George Orwell’s novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” exhibit a particular range of literary techniques to explore comparable ideas within their dystopian texts. Nineteen Eighty-Four creates a world of systematic abuse taken to the fullest extent: omnipresent government surveillance, public manipulation and the illegality of individualism. Lord of the Flies takes a more brutal approach, as a group of young boys find themselves stranded on an uninhabited island and attempt to govern themselves. They soon turn to savagery: hallucinating visions of a beast and killing one another. Psychological manipulation is a consistent theme within both novels, and is maintained between these mediums with the incorporation of key symbols. Freedom and oppression are important themes throughout, and are similarly communicated to the reader with the further use of symbols. Expendability is an underlying theme within both communities of the texts, and is explored with the use of characterisation.
The authors of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Lord of the Flies similarly employ symbolism to incorporate their theme of freedom. Throughout his novel, Orwell connects Winston’s diary with the idea of free speech and individualism. The governmental power of Airstrip One habitually “rectif[ies]” history to cast their leaders in a charitable light, claiming that “who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”. As even the simpler
“In a 2005 survey about gay bullying statistics, teens reported that the number two reason they are bullied is because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender expression”, according to bullyingstatistics.org. It has also been shown that those who are bullied themselves often go on to bully others because it is all they know, or that bullying covers up their own shames. The character Jack Merridew in Lord of the Flies is not evil like many would argue, but rather is ashamed of the fact that he is gay and closeted. This is supported by the hunter’s casting off of religion and government, Jack’s inability to hunt unless in front of other boys, and the beast as a symbol.
Humans have basic needs which include food, water, and shelter. They also have base emotions and instincts, which are the very things that create humanity. However, these needs and emotions are easily manipulated, a theme prevalent in George Orwell’s 1984 and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. While these two stories have dissimilar plots, they have one common theme; the destruction of the individual through manipulation. The use of fear and hunger, in both 1984 and Lord of the Flies helps each government to eliminate the individual; in turn creating a mob mentality and a future in which no individuality can survive. In George Orwell’s 1984 and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the manipulation of human needs and emotions by the
“When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed”(Rand). This was stated by Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand; the extract relates to the novel William Golding wrote called Lord of the Flies. Golding wrote about a group of schoolboys trapped on an island from a plane crash. The boys had to figure out how to survive without grownups. Trying to survive was difficult because they had to have common sense and order. They lose those traits throughout the book which resulted in selfishness and corrupt behaviors.
What went wrong in the Lord of the Flies? Some may say Jack and some may say Roger, but what are the real reasons for the downfall of the boys? They are, the loss of hope, the loss of order, and the passing of time.
“We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we 're capable of” (Phil McGraw) one once said. In Lord of the Flies the characters wear a social mask that opposes their true feelings. Written by William Golding, the story revolves around a group of boys who become stranded on an island and must depend on themselves to survive. They elect a chief, a boy named Ralph. However, as the story progresses, the group become influenced by Jack, an arrogant choir chapter boy. Intriguingly, although they desire to be with Jack and join his tribe, the boys remain with Ralph for most of the story. The rhetorical triangle, which analyzes a speaker or writer based on three ideas- ethos, pathos, and logos-, helps many to better understand the children’s actions and mentality; ethos focuses on the credibility and ethics of the speaker while pathos concerns how the speaker appeals to the emotions of the audience and logos is about the speaker’s use of evidence to appeal to the audience’s sense of reason. The boys stay with Ralph because of Ralph’s use of ethos but prefer to be with Jack because of Jack’s use of pathos and ethos which shows Golding’s message- humans were masks.
Humans develop in societies with rules, order and government, but humans are not perfect, they have many deficiencies so do the societies they live in. When a group of schoolboys land on a tropical island, Ralph takes on the role of leader by bringing all of the boys together and organizing them. He first explains “There aren’t any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves.”(p.33), this brings up the question if the boys will have prosperity or will they succumb to the evil on the island. At first the young boys start being successful and civilized, but chaos soon overruns them and evil starts to lurk over the island.The fictional story of the group of British schoolboys stranded on an island and the decisions they make, relates back
Lord of the Flies is a novel written by William Golding. It is about british schoolboys who are stranded on an island after their plane is shot down. They are on the island with no adult supervision. Their group is civilized but turns to savagery. In Lord of the Flies, Golding uses the characters of Ralph, Jack, and Roger to symbolize that there are violence, evil, savagery, and good that exist in every society.
