Lord of the Flies Notebook Check1. “Why Boys Become Vicious” Author Study

2. Vocabulary

3. Characterization

4. Plot/Conflict

5. Symbolism

6. Allegory

7. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 Questions

8. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 Questions

9. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 Questions

10.Chapters 10, 11, and 12 Questions

Notebook Check #1: “Why Boys Become Vicious” Author Study

“Why Boys Become Vicious” (1989)William Golding

Written in response to the murder of a two-year-old boy by two twelve-year-old boys.

Answer the following questions in 2-3 complete sentences minimum.

1. In his article, “Why Boys Become Vicious,” Golding argues that there are two conditions in which evil will develop and grow: Chaos and fear. Explain for each condition how it occurs and what Golding thinks is the solution.

Chaos:

Fear:

2. Golding believes that all human beings are born with a black, or bad side, to their nature; he also believes they have a capacity for love. Do you agree or disagree? Explain.

3. Now that you have finished reading Lord of the Flies, what is your opinion about why boys become vicious? (Think about the circumstances surrounding Simon’s death.)

4. Golding proposes that boys are more vicious than girls because of the way they are raised, but he also references boys’ “long-forgotten beginning as a hunter and killer.” Which do you think is true? Why?

“Why Boys Become Vicious”

by William Golding

*special to The (San Francisco) Examiner 2.28.93-Reprint*  

Pick any of the great saints or moral leaders of Western civilization – Jesus, St. Francis, Mother Teresa – and the characteristic that stands out is their simplicity.

If it is true, as it seems to be, that there is a simplicity about human goodness, then it is just as true that there is a corresponding complexity about human evil.

Hitler, Stalin and Idi Amin – to name just a few in the 20 th century catalog of evil – were far from being simple men. At times they were childish, at times mad, at times pathetic. But their deeds were the twisted deeds of tangled and contorted souls.

So there is nothing the slightest bit simple about what happened to 2-year old James Bulger after he was led out of a Liverpool area shopping center by two older boys.

We are told that he was beaten and then dumped in the path of a train so that his injuries would be disguised. To contemplate that deed, as we must if we are to live in the real world and not little worlds of our own making, is to face a peculiarly stark form of horror. And the cruelty behind it is nothing if not complex.

It was nearly 40 years ago when I wrote about the cruelty boys can inflict on each other in Lord of the Flies. It was, of course, not the first time that I had thought about human cruelty and its various manifestations. Since then, too, I have had plenty of reason and opportunity to think about it more.

Are men and women born with cruelty as a deep component of their nature? Is civilization largely a heroic struggle to build layer upon layer of varnish upon the rough and splintered raw material of humankind?

Or does it make a truer picture if we imagine the newborn child as a blank slate upon which the harshness of experience soon prints its indelible and frightening patterns?

I believe all attempts to answer these great questions are doomed to end in doubt and confusion. I leave them to psychologists and prophets. I can only speak as a man who has lived long.

But there are certain things about cruelty – and especially the cruelty of boys – which I believe may be true and from which we can learn: though I also believe in the end we can never completely banish the kind of concentrated horror that has brought to us in the story of James Bulger.

There are, for instance, conditions in which cruelty seems to flourish, which is different from saying that it has clear causes. What are these conditions? Chaos is one, fear is another.

In Russia after the First World War, there were, I believe, gangs of children who had lost their parents. Dispossessed, without anywhere to live or anything to live on, they roamed the country attacking and killing out of sheer cruelty.

There was, at that time, social chaos in many countries, and, left to themselves, these children found a kind of elemental cohesion in their viciousness.

We are told that in some parts of Britain today there are new gangs of children – offspring of an underclass that seems to reject conventional parenting. Without the support of mothers and fathers such children have nothing but the fruits of what they can beg and steal.

It would not surprise me if in these conditions, where the orders and patterns of society cease to matter, gangs begin to find cohesion merely in the joint fulfillment of their darkest instincts.

Add to this heady cocktail the other element – fear – and you get a mixture that is more than doubly terrifying. When people are afraid they discover the violence within them and when they are afraid together they discover that the violence within them can be almost bottomless.

