Lord of the Flies

Question 1

Give some context to LOTF in regards to war

Answer 1

• Served in Royal Navy in WW2 - horrified at humanity’s capacity for violence + savagery
• UN set up after WW2 to stop conflict but the threat of nuclear war was real - book influenced by political climate of the ongoing Cold War

Question 2

Give some context to LOTF in regards to Britain and the world at the time

Answer 2

• British public schools of the time emphasised being strong
• Totalitarian governments at the time (Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia) controlled people through fear like Jack
• Novel shows strict social divisions like 1950s Britain e.g Piggy

Question 3

What are the themes of LOTF?

Answer 3

-Religion
-Savagery vs Civilisation
-Fear
-Democracy vs Dictatorship
-Nature

Question 4

Describe the theme of religion in LOTF

Answer 4

Novel is a religious allegory
Simon as Christ - gets murdered by the non-believers
Island as the Garden of Eden before the corruption of mankind
Jack as a God sat garlanded on a log watching his feast
Rituals in sacrificing pigs
Pig head on a stick like a god itself

Question 5

Describe the theme of savagery vs. civilisation in LOTF

Answer 5

Boys need to be civilised to be rescued (signal fire)
Symbols of order (conch + Piggy’s glasses) effective at first but get broken
Boys’ appearances change as savagery descends - brutality of the pig hunt excites them + they lose themselves in the mob

Question 6

Describe the theme of fear in LOTF

Answer 6

Beast represents fear of the unknown - becomes increasingly more real as the boys get more scared
Jack weaponises fear to control the others
Fear of each other is prevalent

Question 7

Describe the theme of democracy vs dictatorship in LOTF

Answer 7

Ralph is democratic (votes, conch) - portrayed as mostly ‘good’
Island eventually descends into Jack’s dictatorship - evil
Dictatorship (Jack) seeks to destroy democracy (Ralph) - reflects the political climate of the time

Question 8

Describe the theme of nature in LOTF

Answer 8

Nature on the island before boys was untainted (scar, fire)
Seen as somewhat sacred with Simon (Christ) admiring candlebuds
Nature corrupts people too - being away from civilisation + in nature made boys descend into savagery + chaos

Question 9

Describe the characters:
-Ralph

-Jack

Answer 9

Ego - constantly conflicted, democratic, makes sensible plans

ID - power hungry, upper class, manipulates using fear, dictator, root cause of the evil

Question 10

Describe the characters:
-Piggy

-Roger

Answer 10

Super-ego - craves order + civilisation, overlooked due to lower social class

Savage, violent from the beginning (picks on littluns, kills Piggy, sharpens stick on both ends)

Question 11

Describe the characters:
-Simon

-Samneric

Answer 11

Christ-like figure - innocent, isolated, emotionally intelligent + self-aware

Conflicted, rely on each other more as novel goes on, names merge to show this

Question 12

What is the beast a symbol for in LOTF?

Answer 12

Primal instincts of savagery that exist within all humans
Only Simon realises they fear the beast because it is within themselves
Jack uses it to manipulate them

Question 13

What is fire a symbol for in LOTF?

Answer 13

Hope - when the boys forget to light it, it suggest that they no longer want to go home

Question 14

What are the conch and Piggy symbols for in LOTF?

Answer 14

Civilisation and democracy - they both die at the same time - one can’t exist without the other

Question 15

What are Piggy’s glasses a symbol for in LOTF?

Answer 15

Piggy’s vulnerability - as the novel goes on, they get more broken as Piggy gets more bullied + scared, when they are stolen, Piggy ends up dying

Question 16

What are Roger and Jack symbols for in LOTF?

Answer 16

Savagery, violence, dictatorship

Question 17

What is Simon a symbol for in LOTF?

Answer 17

Nature, innocence, religion

Question 18

Give some quotes about Simon.

Answer 18

“maybe there is a beast … maybe it’s only us”

“fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew didn’t you? I’m part of you” - Lord of the Flies to Simon

“The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble” - Simon’s dead body

“Passions beat about Simon on the mountaintop with awful wings” - during Ralph + Jack’s first fight

Question 19

Give some quotes about Ralph

Answer 19

“Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart”

“A mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil”

“The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering” - during the pig hunt

Question 20

Give some quotes about Piggy

Answer 20

“The thing is - fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream”

“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?”

“Piggy’s arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig after it has been killed” - after his death

“It’s ever so valuable” - Piggy’s first impression of the conch

“The boys were a closed circuit of sympathy with Piggy outside”

Question 21

Give some quotes about Jack

Answer 21

“We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English”

“He began to dance and his laughter became a savage snarling”

At the feast:
“Sat there like an idol”
“Authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape”

Question 22

Give some quotes about Roger

Answer 22

“Made an unsociable remoteness into something forbidding”

“Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilisation that knew nothing of him and was in ruins” - when he was throwing stones

Question 23

Give a quote about Samneric

Answer 23

“As though they had but one terrified mind between them” - after ‘seeing the beast’`

Question 24

Give a quote about the conch

Answer 24

“The conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” - during Piggy’s death