Scott Ferris

Professor Mary Warner

ENGL 112B

27 November 2011

Unit of Study – William Golding�s Lord of the Flies

Rationale

People almost as a rule tend to look at other cultures and societies and consider them inferior due to their differences. When reading about different cultures, we often only concern ourselves with learning about them rather than learning from them because what could we possibly have to learn from someone that is different from us? If the only place we�ll ever hear about them is in a textbook, then how important can they really be? It�s easy to read about and look at pictures of people wearing little or no clothing at all, killing animals and each other in seemingly cold blood, and kick back and think, �Man, those people were/are crazy savages. Good thing we�re not like them.� Then, you�ll turn the TV to UFC and take great pleasure in watching people beat the crap out of each other, people who willingly and gladly do so.

We don�t like to think about the kinds of conditions the people mentioned earlier live in that might encourage or even require such behavior because we can�t and don�t want to imagine what our lives would be like without things like a functioning government (for the most part), clothes, cell phones, houses with air conditioning, computers, televisions, supermarkets, and plumbing. If those things are taken away, how different are we really from �savages�? Wouldn�t it be possible for us to become just like them?

Now I�m sure most people would be quick to talk themselves up and proclaim how they would never become a savage. That�s all well and good if that�s true, but the thing is that a society is made up of more than one person. If you would be able to control yourself, then great, but do you really know how everyone else around you would act or if you – or anyone – would be able to �control� them if things got�out of hand? If it falls upon you and others to rebuild society, who should lead? Who should provide food, shelter, etc.? What should the laws be and who should enforce them? Would there be bias and conflict? You bet. Would you be able to stop it before it led to violence? Maybe you would be able to, maybe you wouldn�t. It is impossible to know how you or anyone else would act in such a situation and you might not like what you find resides inside yourself and others.

William Golding�s Lord of the Flies explores the concept of �the beast within� through the plot of young English boys around the age of twelve and under stuck on an island inhabited solely by them and pigs. Proud of their English heritage and proclaiming the English to be the best at everything, the boys believe they can get everyone to work together until rescue arrives. They quickly find that such lofty ambitions are difficult to put into practice as the boys run into conflicts of interest. Not everyone is keen on following Ralph�s lead as many would rather play and hunt than worry about keeping order and trying to be rescued. The longer they are on the island, the more unkempt and wild-looking (and acting) many of them become. Order and democracy become impossible to maintain as the boys fall so far that violence against one another becomes desirable and pleasurable. The breaking down of orderly society is preceded by individuals giving into their primal instincts and desires, instincts and desires that lead to the killing of each other.

The very reason this novel is so powerful is the very reason people could try to dismiss its premise. It would be very easy to say that such a scenario would not happen with adults around and that the reason this happened in the novel is because they�re just kids. The fact that they are just kids is what makes it so horrifying. If supposedly innocent and meek children could find it in themselves to kill one another in the absence of order and authority, then one can only imagine the horrors adults would inflict upon one another if no one/nothing is there to stop them.

Launching the Unit

1. Have students read Yevgeny Yevtushenko�s poem titled �Picture of Childhood� and have

them answer and discuss with the class the following questions:

a) Why do you think the group of people in the first stanza so eager to see the fight? This isn�t necessarily answered in the poem, but a similar phenomenon occurs in high schools, etc.

b) Discuss the images of violence and how mob mentality plays a role in the events of the poem. How �real� is mob mentality? Can it be harnessed?

c) Have you ever turned on one of your �mates� (friends) in order to make yourself or others look better or to get/do something you wanted?

d) Discuss the irony of the man who is �very proud of his high principles� when he is mercilessly kicking a man on the ground and asking children to join in.

e) Have you ever joined in a fight with someone? If so, why? Did/do you think it was justified? If so, why?

Picture of Childhood by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Elbowing our way, we run.
Someone is being beaten up in the market.
You wouldn�t want to miss it!
We pick up speed, racing to the uproar,
scooping up water in our felt boots
and forgetting to wipe our sniffles.

And stood stock-still. In our little hearts something tightened,
when we saw how the ring of sheepskin coats,
fur coats, hooded coats, was contracting,
how he stood up near the green vegetable stall
with his head pulled into his shoulders from the hail
of jabs, kicks, spitting, slaps in the face.

