Mr. Lettiere's English 10 -- Lord of the Flies

Quizzes

Summary Quizzes

Quote Quizzes:

Crossword Puzzle:

Interactive Crossword Puzzle

Jeopardy:

LOTF PowerPoint Jeopardy Game -- Review Lord of the Flies using Jeopardy

Other Quizzes: Below are links to quizzes on the Internet.

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Reading and Study Guides.

Visit us at the Duke of Definition Store to view more activities, exams, answer keys, and so forth.

Chapter 1
- Chpt. 1 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 1 Guide (doc)
Chapter 2
- Chpt. 2 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 2 Guide (doc)
Chapter 3
- Chpt. 3 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 3 Guide (doc)
Chapter 4
- Chpt. 4 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 4 Guide (doc)
Chapter 5
- Chpt. 5 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 5 Guide (doc)
Chapter 6
- Chpt. 6 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 6 Guide (doc)
Chapter 7
- Chpt. 7 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 7 Guide (doc)
Chapter 8
- Chpt. 8 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 8 Guide (doc)
Chapter 9
- Chpt. 9 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 9 Guide (doc)
Chapter 10
- Chpt. 10 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 10 Guide (doc)
Chapter 11
- Chpt. 11 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 11 Guide (doc)
Chapter 12
- Chpt. 12 Guide (pdf)
- Chpt. 12 Guide (doc)

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Novel Guides:
Below are links to sites that will help you understand and think about Lord of the Flies. They are not meant to be used as substitutes for the novel. They only help when used along with the novel. They will not help you on reading comprehension quizzes. Pay attention to the analyses on these pages. They should help you to start getting ideas about the book. Ignore all advertisements on the following sites.

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Text Online

Novel -- Click here to read the novel, if you don't have your copy of the book. The file is big, so it might take a few minutes to load.
- Strategy: once this file is open, you can search it by pressing control + F. You will discover that the word savage is used 67 times in the novel. You can figure out that fragile is used 3 times to describe the conch. Mirage is used 11 times in the novel. Search the word buzz and see how many times it is used to describe the sound the boys are making.

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Papers/Projects

Projects:

Man's Inhumanity Project sheet (pdf)
Human Good Deeds (pdf)

Papers:

Jack as Animal (chapter 3)
- T-Analysis Sheet -- Use this to gather examples
- Anaylsis of Jack as Animal -- Follow these directions to write your paragraph.
Theme Analysis Paper--This is the paper we worked on after we finished LOTF. Use 2-3 of the topic sentences we came up with in our in-class brainstorming.
Group Discussion Questions -- We will write a paper in groups. (Honors students see me for handout)
"I Shot an Arrow in the Air" -- (Write a paper on this episode of the Twilight Zone.)
- "I Shot an Arrow in the Air" -- Click here and watch the episode of the Twilight Zone. Please be patient with the few advertisements at the beginning.
- Assignment sheet
Exam Essays -- Choose two and be prepared to write the essay in class on exam day. (Honors students see me for sheet.)

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Resources

Novel
- www.gerenser.com/lotf/ -- Excellent site to help think about the novel.
  - Map of the Island -- Good to get a geographical image of the setting.
  - Symbolism Chart
- Lord of the Flies - Lo-Fat Version -- sponsored by Homework Online
  - Another map of the island.
- Game -- Play this interactive game at the Nobel prize site. It's good for a review.
- ABCs -- PowerPoint that works well for a review.
Reviews
- "Looking Anew at 'Lord of the Flies'" on All Things Considered
Biography
- William Golding Official Site -- This site offers a bunch of information on Golding. Also has a section where you can submit questions.
- William Golding--Biography -- This is a very brief biography from the Nobel Prize site. It also includes Golding's acceptance speech.
- Golding's Obituary
Man's Inhumanity: Some links to sites that illustrate some of man's inhumanity.
- WWII Headlines from BBC
- My Lai Massacre
  - Murder in the Name of War - My Lai -- article from the BBC
- Cambodian Killing Fields
- 1994 Rwanda Genocide
  - The Triumph of Evil -- a PBS site on Rwanda's genocide.
  - Rwanda: How the genocide happened
- Pinochet's rule: Repression and Economic Success --The BBC
- Vlad the Impaler
- Most Notorious Serial Killers -- From the Crime Library at Court TV.
- Abu Ghraib Torture and Prisoner Abuse
- Scarred by History: The Rape of Nanjing - The BBC
- Trail of Tears
- Firebombing
  - Dresden
- The Holocaust
- Hiroshima
- "After the Flood"--This episode of This American Life is a collection of personal narratives from people who were victims of Hurricane Katrina. The site offers audio and a pdf transcript.
Human Good Deeds -- Some examples to get you thinking about some good things that humans can do.

