...Prompt 2: Human beings used to be isolated. At this time, we were primitive, unsophisticated, and weak. By today’s standards, we were more animal than human. We evolved to be social because it gave us an advantage; after all, there is strength in numbers. Nowadays, we not only experience human contact daily, we are completely dependent upon it. In cases of extreme isolation, people have been known to lose their minds. Cabin fever is a condition that perfectly reflects a human’s need for other humans. In the San Jose Mine collapse of 2010, 33 miners were trapped underground at a depth that well exceeds the height of the tallest building in the world today. The men were expected to break down as in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, but the...
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...Annotated Bibliography Isolation brings out a person’s character as well as tests their limits and boundaries, so how does this relate to the characters in Lord of the Flies and what does this reveal? Did the boys contract or expose any symptoms of possible mental disorders, conditions, or syndromes while on the island? To look into this, the social abnormalities in the behavior of each boy would need to be examined and analyzed from a medical perspective. If the boys are victims of mental instability, what does this tell the reader about the “evil-doers” like Jack or Roger? So what happened to Jack to turn him from a civilized lead choir boy into a savage leader out for blood? When Golding first introduces Jack, he is strict, to-the-point,...
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...The two books Lord of the Flies and Romeo and Juliet are actually more similar than you think. They both deal with isolation, whether you're the isolator or being isolated. The protagonist of both stories, Ralph and Romeo, are prime examples of this. Throughout both stories you can tell what the impact of being isolated is, and it isn’t a good one. Romeo and Ralph may handle the situations a little bit different but they also deal with it in the same way a bit to. Romeo is an isolator and is being isolated. In the play Romeo and Juliet, there is a constant family feud between the Montagues and Capulets. Romeo is a Montague so in that case he is isolating the Capulets because since the families are rivals for the longest time it’s what he...
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...novels. Some may see these cherished books as out of its time era; in reality, these books contain important values and newly learned reading skills that can help students in the future. Lord of the Flies has a good, timeless plot that quickly reels readers in. The theme behind the story can teach readers necessary knowledge that is still useful in today’s society. In addition, Golding’s masterpiece contains good diction and although challenging, a great learning tool to all readers. The theme and memorable characters in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is important to all standards of education and should remain on library shelves. The intensity builds from the first page as a group...
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...Synthesis Essay: Archetypes As a person progresses in age, or experiences traumatic situations, it is common that the innocence once possessed as a child can dissipate. Innocence can be easily viewed as temporal due to its tendency to falter in a myriad amount of people. Loss of innocence is a prevalent archetypal theme in Star Wars, Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, and Swing Kids. Although all novels display this archetypal theme well, the character Tom in Grapes of Wrath suffers the greatest loss of innocence due to the tragic effects of the Great Depression and the crime he participates in. In Star Wars, a young man, Luke Skywalker, who has lost his parents, lives with his aunt and uncle and is brought into a world of violence on his mission to become a Jedi. He encounters the ultimate archetypal devil figure, Darth Vader. Darth represents the darkness humanity possesses. Although Luke’s encounters with supernatural beings and death are frequent in the film Star Wars, this sharply contrasts with the isolation Tom Joad faces in Grapes of Wrath. While Luke’s loss of innocence is accepted as a way of life in Star Wars, including killing clones and destroying an entire planet, Tom’s inability to tolerate injustice, resulting in violence, is a crime in the world of his character. Essentially, Luke’s loss of innocence brings him closer to the people in the world he is surrounded by; his destroying of the Death Star is an act of bravery. Tom kills men who...
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...Without the structure civilization provides, mankind naturally drifts toward disorder. When the rules of everyday society go away, people can give in to their deepest and darkest desires without thought of consequences. In the 20th century novels Brave New World and Lord of the Flies, Aldous Huxley and William Golding use the martyr archetype to show how civilization controls human evil. Without civilization, humans gravitate towards violence and chaos. The presence of a structural society limits the brutality of humans. In Brave New World, Huxley utilizes the martyr archetype John Savage to show the controlling nature of civilization. When John questions how humans can show heroism in such a deeply regulated world, Mustapha Mond tells him...
