Study Questions For Lord Of The Flies Essay

Although The Lord of the Flies and LOST are many years apart, they both ask the same questions… Are people civilized?

"Now he says it was a beastie" is when the boys start to realize the beast and what it is doing. The older boys first noticed the child when he resisted and wanted to be left alone. The little boy had been the first to see the snake-like thing or the beast . But the older boys didn't believe him because they were on an island and there was no way there could be something like that on an island. The little boy says that the beastie comes out at night but never during the day. They knew that in the end this beastie wasn't just going to go away. (Doc.B)

In the end, all the boys learn a lesson. They had many struggles and troubles of staying together as a group. Jack and his hunting group ended up setting the whole island on fire. “ The fire was a big one and the drum-roll that he has thought was left so far behind was nearer. Couldn't a fire outrun a galloping horse?” ( Chapter 12, Page 278) The horrific fire caught the attention of a naval vessel passing by the island. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he wakes up, he sees a British naval officer right over him.

What do you picture in your mind when someone mentions a beast? Fangs? Claws? That is what the castaways believe the beast to look like on the island in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The story follows several school boys who have crashed onto an exotic island. They elect a leader, Ralph, and they break up into groups: the hunters, the “littluns”, and the hut builders. Soon the “littluns" become frightened of a beast that no one has seen, and it becomes an obsession of the islanders. They interpret the beast in many ways, saying it comes from the water, the sky, and one of the boys even suggested that the beast was themselves. So, what is the beast? The beast could be a representation of war, fear, or human savagery.

Ralph represents order and discipline, while Jack represents an unhealthy drive for power and savagery. In the beginning of the novel, Ralph is voted the leader of the group and attempts to make life on the island disciplined and civilized, like their life in England. However, throughout the novel Jack rivals Ralph’s leadership role, attempting to overthrow him. As the boys’ savage impulses increase, more of them begin to side with Jack instead of going with Ralph. As Ralph loses his hold over the boys, almost all of them begin to act violently and barbaric. An example of this is when the children of the island murder Simon for no justifiable reason. Even Piggy and Ralph partake in the murder, showing that the violent human impulse is in

The title, Lord of the Flies, refers to the pig’s head that was placed on a spear and worshiped by the young boys on the island. In other words, the boys have chosen to believe in a fake deity, much like

In the book Lord of the Flies Simon was had died and whether it was an accident or not he did not deserve to die. They had been on their toes all the time about the beast, what it was, and how to kill it, but the beast was in their mind the whole time and Simon was the only one who knew it. The boys were weary about any kind of movement when they were hunting for the beast. They were anxious to get rid of it that when Simon stumbled over an edge they assumed that he was the beast and they all screamed “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his

The Beast’s introduction marks the boys’ savage nature becoming increasingly dominant paralleled by the growth in the boys’ irrational and primitive behavior. When the boys reach the epitome of savagery, they begin to give the Beast human characteristics. Jack uses the Beast to instill fear into the boys, asserting his own authority. “‘This is more than a hunter’s job,’” Ralph explains to the group of boys “‘because you can’t track the beast. And don’t you want to be rescued?’” (102). Jack receives the new role of tyrant amongst the kids due to this. The tyranny associated with the Beast causes Jack to become in charge. Jack thoroughly convinces the boys that the Beast is real by feeding into their imagination. He shouts that “The beast is sitting up”, scaring the boys into following his orders due to his “knowledge” regarding the beast

Ralph decides to take the conch shell to Castle Rock, hoping that it will remind Jack’s followers of his former authority. Ralph blows his conch shell. Then Jack comes out and commands Ralph to leave his camp, and Ralph demands that Jack return Piggy’s glasses. Jack attacks Ralph, and they fight. Ralph struggles to make Jack understand the importance of the signal fire which would help them get rescued, but Jack orders his hunters to capture Sam and Eric. This sends Ralph into a fury, and he attacks Jack. Ralph and Jack fight for a second time. Piggy cries out, struggling to make himself heard over the fight. As Piggy tries to speak, hoping to remind the group of the importance of rules and rescue, Roger shoves a massive rock down the mountainside. Ralph, who hears the rock falling, dives and dodges it. But the boulder strikes Piggy, shatters the conch shell, and knocks him off the mountainside to his death on the rocks below. Jack throws his spear at Ralph, and the other boys quickly join in. Ralph escapes into the jungle, and Roger and Jack begin to torture Sam and Eric, forcing them to submit to Jack’s authority and join his tribe. The fire has burnt out. The next day Ralph is awaken with the smell of smoke and is forced to come out of hiding. He runs down to the beach and sees a navy officer. Ralph and the boys are saved. “His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.” (LOTF page 202).

