Quote

In the book, there are several good quotes. However, this one at the end really stands out for me. It shows me that though the boys are only twelve (or younger) they have seen far to much in their short lifetime, and know way to much about anger and savagery. They're supposed to be happy and carefree, yet they somehow know and have touched evil.

I believe that the boys' end of innocence is shared with children around the world. Many children in third world countries have experienced savagery first hand, and understand the look, touch, and taste of evil. It's sad but true.

Golding sums up the sadness in the following quote.

“...Ralph wept for for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.”

Think about it.
Cheers.

Symbolism

Symbolism in The Lord of the Flies


Piggy (and Glasses): Clear-sightedness, intelligence. Their state represents the status of social order.

Ralph, The Conch: Democracy, Order

Simon: Pure Goodness, "Christ Figure"

Roger: Evil, Satan

Jack: Savagery, Anarchy

The Island: A microcosm representing the world

The "Scar": Man's destruction, destructive forces

The Beast: The evil residing within everyone, the dark side of human nature.

Lord of the Flies: The Devil, great danger or evil

This was taken from http://www.rit.edu/%7esjg2490/lotf/analysis.html, a Lord of the Flies website. These were uses of symbolism in the book. I found them quite interesting, and when I thought about it, they seemed to be true. It explains why I liked Simon so much, and hated Roger.

Cheers.

Map

Cheers.

Left to right:

The Mountain

The Scar

Simon's Nature Area

Bathing Pool

The Lord of the Flies

Pig Fire/Simon's Death

Place of Piggy's Death/Castle Rock

Hehe

Hehehe. This is amusing. I call it...

"The Lord of the Bart"

I find this picture kind of scary. I think it's of Jack, but it could be Roger.

Here's the island where the boys stay.

You can see the bathing pool, the scar, the top of the mountain where the fire is, the caves that jack likes, and the clearing where the pig's head stands.

Cheers.

Summarizing Chapter 8

This was a really intense chapter, poor Simon. Piggy is told about the encounter, and everyone tries to decide what to do. Jack calls an assembly, and insists that the Beast is a major threat that should be hunted. Ralph upsets him, though, when he calls his hunters cowards. Enraged, Jack asks if anyone thinks Ralph shouldn't be chief. Nobody responds, so he asks again for anyone to come with him, then runs off with tears in his eyes. What a little baby, I keep forgetting that these are just young boys. Their signal fire is being blocked by the Beast, as they believe, so they decide to move the fire to the beach. When they get there, they notice that most of the older boys did in fact decide to go off with Jack, except for Ralph, Simon Piggy and Sam'n'eric.

Jack's tribe begins to hunt, and they come across a sow and baby piglets in the clearing near Simon's...area. They attack and kill the mother sow, while the piglets escape. The head is severed and put on a stick, which is embedded into the ground as a gift for the Beast. Jack finally realizes that they'll need fire to cook the meat, so they break into Ralph's camp and steal a flaming log, and invite them to come feast with them. Ralph maintains that the fire is more important, but has to be reminded why by Piggy.

Simon encounters teh Pig's head, and manages to start talking to the thing, although it is mostly in his imagination. The black cloud of flies coating the head causes it to now be called "The Lord of the Flies." The Lord of the Flies says "I'm part of you...We're going to have fun on this island." It's kind of creepy because this thing actually talks to Simon. Is this the beast? Or is it just his epilepsy? It continues to say that if Simon tries to talk to the others about the Beast, that he will be killed by everyone, including Ralph and Piggy. After taking this all in, Simon feels a faint coming on and collapses.

Simon eventually dies at the end of the chapter. You all know how it ends for Simon. Especially you Heather. =(

Summarizing Chapter 7

Ralph begins to wonder about the boy's appearance(dirty,smelly,gross) as they walk to the mountain.. Simon sees Ralph staring out to sea and repeatedly reassures him that they will get home safely. It's kind of sad to read that part. Heather, I know you would go: Awww that's so sad...haha.

Jack, keeping his hunting instincts always ready and active, finds traces of a boar which they begin to hunt. Ralph manages to hit it with his spear, but the animal escapes. Another tribal dance is formed, with a boy named Robert as the pig. Unlike before, Ralph actively participates, and their acting becomes overly realistic, actually hting and hurting Rbert.

Finally, tehy move on towards the mountain, and send Simon back to tell Piggy they won't be back soon. Jack scales the mountain and reports a sighting of a moving creature, initiating a mass climb to the summit. When they see what they believe to be the Beast , they make haste to leave. Too bad this beast is just a dead guy. They were really onto something. Poor boys...