Suddenly someone from the right by the handcart
pushed his teeth in,
Suddenly someone from the left bashed his forehead with a
chunk of ice.
Blood appeared-and then they started in, in earnest.
All piled up in a heap they began to scream together,
pounding with sticks, reins,
and linchpins out of wheels.

In vain he wheezed to them: 'Mates,
you�re my mates-what�s the matter? '
The mob wanted to settle accounts fully.
The mob was deaf with rage.
The mob grumbled at those who weren�t putting their boots in,
and they trampled something that looked like a body
into the spring snow that was turning into mud.

They beat him up with relish. With ingenuity. Juicy.
I saw how skillfully and precisely
one man kept putting the boots in,
boots with greasy flaps on them,
right under the belt of the man who was down,
smothered in mud and dungy water.

Their owner, a guy with an honest enough mug,
very proud of his high principles,
was saying with each kick: 'Don�t try your tricks with us! '
booting him deliberately, with the utmost conviction,
and, sweat pouring, with a red face, he jovially called to me:
'Come on, youngster, get in it! '

I can�t remember-how many there were, making a din,
beating him up.
It may have been a hundred, it may have been more,
but I, just a boy, wept for shame.
And if a hundred are beating somebody up,
howling in a frenzy-even if for a good cause-
I will never make one hundred and one!

1963
Translated by Tina Tupikina-Glaessner, Geoffrey Dutton, and Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin (revised)

2. Bring a pig mask on a pole and discuss with students the following questions:

a) What words, images, thoughts, etc. come to mind?

b) What kind of a person/people/culture/society would cut off a pig�s head – or anything�s head – and place it on �a stick sharpened at both ends�? Describe them.

c) Are people who would do such a thing civilized? Savages? Why or why not?

d) Would people in our society/culture do such a thing? Why or why not?

3. Have students brainstorm a list of character traits/qualities that they would use to describe

themselves as well as any hobbies they have, sports they play, instruments they play, etc.

Embarrass them by having them share their list with the class. After, have them write why

they think they could or could never be the kind of person that would �sharpen a stick at both

ends� (this phrase should continue to be used as it is extremely important in Lord of the

Flies).

4. Present the following scenario to your students: �Imagine all of the students at the school are

going on a camping trip together for the weekend where there will be much merriment and

debauchery. Now imagine rather than going camping for the weekend, all of you were on a

plane that got shot down and crashed on a deserted island and you are all going to be stuck

there for God knows how long. All of you have to band together in order to survive.� Divide

the class up into groups of four to six and task them with determining who/what groups of

people would fill what roles. Ex: Perhaps the Student Body would form the government, the

athletes might hunt, etc. Have each group explain why they chose certain people/groups of

people for certain tasks.

The Unit

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York City: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1962. Print.

1. Give a brief plot summary of Lord of the Flies, which should be especially easy to grasp and relate to after the above exercise: A group of English boys age twelve and under find their plane shot down and themselves on an island seemingly abandoned except for wild pigs. Wanting to have fun, but also be rescued, the boys find it difficult to keep order while keeping everyone happy. Everything eventually breaks down and the boys do things they likely never imagined they were capable of.

2. Have the students read ahead for each class. Study guides could be given for each chapter, but another thing that could be done instead/in addition to that would be to have the students divide paper(s) up into columns and keep track of the following while reading: Ralph, Jack, Simon, Piggy and his glasses, Maurice, Roger, the �littluns�, the choir/�hunters�, instances of mob mentality, the conch, and the signal fire. While reading, they should write down words that could be used to describe them (character traits/qualities, actions, state of mind, physical appearance, etc.) and the page number that made them think that or that had a passage/quote that helps explain their actions/significance. Whenever something new for a character/object comes up, they should add it to the list. If something repeats, they should add the page number to it as additional evidence.

The purpose of this is to �secretly force� students to find and record evidence that could be used to write essays. What usually happens in classes is the teacher has the students read a book and then tells them what topics they can write an essay/essays on. Most students are then peeved about having to look back through the text for quotes/passages they can use as evidence. With this exercise, the more effort they put into it while reading, the more evidence they will already have at their disposal and it is quite possible that they will have all the pages they need for any topic.

