief. No one supports Jack so he decides to leave the group and instead invites everyone to join him to his new society. Roger, Bill, Maurice and others follow Jack after a moment. Ralph, feeling like he is losing the group’s control, asks Piggy for advice. Piggy suggests the idea of making fire down the beach so like that they don’t have to confront the beast. Meanwhile, Jack and his hunters slay a sow and Jack put its head on a stick and jam it in the ground as a “gift for the beast”. Jack invites Ralph and his group to attend to his party to eat meat. Meanwhile, Simon sits down near the decapitated sow and waits for the beast to come out. While waiting, the flies that were surrounding the sow’s head start surrounding him too. Then suddenly the head starts talking to him. He confronts the Lord of the Flies. Meanwhile at the beach after eating some meat, Ralph tries to call an assembly with the conch, even though he is mocked and laughed at. It starts raining and Jack starts a dancing ritual with the boys. They start singing “kill the beast!”, “spill his blood!”, “cut his throat!”  Even Ralph and Piggy had joined them; the kids had lost all civilized manners. Simon suddenly appears and tries to explain to the boys that there is no beast. However, the boys mistaken him for the beast and end up killing him.

Characters Introduced

There are no new characters introduced this time.

Point of view

 The narrator speaks in third person. This kind of narrator is omniscient (seeing and knowing everything) and gives us access to the deep thoughts of the characters. This gives the reader a better perspective of what is going on in the novel.

Setting

 The setting of the story is a deserted island with no adults and no civilization.

Writer's style

 William Golding uses symbolism, though not so many metaphors, compares this situation to civilization's problems of that time (1940 – 1950) and looks within human natural behavior. 

LOTF Movie Analysis

Lord of the Flies Movie Analysis

There are two versions of the Lord of the Flies movie; The 1990 production will be discussed for analysis. A main difference is how the way the boys arrive to the island. In the movie, the boys are from a military academy and are returning home when their plane crashes and they arrive to the island all together in a boat. In the book the boys are part of a choir, and are evacuated during wartime. The boys are dispersed throughout the island. Ralph and Piggy are all by themselves. Then Ralph blows the conch to attract the other boys. The book’s opening is better because it shows how Ralph and Piggy have a connection before the other boys showed up.

A second difference between the book and the 1990 movie is Jack's physical characteristics. In the book, Jack has red hair and is the leader of the group of choir boys. In the movie, he is blonde and is a cadet from the military school. Even though this looks like an insignificant detail, it is important because there is a reason why the author decided to make him with specific physical characteristics. In the book, the beast is a dead parachute pilot that gets caught in the trees. In the movie, the beast is a pilot who runs away and hides in a cave, this pilot also was with them since the beginning of the story instead of being a parachute pilot.

Overall, the book offers a much better description of the story. Even though sometimes the book and the novel are completely different, they both give us the same story line. It is recommended to read the book rather than watch the movie and to not watch the movie before reading the book.

Wordle Lord of The Flies

Second Quarter

“Lord of the Flies”

2^nd quarter

(Chapter 4 – Chapter 6)

“Maybe there is a beast....maybe it's only us.” –Simon.

Synopsis
 The kids now spent more time on the island and have a better idea of what is going on. The smaller boys are known now by the generic title of “littleuns". These boys start getting nightmares. Although Jack and his hunters killed a pig, they forgot to maintain the fire signal.Unfortunately a ship had just passed by the island and they could have been seen and rescued. Therefore, Ralph gets mad at Jack and his hunters, and gives them a speech about how they should focus on being rescued instead of playing the hunting game. Jack smacks Piggy in the head causing one side of his glasses to break. Afterwards, Jack apologized about the fire. Jack paints his face and his tribe’s.  Ralph calls an emergency meeting at night. He now recognizes Piggy as a smart boy and respects him more than he did in the beginning. He tells the boys again to not let the fire out. To make sure that happens, he creates a new rule in which they cannot make fire in any part of the island but at the mountain top. A littleun named Phill speaks of the nightmares he had. They involved fighting the creepers and that he saw something moving in the trees, which was just Simon. Percival speaks next saying that the beast comes from the sea. Simon tries to explain to the kids that the beast comes from within themselves, but unfortunately no one understands him. Then Jack declares that he and his hunters will hunt the beast down. Ralph enters a state of crisis with all the boys dispersing without warning. The only ones left by his side are Simon and Piggy. In chapter 6 a “sign from the adults” fell from the sky. A parachuting dead body lands in the island. They decide to explore the tail of the island, believing the beast hides there. Once there, they saw there was no beast inside.

Characters Introduced

In this section of the book many of characters are introduced without very much description: Percival, Henry, Maurice and Bill. All of them are static characters.  Roger, a slight, furtive boy with black-hair, is also introduced and appears as a static character.

Point of view

 The narrator speaks in third person. This kind of narrator is omniscient (seeing and knowing everything) and gives us access to the deep thoughts of the characters. This gives the reader a better perspective of what is going on in the novel. The author is using this kind of point of view so that we can see how things really are.

Setting

 The setting of the story is a deserted island with no adults and no civilization.

Writer's style

William Golding's style is represented by his use of symbolism. He doesn't use metaphors however. He compares this situation to civilzation's problems of the time (1940 - 1950) and looks within human's natural behavior.

Lord of the Flies, 1st quarter.

“Lord of the Flies”

1st quarter

“We are on an island. We´ve been on the mountain-top and seen water all round. We saw no houses, no smoke, no footprints, no boats, and no people. There aren’t any grown-ups. We shall have to look after ourselves.” –Ralph.

 Synopsis and characters introduced
 A group of kids found themselves in a deserted island after an airplane crash. In the first pages of the book the characters Ralph, the athletic twelve-year old boy with fair hair (protagonist and round character) and Piggy (static and foil character) the fat boy with glasses and asthma are presented. Ralph found a conch and blew it hard so that the rest of the kids could hear it and come join them. The first kid to be mentioned was Johnny (flat character)who is a six year old boy. Then the twins are introduced, Sam and Eric (static characters). We also meet Jack Merridew, a red haired boy with blue eyes (probably the antagonist). Then there is Simon, a skinny, shy, quiet boy (static character). After Jack and his hunters appeared, Ralph suggested they should have a chief and everyone voted for Ralph, which caused Jack to be angry since he wanted to be the chief too. After deciding Ralph would be the chief, Ralph, Jack, Simon and Piggy (despite the other’s rejection) went to the mountain-top and discovered they were surrounded by water. However, they also discovered that there is plenty of food (animals) to eat and water.  Ralph decided they will make a smoke signal at the top of the mountain so that they can be rescued faster. Although in chapter two when they tried to make a fire signal, one of the boys gets lost and the situation becomes out of control.

Point of view
 The narrator speaks in third person. This kind of narrator is omniscient (seeing and knowing everything) and gives us access to the deep thoughts of the characters. This gives the reader a better perspective of what is going on in the novel.

Setting
 The setting of the story is a deserted island with no adults and no civilization.

Writer's style
 I haven’t read the whole story to identify William Golding’s style but so far I think he uses a lot of symbolism, compares this situation to civilization's problems and looks within human natural behavior. 

Introducing myself.

Hi, my name is Alberto, I am from Mexico and will be here for a year. My favorite sport is soccer, I like rock music, and hanging out with friends. I'm reading the book "Lord of the Flies" and so far I'm enjoying it, It is an interesting story about these kids that had an airplane accident and finished in a deserted island. Right now I'm in the part when Piggy gets mad at the rest of the kids because they don't let him talk.