I do not think it is too unlikely to suppose that children living without adult protection are often frightened. Add to that the sudden fear or capture or prosecution – or simple fear of what they had unthinkingly done – and one can see how horrors come about.

Is it also true that the capacity of the young male to maim and torture is somehow connected to his long-forgotten beginning as a hunter and killer – a beginning that is very different from the female’s hearth?

The truth must be that both components are of equal importance. We are born with evil in us and cruelty is part of this. (Though there is also a capacity for selflessness and love: otherwise we are denying part of our human nature.)

But what must be true is that we can be twisted and distorted beyond recognition by the guidance – or lack of it – that we absorb directly from our families.

If there is no one around to guide children, then they go wrong. The people who guide children are their fathers and mothers. Children need both and in the later part of this century they often have neither.

And when children go wrong they can often go wrong with a vengeance. There is such energy in children; they are more powerful than any bomb.

Many modern childhoods must be sheer horror, though I do not believe this is necessarily anything new – history has been full of horror and children have always suffered their share of it.

It parents are absent, if fathers do not provide strength and mothers do not provide love, then children will plumb the depths of their nature.

Old men perhaps are hard to surprise. If this is what happened in the case of the killers or James Bulger we should not be surprised. But we can be shocked into recognizing evil when we see it. The poor child’s pains are over. God help us all.

Notebook Check #2: VocabularyChapter 1 Pageefflorescence 12enmity 14decorous 15chorister 22bastion 29hiatus 31Chapter 2 Pageebullience 38recrimination 43

tumult 43tirade 45Chapter 3 Pageoppressive 49inscrutable 49vicissitudes 49declivities 54

tacit 55Chapter 4 Pageblatant 58taboo 62sinewy 64malevolently 71Chapter 5 Pageludicrous 78ineffectual 79jeer 84inarticulate 89Chapter 6 Pageleviathan 105clamor 108mutinouslyChapter 7 Pagecrestfallen 117impervious 121enterprise 122Chapter 8 Page

glowered 127rebuke 128demure 133fervor 133Chapter 9 Pagecorpulent 146sauntered 150Chapter 10 Pagecompelled 167Chapter 11 Pageluminous 169myopia 169sniveling 170quavered 174parried 179talisman 180Chapter 12 Pageacrid 186cordon 191elephantine 194

epaulettes 200

RALPH JACK PIGGY SIMON ROGER SAMNERICCharacter“Type”

Central Motivation

Principal Action

Principal Emotions and Attributes

At the beginning of the novel

At the end of the novel

Notebook Check #3: Characterization

Notebook Check #4: Plot

Exposition (characters/setting):

Event #1:

Event #2:

Event #3:

Climax (The most suspenseful moment):

RISING ACTIONWhat makes the conflict worse?

Event #1:

Event #2:

Resolution (How is the main conflict resolved?

FALLING ACTIONHow do they start to fix the conflict?

Notebook Check #4: Conflict

Man vs. Man1. ________________________

________________________

2. ________________________

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3. ________________________

________________________

4. ________________________

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5. ________________________

________________________

Man vs. Fate/Supernatural

1. ________________________

________________________

Man vs. Nature1. ________________________

________________________

2. ________________________

________________________

3. ________________________

________________________

Man vs. Society1. ________________________

________________________

2. ________________________

________________________

3. ________________________

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Man vs. Himself

1. ________________________

________________________

2. ________________________

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3. ________________________

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4. ________________________

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Man vs. Technology1. ________________________

________________________

2. ________________________

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Notebook Check #5: Symbolism

1. The Conch Shell:

2. Piggy’s Glasses:

3. The Signal Fire:

4. The Beast:

5. The Lord of the Flies:

Notebook Check #6: Allegory

Allegory:

1. Ralph:

2. Piggy:

3. Jack:

4. Simon:

5. Roger:

Notebook Check #7: Chapters 1, 2, and 3 Reading Questions

Lord of the Fliesby

William Golding

Chapter 1 – The Sound of the Shell

1. Why is Piggy so obsessed about finding the others and calling a meeting? What does this say about his character and personality?

