Lord of the Flies Supplements and Ideas
"Teacher" Texts--(you may find they aid you in presenting ideas & engaging discussion):
1. "On Rediscovering Evil." Mark Jacobson. Esquire. May 1988. p.59.
2. "Lord of the Campus." Time. New York: Time Inc. June 22, 1962, p.64.
3. "Is Golding Calvinistic?" National Catholic Weekly Review. New York: July 6, 1963, Vol.109, p.18-20.
4. "Men of a Smaller Growth: A Psychological Analysis of William Golding's Lord of the Flies." Literature and Psychology. Claire Rosenfield. Autumn 1961, Vol.11, p.93-101.
5. "An Old Story Well Told." The Christian Century. William R. Mueller Oct.2, 1963, Vol.80, p.1203-06.
6. "The Fables of William Golding." Kenyon Review. John Peter. Autumn 1957, Vol.19, p.577-592.
7. "A World of Violence and Small Boys." J.T.C.Golding. Letter addressed to James Baker Dec.4, 1962.
8. "The Coral Island Revisted." College English. Carl Niemeyer. Jan.1961, p.241-45.
9. "The Novels of William Golding." International Literary Annual. Vol.III, 1961, p.11-29.
10."The Meaning of It All." Books and Bookmen. Oct. 1959, Vol.5, p.9-10.
11."The Anarchy Within." Bernard F.Dick. William Golding. ed. Kinley E.Roby. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987.
In class Articles/Activities:
1. Place the following quotation on an overhead for discussion with students in class:
Whatsoever, therefore, is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention, shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture on the earth; no navigation; nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; on society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Thomas Hobbes
Ask students the following questions during the discussion or writing prompt: Hobbes’ view of the defects of human nature is a famous, if disturbing, one. Discuss the degree to which it seems to match Golding’s. Do you agree with these rather bleak views of the book and of human nature? Does this idea aid in establishing the meaning of the work as a whole?
2. There is a fine essay by Ashley Montagu (in his book Anthropology and Human Nature, entitled "What is Human Nature?") that is a good non-fiction text.
Montagu, Ashley. (1957). “What is Human Nature?” Anthropology and Human Nature. Boston: Sargent, Porter, Publishers, Inc.
Discuss the author‘s point of view. Can you think of any evidence for or against his argument about the existence of evil in human nature? What is necessary to ensure humanity’s moral growth?
There are usually three explanations offered by scholars of what has gone wrong on the island, not one; and they amount to three different readings of the universe.
1. Piggy and Ralph believe in the essential goodness of people and the island. If things “break up” ... then it is the fault of individuals, who deviate because there is something wrong with them. In the adult world Jack could be cured by a psychiatrist or restrained by greater power than his.
2. Jack thinks that evil and destructiveness are live forces. In a world I power there are powers at work that are stronger than man. But these powers (Beast, Devil, or God) can be propitiated by ritual, ceremony, sacrifice...
3. Simon’s view declares that blaming bad men, and the Devil, is both right and wrong; there is evil, but it is not either outside man or confined to certain men, It is in everyone. Piggy has one eye; Jack is a savage; Simon is a queer little boy who as fits. There are question marks over all three views.
How would you analyze the reason/cause for the trouble on the island?
3. Lord of the Flies is referred by some as a twentieth-century allegory. Others describe it with terms such “fable,” “parable,” and “myth.” Which of these words would you use to describe the novel? Or would you reject all of them?
In inquiry groups of four students each, distribute handouts which contain definitions for allegory, fable, myth, folk tale, fairy tale, exemplum and parable, as well as scholarly quotations:
When taking up inquiry group responses be sure to guide the discussion toward a recognition of archetypal patterns:
What is an “archetype”?
Explain what is meant by ‘‘archetypal patterns of human society.”
Give some examples from novel of archetypes and archetypal patterns. To begin you might think about the “beastie.”‘ How are its form and effect archetypal?
1. Allegory?
allegory: a narrative in which the characters, actions and setting are devised in such a manner as to create the sense of a “literal” and a “figurative” understanding of the story.
J. Egan states: “The book is an allegory. The boys are presented as typical of human nature as it is essentially. Their isolation on an island is a device whereby the author is able to transcend what he would consider the facade of civilization in order to reach man as he truly is.”
2. Exemplum?
exemplum: a didactic story told in the form of a sermon; a device popular in the Middle Ages as a means of preaching moral lessons
J. Bowen states: “William Guiding has also written about cruelty, and there are who see in his first novel Lord of the Flies only an exemplum of the way in which, when civilized restraints which we impose upon ourselves are abandoned, the passions of anger and fear wash across the mind, obliterating common-sense care, and life once again becomes nasty, brutish and short. The book may certainly be read way, but it is also a religious allegory.”
3. Fable?
fable: a type of allegory in which the story exemplifies a moral or universal theme; usually stated by a character in the conclusion in the form of a epigram
Louie Grande asserts: “Investigating the way and the why men act, he [Golding] carries on in common with all of Western civilization*s greatest creators of imaginative literature; Guiding goes back to the fable, to the apparently straight-forward story that is actually multi-radiant in meaning.”
4. Fairy Tale?
fairy tale: stories of magic and wonder set in “the land of Fairie” originally for adult audiences
C.B. Cox points out: “To find an exciting, stimulating plot which is both dramatically credible and capable of allegorical interpretation is exceptionally difficult. The idea of placing boys alone on an island, and letting them work out archetypal patterns of human society, is a brilliant technical device.”
5. Folk Tale?
folk tale: since the mid-19th century stories usually of unknown authorship about social rituals and morals originally handed down by word of mouth and then translated into written form
Brian Oldsey and Slyvia Weintraub point out: “Indeed, the problem in all attempts to explain Lord of the Flies as some kind of parable is that the novel is not a parable; it is too long, and lacks the point-by-point parallelism necessary to meet the definition. Nor, in the precise sense, is it a fable, since it deals primarily with human beings, since it does not rely upon folkloristic or fantastic materials, and since it does not provide the convenience of an explicit moral. It is allegoristic, rich in variant suggestions, and best taken at the level of suggestive analysis.”
6. Myth?
myth: sacred tales originated from ancient peoples which reveal humanity’s relationship to the secular and the divine
Nick Braybrooke claims: “the terms most frequently applied to the novel are allegory, fable, myth. The author prefers the last, because myth, as he says, is something which contes out from the root of things in the ancient sense of being the key to existence ... and to experience as a whole.”
7. Parable?
parable: a short narrative that stresses an analogy between its parts and a moral lesson given by the narrator; term ‘‘parable**comes from the Greek word para which means ‘‘beside.” How does the root help you to understand the meaning of the English term?
P. Drew claims: “Lord of the Flies, for all its clarity of outline. is a complex novel. Although it is immediately successful simply as narrative it draws its distinguishing power from its value as a symbolic representation. That is to say it is a parable whose truth must he recognized, not discovered intellectually, a sustained metaphor for human experience, for ‘the end of innocence, the darkness of man*s heart