This exercise would also help them to analyze and understand the importance of things like the conch and the fire in the story as well as follow the changes characters undergo over the course of the story. Some light examples:

a) The signal fire – When the boys are just starting to try to work together and decide to start a fire to get rescued, the fire ends up raging out of control and ends up devastating a portion of the island as well as killing one of the littluns. The fire is out of control just like them and foreshadows the kind of destruction that can and does come when people are not calm and rational. The fire – a symbol of their hope and rationality – gets smaller and smaller once they have to move its location as more and more boys begin acting like Jack and there are fewer and fewer boys to help keep it going.

b) Piggy – There are many instances in the book where the length of the boys� hair is discussed and tied to their wildness. Piggy is the only boy whose hair never grows and he is the only boy who tries to be and remains scientific and rational from the beginning to his death.

c) Jack – He is initially too afraid to kill a pig, but he dares people to think otherwise when he says he won�t be the next time. He eventually starts running around naked as he embraces being a hunter and he does not feel the weight of shame once he begins putting mud on his face. When the hunters and Ralph are talking about how they could have a dance where they pretend to kill a pig and Roger says they�d want to have a real one for a dance so that they could kill it, Jack, with a straight face, says that they could use a littlun, showing how far he has fallen.

d) Roger – He talks very little throughout the entire book and comes off as shy in the beginning when he gives his name and then slinks back into the crowd of boys. Unlike Maurice who feels bad and guilty after kicking sand into the eyes of some littluns, Roger expresses no remorse. He throws rocks at a littlun, aiming to miss, but only doing so because he still feels limited by the laws of society that would normally protect the littlun. Once order has broken down entirely, he becomes a torturer and executioner. He also no longer throws rocks to miss and causes a boulder to kill Piggy.

3. A few possible essay/discussion topics:

a) Compare and contrast Ralph�s leadership versus Jack�s. Is one more effective than the other? Why?

b) Examine the relationship between Piggy and the conch. What do the two things symbolize? Does one always go hand in hand with the other?

c) Examine the instances of mob mentality. Which of the two leaders – Ralph and Jack – harnesses mob mentality more? Which harnesses it more effectively? What might this say about their two styles of leadership?

d) Why wasn�t Ralph�s leadership enough to keep the boys together? Was he even ever capable of doing so?

e) Golding said that the moral of Lord of the Flies is that the shape of a society depends on the ethical nature of the individuals in it rather than on any political system, however logical or respectable it might. How effective was Ralph�s leadership and his attempts to lead by example? Is leading by example enough to get people to do the same? Why or why not?

Closing the Unit

1. Have the students watch the 1963 film adaptation (the 1990 film adaptation changes too much of the plot) and discuss the differences between the film and the book. How effective are the film�s characterizations of the characters compared to the book�s?

2. I thought it would be fun to end the unit with a creative assignment, though this could also be started at any point during the unit. Have the students pretend that they are stuck on an island with only the rest of the class and have them write several (seven or more) �journal entries� at least one page long each (double-spaced) chronicling the early days on the island before things spiral out of control. To keep everyone�s somewhat controlled and cohesive, they can mention as many students as they want, but only students that are in the class, and all students� journals must ultimately end with things going bad on the island. After everyone has turned theirs in, the teacher can compile them into one big document and email the students a copy of it so they can see how their classmates envisioned things falling apart and what parts their classmates might have had them play in it.

Extending the Unit with Additional Literature and Media

Boyle, Danny, dir. The Beach. 20^th Century Fox, 2000. Film.

Centers on a young nicotine-addicted traveler named Richard, an avid pop-culture buff with a particular love for video games and Vietnam War movies. While at a hotel in Bangkok, he finds a map left by his strange, whacked-out neighbor, who just committed suicide. The map supposedly leads to a legendary island paradise where some other wayward souls have settled. (Plot summary taken from Imdb.com)

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. London: Blackwood�s Magazine, 1902. Print.

