Lord of the Flies learn Flashcards
From the very beginning of the novel the reader is introduced to the destructive nature of humanity and its negative impact upon the natural world
Chapter 1
“All around him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat”
Whilst hunting is essential for food, and stereotypically ‘English’, the reader gets a sense of the bloodlust growing in jack, who is still just a young boy.
Chapter 1
“Jack drew his knife again with a flourish.” But after raising his arm in the air “There came a pause, a hiatus,”
while the “pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk,”
“the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm”
Ralph’s power early in the novel comes from the fact the boys are conditioned to respect rules and order, and to respect those who are older than them
Chapter 2
“The assembly was lifted towards safety by his words. They liked and now respected him. Spontaneously they began to clap” and they were “loud with applause”
Golding foreshadows what is to come, such as the delicate conch being destroyed by Jack’s darkness, and the decent of “English” schoolboys into savagery
Chapter 2
Jack “carefully” held the “delicate thing” in his “sooty hands” He then agreed with Ralph saying “We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English.”
The clean, formal appearance of Jack and his uniform as Head of the Choir has been replaced with a disturbingly “savage”, almost animalistic appearance.
“except for a pair of tattered shorts held up by his knife-belt he was naked.”
he “breathed in gently with flared nostrils”
The island as a setting shows nature working in perfect harmony, and suggests that if the boys work with the island, it would provide for all their needs
Chapter 3
“Flower and fruit grew together on the same tree”
there was also a “booming of a million bees at pasture”
Roger seems to be instinctively violent and drawn to aggression towards others, but is conditioned by an invisible force that won’t allow him to directly hit Henry
Chapter 4
“Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life.” Roger was protected by “parents and school and policemen and the law”.
“Rogers arm was conditioned”
Englishness and civilisation have disappeared from the hunters; they are stereotypically tribal, with violence and aggression overcoming their boyish behaviour
Chapter 4
The hunters “pretended to beat him.”
As they danced, they sang. ‘Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in.’
Ralph watched them, envious and resentful.”
At this stage, the boys’ immaturity, innocence and youthfulness is still evident. They don’t fear their own behaviour, but instead fear childish “beasts.”
Chapter 5
Littlun describing nightmare
“The vivid horror of this, so possible and so nakedly terrifying, held them all silent. The child’s voice went piping on from behind the white conch.”
It is clearly impossible to describe the evil mankind is truly capable of
Chapter 5
“ ‘What I mean is… maybe it’s only us.’… Simon went on. ‘We could be sort of…’ Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness. Inspiration came to him. ‘What’s the dirtiest thing there is?’ “
The boys became barbaric, but are no different to the adult world in Europe, where war was causing the same level of death a destruction on the island
Chapter 6
“a figure dropping swiftly beneath a parachute, a figure that hung with dangling limbs”
When alone and rational it is clear the boys’ image of the beast is incorrect. However, Simon knows our ‘sickness’ prevents us from seeing the truth
Chapter 6
“A beats with claws that scratched, that sat on a mountain-top”
“Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick.”
Even amidst the savagery and violence. Ralph still returns to innocence in his dreams, full of images of safety, comfort and childhood; he is no savage
Chapter 7
“When you went to bed there was a bowl of cornflakes with sugar and cream. And the books - they stood on the shelf by the bed, leaning together with always two or three laid flat on top because he had not bothered to put them back up properly”
The difference between human, animal, and beast continues to become blurry and confused - “ape”, “creature” and “face” could be either pilot or evil beast.
Chapter 7
When Jack, Ralph and Roger went to look for the beast, they found “something like a great ape” sat before them. Then the “wind roared”. The “creature” they found lifted its head to show them the “ruin of a face”
Golding places Jack and Ralph side by side - the civilised and the savage come into explicit conflict, with the reader unclear as to who will triumph
Chapter 8
“He was safe from shame or self-consciousness behind the mask of his paint”
“Ralph kneeling by the remains of the fire like a sprinter at his mark and his face was half-hidden by hair and smut”