Summarizing Chapter 6

In this chapter, it talks about a man from a shot-down fighter plane that parachuteed down from the sky. The man is dead, but, and the body and parachute float up to the island, eventually snagging on rocks. The wind continually grabs the parachute, lifting the body up and down, which is seen by Sam'n'eric. The boys run to tell about this Beast from the Air, and an assembly is called. Most everyone now thinks they are in grave danger, and Jack suggests they go hunt it. Obviously, they/we find out later that it is the bad stuff inside of the boys which they call the beastie.

Jack, Ralph, and a group of hunters set out to get the Beast, while Piggy stays at the beach with the scared littl'uns. They first check castle rock, where they had never been before. Although they find nothing, Jack thinks the place would be a great fort (A small bit of foreshadowing? Who knows? =p), and he and his hunters heave a large boulder off a ledge ( Uh oh...). Ralph leads them , and they decide to continue to the mountain to look for the beast from the air.

Summarizing chapter 5.

All the littl'uns, are preoccupied with the Beast, which they still believe in as some kind of living creature ( which we discussed in class today) on the island. Jack says that he's been everywhere on the island and believes there is no beast, and Piggy says that a beast can't exist in a world with science. However, one of the littl'uns steps up and says that he saw something horrible in the forest (which was actually Simon coming out of his..."area"). Another littl'un says that there's a "beast from the water," which is argued for a long time. Simon finally tries to settle the situation by saying that there may be a beast, but that inside of everyone here. Of course, no one believes him and they just laugh at what he has to say. NO ONE EVER LISTENS TO SIMON! EVEN THOUGH HE"S RIGHT! GAH! >=(. That's why he dies...died...?

During the assembly, Jack tries brings up the fact that Ralph isn't a good chief, because he can't hunt or do anything. Piggy and others are against the idea, but Jack is starting to become more and more overpowering to the rest of the group.

Sorry this took so long.

Part I of the Lord of the Flies Film: Comparing to the book

The main difference I noted between the book and the movie ("The Lord of the Flies") was character appearances.

Piggy looks a bit different than how I imagined him, but I believe that he is one of the closest to being correct.

Ralph is good. I imagined him just like he is portrayed (but with smaller front teeth :) )

Jack needs to be bigger. He seems to small in the movie so far. Maybe it's just the angles, but in the book he is portrayed to be the biggest boy there. In the movie he is the biggest, yet somehow, he seems too small and too unimposing.

Simon's character in the movie is totally wrong. Well, maybe his face is correct (kind, simple, and watchful) but his hair? It's BLONDE! Bright, bleached, blonde! Check this out.

'Simon allowed his pace to slacken until he was walking side by side with Ralph and looking up at him through the coarse black hair that fell now to his eyes.' -pg. 113

You'd think the directors could have given Simon black hair, like he's supposed to have. There is a large difference between black and blonde. The black would make Simon look even more sick because his skin would appear very, very pale.

Samneric are perfect.

The movie has been good so far, however, in following book's plot. Some of the scripted lines are lines directly from the book, and are recognizable.

If you hadn't read the book yet, though, the movie would be very hard to follow. It will sometimes jump from scene to scene and you don't know what transpire inbetween because you don't know the thoughts of the seperate characters. I wonder how they're going to do Simon's epileptic fit scene with the Lord of the Flies, for a lot of it is in his head.

Other than that, I can't wait to see the rest of the movie. (Though I wish the music was better; I find it whiny and annoying).

Cheers.

Connecting Chapter 8: Gift For the Darkness

In Chapter 8, the symbolization of the fire raging out of control comes true. The boys are splintered and cannot seem to work together. Jack stands up and asks if anyone wishes to join him, for he is leaving Ralph's group and will not be coming back. No boy joins him just then, but later on, they begin to slip away from Ralph and go join Jack. The boys are now divided.

It is so easy for something to rage out of control; a fire, a lie, a rumor, a person, a love, or even a group of boys. In high schools today, rumors are everywhere. Some may be true, others not. It's hard to know what's the truth and what's a lie. Rumors so easily get out of hand, and they often end up dividing friends in half, or hurting somebody a lot. They are not good. Just like the boys get divided because they cannot work together, friends get divided because of a silly mistake that everyone heard about. Everyone has experienced a rumor before, whether they are the teller, the victim, or just somebody along for the ride. They are not pleasant things.

It's also not safe for the boys to be divided. They need to work together to survive, and when they are splintered, their carefully structure system will fail or has failed. When countries have a civil war (e.g. Tutsi vs Hutu & North USA vs South USA) there are feelings of contention spread all around. The people get divided, when moments before they were an actual functioning country.

That's all I could relate to in Chapter 8. It was a hard one to connect with (I don't have epilepsy or know anyone who does...so I couldn't connect with Simon's part in the chapter. Sorry.)

Cheers.