Although many things are stated outright in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the book is rich with symbolism and subtext. The story starts with British school boys being stranded on an island after escaping a threat of nuclear war. The boys elect fair-haired Ralph as their leader, but Jack, a fiery choirmaster of some of the boys, is jealous and the story quickly goes downhill from there, leading to aggression, mayhem, and murder. Throughout the novel, there is also a mysterious and imaginary beast that haunts the minds of the younger boys. Lord of the Flies has many details, many of which are symbols or have implied meaning. One of the most important examples of subtext is Simon, the strange, ethereal boy who aligns himself with
Power, those who acquire it will abuse it and those who’ve had enough of it, would destroy the entire world to take it away. In any society, there will always be those who have power and those who don’t or have very little. Therefore, when those who are in control of society undertake an action, those lacking competence will be forced to settle for what others want. This keeps on going until someone decides that they’ve had enough and start fighting back, thus even more people will realize they can do something and join the rebellion. It ends up being a fight between the ones who have great power and those who have strength in numbers and the outcome is chaos that could bring the destruction of the world. Both George Orwell and William Golding
The author Lyman Abbott once wrote, "Every life is a march from innocence, through temptations, to virtue or vice" (Abbott 7). This march, as Abbott puts it, is maturation. Inevitably, everyone must experience these phases, ending either in, good or evil. The novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, examines these very steps towards maturity. More specifically, Golding displays through the character Ralph; the phases of psychological maturity. Ralph throughout his experiences on the island will progress and regress in maturity. Ralph will begin as a carefree, innocent child—happy to be away from the constraints of society. However, through certain events, Ralph will grow to become a leader and choose to stay morally good, despite the
In all grade eleven and twelve English academic classes at Académie catholique Mère-Teresa in Hamilton, the students must study a novel assigned by their teacher and then have to write an essay in comparison with another novel of their choice. In grade eleven, the assigned novel is Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. On a list of novels suitable for thematic comparison with Lord of the Flies, one would find such novels as American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis, A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Many would observe that these are profane, inappropriate works that do not deserve their place in high school classes due to the profanity found in these novels. However, many of these are written to shock and surprise for a good reason, with a clear point in mind; because some words or situations that would be censored are period-appropriate and important to the plot, and because often, profanity is used to emphasize something and is not useless.
The Lord Of The Flies and 1984 are two novels written around created in a period of reflection following the Second World War, specifically the atrocities committed at the time. In 1984, Orwell paints a vivid picture of a dystopian future awaiting mankind, where a government is ever so present, nevertheless the idea of “civilization” is taken to a whole new extreme as The Party’s oppressive measures towards the general public forming a fearful society, one that is deprived of basic human thought, compliant and civilized… On the other hand, Golding manages to draw somewhat of an opposite picture in his novel Lord of the Flies, with a similar underlying message. He presents a society where a government ceases to exist, leading to a conflict between orderly civilization and savage autocracy. The predominant themes
The Lord of the Flies demonstrates survival, cooperation, and friendship, and how hard those things are to achieve. It was written in 1954 by William Golding. There are several kids who are involved in a plane crash, and land on an uninhabited island, so they must use their resources to survive as a group. There are many boys, Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon, and many others, with no girls. Fights, challenges, and jealousy takes them over and their civilization they created starts to shake. The conflicts are created by the island and what is believed to be on it, watching them. There is a lot of competition between Jack and Ralph even though they are “friends.” They both want power and to be the chief. This competition drives the group
The novel, Lord of The Flies written by William Golding is about a group of boys who were stranded on a deserted island after the plane they were on crashed. The story plot is based on their time and experiences on the island. Eventually, the book was produced into a movie in 1963. The book and movie have many similarities and few noticeable differences. The film definitely stuck to the original plot of the novel.
To begin, an insight into the dystopian genre assists the reader in understanding the many themes found in these novels. Starting with 1984, George Orwell uses themes which revolve around the dystopian genre such as dangers of totalitarianism, and psychological manipulation. When Winston assumes that O’Brien is on his side, he writes in his diary that “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows” (Orwell, 84). With knowledge of the dystopian genre, the themes of psychological manipulation and dangers of totalitarianism are present in this quotation because it shows how the government has the power to control the thoughts and actions of its people, thus displaying the world as being undesirable and frightening. In Winston’s world, freedom is a distortion which allows readers to feel how dangerous a totalitarian society is.