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Intertextuality

The Bacchae | The Coral Island | Bible

Euripides's The Bacchae

Compare the scene where Simon comes down the mountain into the ritual dance of Jack's boys to the following scene from The Bachae.

In the fifth episode of the play, Pentheus's mother, Agave, and other women are dancing when they see Pentheus in a tree. Pentheus is dressed as a woman, per Dionysus's suggestion.

When Agave sees her son in the tree, she says,

We must take this climbing animal
or he will spread abroad the secrets
of our god-struck dance.

The messenger who relays the story says,

His mother
as the priestess of the bloodbath
was the first to fall upon him.
He snatched the headband off his hair
to let Agave, wretched woman, see
who it was and so not murder him.
He touched her on the cheek and cried:
"Mother, it is I, your child, your Pentheus,
born to you in Echion's house.
Have mercy on me, Mother,
and because of my msitakes do not kill your son--your son."
She was foaming at the mouth.
Her dilated eyeballs rolled.
Her mind was gone--
possessed by Bacchus --she could not hear her son.

Gripping his left hand and forearm
and balancing her foot against the doomed man's ribs,
she dragged his arm off at the shoulder . . .
it was not her strength that did it
but the god's power seething in her hands.

Ino, active on the other side,
was ripping at his flesh;
and Autonoe now and the whole rabid pack were on him.

There was a single, universal howl:
the moans of Pentheus (so long as he had breath)
mixed with their impassioned yells.

One woman carried off an arm,
another a foot, boot and all;
they shredded his ribs--clawed them clean.

Not a finger but it dripped with crimson
as they tossed the flesh of Pentheus like a ball.

His body lies in pieces:
some of it under the gaunt rocks,
some of it in the deep green thickets of the woods--
by no means easy to recover . . .
except for his head,
which his mother, seizing in her hands,
has planted on the thyrsus point. (114 -15)

When Agave returns home she thinks her son's head is a lion's head. And she boasts about the hunt:

Cadmus's daughters
handled this creature after
I did; but only after . . .
Oh what a beautiful hunt!

Come, join in the feast. (117)

The Bacchae. Three Plays of Euripides. Trans. Paul Roche. New York: Norton, 1974.

You should see some similiarities from the passages above to scenes in Lord of the Flies.

Top | The Bacchae | The Coral Island | Bible

R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island
- Read
- Read at Gutenburg.org
- buy or read reviews at Amazon.com

Golding wrote Lord of the Flies as a response to The Coral Island. The novel is mentioed a few times in LOTF. The boys refer to it after they decide they are going to have a bunch of fun in chapter two. The captain at the end says,

I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island.

The characters' names in The Coral Island are Ralph, Jack, and Peterkin. These boys survive by hunting pig. They deal with real, external beasts: cannibals and pirates.

If you read the two novels together, you might argue that Ballantyne is optimistic about human nature and Golding is a bit more pessimistic.

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Bible
- Quotes below are taken from the Bible Online

Simon

Many readers see Simon as a Christ figure. Many readers see the theme of the book being about the original sin and the fall of man. Lord of the Flies is an English translation of Beelzebub, which often times is taken to mean Satan or a lesser devil. Golding, whatever his belief, used ideas from the Bible. Below I outline some of the connections. A question you might keep in mind is what does Golding achieve by making references to the Bible?