Novella by Joseph Conrad, first published in 1902 with the story "Youth" and thereafter published separately. The story reflects the physical and psychological shock Conrad himself experienced in 1890, when he worked briefly in the Belgian Congo. The narrator, Marlow, describes a journey he took on an African river. Assigned by an ivory company to take command of a cargo boat stranded in the interior, Marlow makes his way through the treacherous forest, witnessing the brutalization of the natives by white traders and hearing tantalizing stories of a Mr. Kurtz, the company's most successful representative. He reaches Kurtz's compound in a remote outpost only to see a row of human heads mounted on poles. In this alien context, unbound by the strictures of his own culture, Kurtz has exchanged his soul for a bloody sovereignty, but a mortal illness is bringing his reign of terror to a close. As Marlow transports him downriver, Kurtz delivers an arrogant and empty explanation of his deeds as a visionary quest. To the narrator Kurtz's dying words, "The horror! The horror!" represent despair at the encounter with human depravity--the heart of darkness. (Plot Summary taken from Amazon.com)

Grant, Michael. Gone (Series). New York City: Katherine Tegen Books, 2009. Print.

In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears. Gone. Everyone except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not a single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Gone, too, are the phones, internet, and television. There is no way to get help. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents – unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers –that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen and war is imminent. The first in a breathtaking saga about teens battling each other and their darkest selves, gone is a page-turning thriller that will make you look at the world in a whole new way. (Plot summary taken from Amazon.com)

King, Stephen. Under the Dome. New York City: Scribner, 2009. Print.

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day, a small town is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and rain down flaming wreckage. A gardener�s hand is severed as the dome descends. Cars explode on impact. Families are separated and panic mounts. No one can fathom what the barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away. Now a few intrepid citizens, led by an Iraq vet turned short-order cook, face down a ruthless politician dead set on seizing the reins of power under the dome. But their main adversary is the dome itself. Because time isn�t just running short. It�s running out. (Plot summary taken from Amazon.com)

Lieber, Jeffrey, J. J. Abrams, and Damon Lindelof, creators. Lost. ABC: Television.

After a mysterious and bloody airplane crash, 48 survivors are left stranded on a Pacific Island... miles off course. It soon becomes apparent that they will not have to cope only with the forces of nature, but with the island's secrets, including the Dharma Initiative, the �Lost Numbers�, the �others� (or hostiles) and the strange black smoke – to name a few. There is also much more than meets the eye, as it becomes apparent that everyone is connected in some way and that everyone has a purpose to live on the island... and for some, to die. (Plot summary (taken from Imdb.com)

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. London: Secker and Warburg, 1945. Print.

Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals� Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. �We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.� While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. (Plot summary taken from Amazon.com)

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Harlow: Longmans, Green & co., 1886. Print.

A single person – but with two personalities: one that�s noble and kind and another that�s pure, repulsive evil. Robert Louis Stevenson�s engrossing masterpiece about the dual nature of man – and a good doctor whose thirst for knowledge has tragic consequences – serves up all the suspense and satisfying chills one expects from the best horror and science fiction. (Plot summary taken from Amazon.com)Show More

Takami, Koushun. Battle Royale. Tokyo: Ohta Publishing, 1999. Print.

In an alternative future Japan, junior high students are forced to fight to the death! L to R (Western Style). Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan –where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller – Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japanese pulp classic. A group of high school students are taken to small isolated island and forced to fight each other until only one remains alive! If they break the rules a special collar blows their heads off. (Plot summary taken from Amazon.com)

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Zemeckis, Robert, dir. Cast Away. 20^th Century Fox and DreamWorks, 2000. Film.

Chuck Noland is a FedEx systems engineer whose personal and professional life are ruled by the clock. His fast-paced career takes him, often at a moment's notice, to far-flung locales - and away from his girlfriend Kelly. Chuck�s manic existence abruptly ends when, after a plane crash, he becomes isolated on a remote island – cast away into the most desolate environment imaginable. Stripped of the conveniences of everyday life, he first must meet the basic needs of survival, including water, food and shelter. Chuck, the consummate problem solver, eventually figures out how to sustain himself physically. But then what? Chuck begins his true personal journey. After four years, fate gives Chuck a chance to fight his way back to civilization, only to find an unexpected emotional challenge greater than all the earlier physical ones. His ability to persevere and to hope are a product of his life-changing experience. (Plot summary taken from Imdb.com)

Works Cited