2. Golding makes references to what is happening in the rest of the world. What is happening?

3. Why do the conch and the election signify the beginnings of government? How successful is it likely to be and why?

4. Draw character maps for Jack, Ralph and Piggy.

Chapter 2 – Fire on the Mountain

1. The government is already showing signs of weakness. What are the signs?

2. Why does no one respect Piggy or his suggestions?

3. Who will be blamed for the small child’s accidental death? Why?

Chapter 3 – Huts on the Beach

1. What is the author trying to convey by mentioning ‘not a good island’?

2. Why is Jack obsessed with killing a pig for meat?

3. What do you think Simon was trying to do towards the end of the chapter?

4. Describe the conflict between Ralph and Jack.

Notebook Check #8: Chapters 4, 5, and 6 Reading Questions

Chapter 4 – Painted Faces and Long Hair

1. What does ‘taboo of the old life’ mean?

2. Draw Jack’s face as Golding describes it.

3. What is Jack’s mask a metaphor for? What message is Golding trying to convey?

4. Do the boys really need Jack to get meat? Why or Why not?

5. Why don’t the boys realise the importance of the fire?

6. What is happening to the boys?

Chapter 5 – Beast from Water

1. What were the reminders and ground rules laid down by Ralph?

2. If you were Chief – what would you have set up in the beginning?

3. Why are things – the system – breaking down? Why do you think the government broke down?

4. What have Ralph, Piggy and Simon grown to understand about adult authority?

Chapter 6 – Beast from Air

1. What is the Beast from the Air? What is the significance of this adult sign?

2. Why do only a few boys concern themselves with the fire? Why don’t the others care?

Notebook Check #9: Chapters 7, 8, and 9 Reading Questions

Chapter 7 – Shadows and Tall Trees

1. What do you think the ‘olive grey, jelly like fruit’ is?

2. Compare and contrast Ralph’s NORMAL.

3. Why does Jack hate Ralph?

Chapter 8 – Gift for the Darkness

1. Why don’t the boys want Jack as chief? Why do they still want Ralph?

2. Golding doesn’t describe in detail what has happened to Jack and his choir – making reference only to them being savages. Describe what has happened to them.

3. Ralph has become openly frightened – about what?

4. Who or what is the ‘Lord of the Flies’? Two meanings were given for the name – what are they and why are they significant?

5. What is the relationship between Simon and the Lord?

6. Why is this chapter the central chapter of the novel?

7. Metaphorically, are the beast and Jack one in the same? Explain.

8. What has happened and changed about the government?

Chapter 9 – A view to a Death

1. Simon is tragically and accidentally killed. Why was he mistaken for the beast?

2. What is the parachuter on the mountain a symbol or metaphor for?

3. We see Simon now as the truly great and intelligent boy – why?

4. Why do Ralph and Piggy seek solace in this new society Jack has created? How and why is it governable?

Notebook Check #10: Chapters 10, 11, and 12 Reading Questions

Chapter 10 – The Shell and the Glasses

1. Why do none of the children fully recognise what has happened, what they’ve done, and its significance?

2. ‘[Roger] sat still, assimilating the possibilities of irresponsible authority.’ What is Golding helping us to realise about Roger here?

Chapter 11 – Castle Rock

1. What is the significance of the face paint? What does it allow the boys to do? Could they be savages without it? Why or Why not?

2. Piggy’s death is the third death. Does the author want us to believe that is was like the others? Explain.

Chapter 12 – Cry of the Hunters

1. What do the boys realise when they see the naval officer?

2. What finally caused them to be rescued? What is the irony of this?

3. ‘Fun and games, having a war,’ what is the irony behind the comments of the officer?

4. Why does Ralph say that only two were killed? Who do you think he was referring to?

5. Do you think the boys will reveal what has happened? Why or Why not?

6. Why do the boys break down into uncontrollable sobs causing the officer to look away in embarrassment?