What's in a name?
- Disciple Peter's name, in the Bible, was Simon
- In Luke 23:26, we learn that in the story of the crucifixion, a man named Simon carries the cross.
  - Luke 23:26 And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.
Simon/Jesus Comparisons
- They both prophesize
  - Simon in LOTF, tells Ralph that he will survive: "[Y]ou will get all right"
    - Simon does include himself in the prophesy; thus, one can infer he has prophesized his own death.
  - Jesus on several occasions in the Bible predicts his own death.
- They both feed people.
  - Jesus feeds his followers with bread and fish
    - Matthew 36 And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 37 And they did all eat, and were filled
    - Other passages: Mark 6: 34-44; 8: 1-9; John 6: 5-13
  - Simon feeds the littluns in the novel with fruit
    - "Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands" (Golding 56).
- Both withdraw themselves from society
  - According to the story, Jesus "withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed" (Luke 5:16).
  - Simon also retreats into the wildnerness: "Simon turned away from them and went where the just perceptible path led him. Soon high jungle closed in. [. . .] He looked over his shoulder [. . .] and glanced swiftly round to confirm that he was utterly alone" (Golding 56).
- Both fast
  - Simon "shifted restlessly but there was no avoiding the sun. Presently he was thirsty, and then very thirsty. He continued to sit" (Golding 132-33, emphasis mine).
  - According to the Bible, Jesus went forty days and nights without food: "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered" (Matthew 4: 1-2).
  Remember that Simon is taunted by the Lord of the Flies.
- Crown of thorns
  - Simon "bashed into a tree" and "a white spot on his forehead turned red and trickled" (Golding 104).
    - One could interpret the image of blood on the forehead as the imitation of the crown of thorns.
Other allusions:
- After Simon dies, the boys remember that Simon said something about "a body on the hill." Simon was referring to the parachutist, but the body on a hill could evoke the image of Jesus on the mountain.
- Original sin
- Garden of Eden
- the beastie is described in the LOTF as a snake, which creates the image of the serpent tempting Eve.
- Similarities between the story of Cain and Abel and Jack and Ralph.
- Pork in the Old Testament is considered filthy and is forbidden. Jack and his hunters hunt pigs.
  - Leviticus 11:7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. 8 Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.
- Beelzebub
  - Look up on Bible Online Matthew 12: 22-28 for a passage that mentions Beelzebub, which translated means Lord of the Flies.

Work Consulted: Olsen, Kirstin. Understanding Lord of the Flies. Westport: Greenwood, 2000.

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Humanities/Connections

Literature is merely one piece of humanities. The nice thing about literature is that it deals with themes that are dealt with in other novels, songs, paintings, movies, and other artistic areas.

Literature:

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
- Novel shares many of the same themes.
John Dollar by Marianne Wiggins, who was once married to Salman Rushdie.
- Here is a bit of a review by School Library Journal: Described by the author as a "female Lord of the Flies," this book is every bit as chilling and brutal as Golding's.
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
- Here is a bit of the Amazon.com editorial review: "First published in 1929, A High Wind in Jamaica has been compared to Lord of the Flies in its unflinching portrayal of innocence corrupted, but Richard Hughes is the supreme ironist William Golding never was. He possesses the ability to be one moment thoroughly inside a character's head, and the next outside of it altogether, hilariously commenting."
- In an interview at Purdue University, Golding acknowledged the similarities between this novel and his. He said he didn't read it until afte rhe published his novel.
"The Destructors" by Graham Greene
Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
- Here is the opening lines of a review by January 27, 1975 edition Publisher's Weekly: January 27th"This tale of humanity after atomic war brings to mind "Lord of the Flies" and will have similar icy and compulsive effects on readers.Here are some professional reviews.
  - Here are some more reviews of the book.

Movies/TV

Most of the movies below are rated R, so please get parent permission if you are under 17.

Apocalypse Now (movie version of Heart of Darkness)
No Escape
The Beach
Lord of the Flies (1963)
Lord of the Flies (1990)
"I Shot an Arrow into the Air" from The Twilight Zone.
- A decent episode of The Twilight Zone. Definitely deals with the themes of inherent evil in human nature and survival. It's a bit superficial because of the 30 minute time frame.
"Das Bus" from season 9 of The Simpsons.
Lifeboat (1944)
Lost -- With a plane crash, boar hunting, a character named Jack, this show shares thematic ideas with LOTF.

Music

"Fable" -- by Gatsby's American Dream from the album Volcano (Click this link and go to the bottom of page to listen to clip of song)
- Thank you Rob W. from 5th hour (2005) for selection. Song sounds like the band Bush. The lyrics are from the point of view of the boys on the island.
"Shadows and Tall Trees" -- by U2. This is the title of one of the chapters. Click here to listen or search on Youtube.

Feel free to write me emails with names of songs, poems, movies, books, paintings, and so forth that you think connect well to Lord of the Flies.

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Mr. B. Lettiere's English on the Web: Lord of the Flies: Student Resources