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...User- Friendly Guide The visual is to represent the symbolism and allegory of The Lord of the Flies. I choose to represent Simon who plays a contradicting aspect to the rest of the boys on the island. Golding suggests that all individuals have the power to strain humanity that can ultimately destroy civilization. Through Simon’s actions and thoughts we can conclude that he portrays genuine human goodness in society. As he lays on top of the sea after death it portrays that a scarce supply of good can be overwhelmed by the abundance of evil. I deliberately choose my caption for Simon to be “Destiney of Revelation” because he is one of the only boys to completely understand the truth about the beast. The reader witnesses Simon as a mystic when he prophesies to Ralph, “You’ll get back to where you came from.” (Golding, pg. 121) This shows that Simon has a superior knowledge above the boys about the revelations that exists. The time spent in isolation allows him to comprehend that the beast isn’t just a nightmare however man’s inherent cruelty and demand for dominance as “ … Man's essential illness. “ (pg.96) Golding gives knowledge to an outsider like Simon to reflect how individuals can be the destructive forces of civilization however it is not understood by the majority and is disregarded....
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...William Golding, in 1954, wrote the Lord of the Flies. Written after WWII portrays the inherent evil of mankind. Being evil is just easier than being good because there are no rules to follow and people get to do whatever one chooses to do, and a side effect of evil is power. Power then corrupts the brain into thinking people need it, then people just want more and more. All because of evil, respect then comes from fear, power comes from respect. Golding shows how evil and power is what corrupts the brains of the children on the island which makes them do horrible things that cause fear in the children. Evil is easy and because people get to do whatever they want, rules are the only things that contain evil within us and keep us human, Evil...
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...In both Lord of the Flies by William Golding and I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill, the authors have effectively used settings and locations in their novels. This is a great impact, as most of the settings and locations have a meaning, representing something to do with the plot. The writers have used certain locations in a way that affects the understanding and thoughts of the reader, ranging from calm, peaceful settings, to terrifyingly dark ones. Each novel has different high and lows to their story, and locations are effectively used to express this. In Lord of the Flies, the Island is the main location, and this is used as a symbol of isolation. The Island is in the middle of the sea, and the location is unknown. The boys are separated from the outside, and are isolated from society and rules, leading to no order. William Golding is trying to create a claustrophobic fear in the readers, one of the main emotional states shown in the book while the boys are on the island. The Island is the opening location of the novel, which is deliberately violent, as this is the setting of “the scar.” This instantly portrays the negative effect the boys will have on the environment of the Island. The influence this has by being at the very start of the book on the reader’s interpretation is that it will give a feel to the reader about how the plot will twist throughout the book. In I’m the King of the Castle the main location is Warings. Warings is a ‘gloomy,’ ‘entirely graceless’...
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...What would you do if you were stuck on an island? In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding a group of English schoolboys find themselves in that exact situation. The boys, with their ages varying from six to twelve years old, get into a plane crash in which no adults survive, and they are left to fend for themselves on a mysterious uninhabited island. In the beginning the boys attempt to organize themselves and establish a civilized way of life on the island they elect a chief, named Ralph. Led by Ralph, the boys set rules, hold assemblies and are assigned jobs. However, as their time on the island grows some boys drift farther and farther away from their civilized origin. Eventually, one of the older boys named Jack creates...
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...Lord of the Flies: A Psychological Study of the Nature of Humans William Golding once said, “What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others.” The phrase is approached so easily with his novel, Lord of the Flies (September 17, 1954), to depict the darkness of the natural man. The twentieth-century British writer in his novel argues the savagery of true mankind through a prose involving a band of young British schoolboys who are stranded on an empty island after a plane crash. He generalizes the human race by first developing the boys as helpless as they try to create a form of democracy with Ralph being the leader (and protagonist), then by creating opposition to the governmental tradition through Jack and his followers who separate...
