1) In the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a story of a group of fleeing British school boys escaping the troubles of a war terrorizing their homes. The plane thy are escaping on ends up crashing on a deserted island. The boys find that their pilot and all adults are dead and only the young school boys are still alive. At first the boys are very happy and spend much of their time playing and having fun on the island. Then a leader emerges from the group named Ralph (the protagonist) voted to lead by all of the boys because of his seniority and age old then most boys. Also another potential leader is Jack (the antagonist) whose ideas often clash with the main leaders Ralph. Ralph's right hand man is Piggy a chubby but smart young man who is often bullied by many of the boys on the island because of his size and how nerdy he is. Jack and Ralph's ideas eventually cause them to split the group of boys up with some following Ralph and a majority of them following Jack because Jack is all about having fun. The two groups fight constantly often ending in Jack's group winning and killing some of the boys. eventually Ralph is the last boy in his group with many of his members dead or deserting him for Jack's group. Jack seeks ultimate power on the island and attempts to take Ralph out of the picture by killing him, as Jack's group is chasing Ralph through the island they almost catch him when he stumbles and falls at the feet of a commander and is eventually saved.
2) The main theme in Lord of the Flies is the loss of innocence. As the boys before they crash on the island they are a bunch of law abiding, rule obeying private school boys. but as time progresses and they live longer on the island without an adult figure they are forced to grow up and make their own decisions and make their own laws. Thus forcing all the boys to grow up, even though many of their choices are not very good and end up hurting many of the boys the fact that they had to grow up so fast is an example of the theme of the loss of innocence.
3) William Golding's tone in the book Lord of the Flies is very serious but at times very joking. He has to be very serious at times because they boys are growing up into what they think are men. Also many of the boys are dying and being bullied so Golding 's tone at those times and most of the book is very serious. Golding also is very joking in many parts of the book too. When the boys are playing or telling jokes Golding shows his tone through the lighter part of things happening on the island.
4) Four of the literary elements in the book used by Golding are; protagonist, antagonist, symbolism, and foreshadowing. The protagonist in the book is Ralph, a very loving, intelligent and born leader. The audience automatically falls in love with his character is the stand out protagonist in the story. The antagonist is jack also a clear antagonist. The audience sees right away that jack is a manipulative and evil person. He is always clashing with Ralph and is a clear choice for the antagonist. There are many symbols in the book, the fire/Piggy's glasses are seen as a symbol of hope and keeping the kids alive. Also the "monster" on the island is a symbol that represents all the boy's deepest fears. When the boys see the monster first it is an example of foreshadowing, once they see it and start making sacrifices to it you can just foreshadow that more bad is going to come of the boys being on the island.
Great analysis! I think that I got all of the major points by reading this. Your examples of literary elements were especially helpful.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me want to reread this book. Something I found so great about this book was all the symbolism. Seriously, a book could be written about all of it.
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