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...****Take note of points 2 and 6**** Title: Good grief: Lord of the Flies as a post-war rewriting of salvation history Author: Marijke van Vuuren 1. Introduction "It is a great pleasure to meet you, Mr Golding," said King Carl XVI Gustaf, presenting William Golding with the Nobel Prize in 1983. "I had to do Lord of the Flies at school" (Monteith, 1986:63). The Swedish king's words may well be echoed by countless people worldwide who have "had to do" Golding's first novel in various English courses. Indeed, this "unpleasant novel about small boys behaving unspeakably on a desert island" (1) may well have been done to death by exhaustive but reductive reading and teaching. Where Lord of the Flies has been read reductively, Original Sin writ large over it, readers have tended to respond to the novel in terms of its doleful view of humanity or its perceived theology. Its initial success reflected post-war pessimism, the loss of what Golding (1988a:163) has called his generation's "liberal and naive belief in the perfectability of man". Although the novel does not groan under a dogmatic burden to the extent that some critics have alleged, it has seemed the prime example of Golding's earlier writing, a tightly structured allegory or fable. … It is not surprising that the Bible's first and last books, on humankind's "origins and end" beyond the horizons of knowledge, turn to symbolic narrative. In Lord of the Flies Golding draws heavily on imagery from Genesis and the Apocalypse...
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...Dystopia ≠ Utopia A dystopia is a fictional society, usually portrayed as existing in a future time, where the conditions of life are extremely bad due to oppression, or terror. Science fiction (particularly post-apocalyptic science fiction and cyberpunk stories set in an imaginary future world controlled by technology and computers) often feature dystopias. Common traits of Dystopian fiction: The setting is the future, but often with contemporary social trends taken to extremes incorporated on purpose. A hierarchical society where there are unbending and definitive divisions between the upper, middle and lower class Society is conditioned to fear the outside world, and one of the methods for achieving this is the restriction of information and freedom. A corrupt authoritarian and totalitarian government creates or sustains the poor quality of life This government makes people believe that society is proper and just, even perfect. State propaganda makes citizens worship the state the leader of the state and the government. There is strict conformity among citizens and the general assumption that having opinions and individuality is bad The penal system often employs psychological or physical torture Violence, cruelty and aggressiveness are always present. Dystopias are frequently written as warnings, or as social satire, criticizing a current trend, norm or political system. In order for the dystopia to have an effect on the reader, the author uses characteristics...
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...creates a mood of mysteriousness and suspense as the boys change from an unknown monster to a group of boys. Due to the boys walking and being dressed in an orderly fashion, the group contrasts with the setting of a savage island. The author chooses to emphasize the heat because it will be a continual challenge for the boys. Because the boys are British, the group is not used to excessive heat. By comparing the heat to a continual challenge, the author foreshadows the difficulties that the boys will face. The boys strip off their clothes to express their new freedom. Because no one is there to watch or judge them, the boys feel as though the clothes are no longer required. This passage represents the first instance of the boys accepting isolation from adults. The irony of Ralph pretending to be a fighter plane is that Ralph is pretending to be something that most likely caused them to be on the island. Throughout the beginning, Golding hints through dialogue that the plane was shot down. By pretending to be a fighter plane, Ralph is pretending to be their cause of being isolated. The phrases used by the boys in the quotes express awe. By having the boys use these terms, the author conveys that the boys are astonished by the view of the island. This, in turn, creates a more upbeat tone, as the boys are shown to not be in a foreboding place, but a beautiful place that is meant to inspire awe. The boys attempt to establish order on the island by electing Ralph as the leader. Rather...
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...A Guide to Writing the Literary Analysis Essay I. INTRODUCTION: the first paragraph in your essay. It begins creatively in order to catch your reader’s interest, provides essential background about the literary work, and prepares the reader for your major thesis. The introduction must include the author and title of the work as well as an explanation of the theme to be discussed. Other essential background may include setting, an introduction of main characters, etc. The major thesis goes in this paragraph usually at the end. Because the major thesis sometimes sounds tacked on, make special attempts to link it to the sentence that precedes it by building on a key word or idea. A) Creative Opening/Hook: the beginning sentences of the introduction that catch the reader’s interest. Ways of beginning creatively include the following: 1) A startling fact or bit of information Example: Nearly two hundred citizens were arrested as witches during the Salem witch scare of 1692. Eventually nineteen were hanged, and another was pressed to death (Marks 65). 2) A snatch of dialogue between two characters Example: “It is another thing. You [Frederic Henry] cannot know about it unless you have it.” “ Well,” I said. “If I ever get it I will tell you [priest].” (Hemingway 72). With these words, the priest in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms sends the hero, Frederic, in search of the ambiguous “it” in his life. 3) A meaningful quotation (from the book you are analyzing...
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