So far in the story the boys’ lives has developed a rhythm. The boy’s understand they need rules, but they fail to follow them causing fights and misunderstandings. On the beach, Ralph and Piggy see a ship on the horizon, but realize that the signal fire had gone out. Jack was so obsessed with the idea of killing a pig that the group of hunters fail to keep the signal fire going. Ralph and Piggy hurry to the top of the hill but they were unable to rekindle the fire, and the ship does not realize they are on the island.

Jack is busy tracking a pig at the start of this chapter. A bird startles him while he is hunting for pigs. Finally, He comes back to the beach to find Ralph and Simon working on shelter. Jack asks Ralph for water and directs him to the coconuts full of water are. After Jack is done drinking, Ralph complains to Jack that none of the other boys are helping with the shelters, but Jack tries to argue that hunting is more important.Ralph says that Jack's group has not brought any meat back for them to eat. Ralph mentions that the littluns is scared and scream in the middle of the night. Simon brings up the "beastie" to both Ralph and Jack. The three reminisce about their first day on the island.Jack tells them that when he is hunting he feel like

One night, a battle occurs over the island, and a dead pilot parachutes onto the island. The boys interpret this as a sighting of the beast, and Ralph, Jack, and Roger, Jack’s closest follower, go on an expedition to Castle Rock, a mountain on the island where Jack claims the Beast resides. The three flee back to their camp after seeing the pilot, and, shortly after, Jack leaves the group, determined to form his own group. More and more of the boys sneak off to join Jack’s group, and they soon become savage, offering sacrifices to the Beast, and painting their faces.

Jack is one of the oldest of all the boys on the island, and he tries very hard to use how naive the younger ones are to his advantage. When the tribe encounters and kills a wild boar while exploring, Jack tries to pass it off as him killing the Beast, saying “I walloped him properly. That was the beast, I think!” before Ralph corrects him and states that the “Beast” “was a boar” (163). Jack is embarrassed about Ralph correcting him and about being exposed to the rest of the boys. He still uses the fact that the boys are naive, however, and as they continue on one of the boys, Maurice, asks “supposing the beast’s up there?’ to which Jack responds “we’ll kill it.” Jack, being old enough to understand that there isn’t a such thing as a beast, uses the other boys’ unknowingness and curiousity to make himself seem more confident in his own leadership skills, assuring them that the beast will be killed if they encounter it.

Therefore, the boys decide to arrange a hunting trip and travel up the mountain. However, when Ralph and Jack misidentify a parachute as the beast, a major disagreement occurs and they deicide to separate. As a result, Jack gathers all the hunters and declares himself as the new leader of the tribe, whereas Ralph remains civilized and reforms his group with the remaining boys on the beach. Later, Jack and his tribe hunt a pig and place its head on a stick to honor the beast. However, another boy, Simon, encounters this “Lord of the Flies” and realizes that the beast does not exist physically but rather within each individual on the island. When Simon travels back to the beach to inform Ralph’s group, the boys accidently murder him because they misidentify him as the beast. On the following day, Jack and his tribe attack Ralph on the beach. During their battle, Ralph’s conch shell is destroyed and one of the Jack's allies, Roger, murders Piggy with a huge boulder. As the result, Ralph escapes and runs away alone (Golding,

The parachutist appears on a night after being shot down. Tangled in his wires, the man is dead. The boys see this figure up on the mountain as a terrifying beast. Simon, a boy with epilepsy climbs the mountain to confront all of the boy’s fears. On the mountain he has a seizure and wakes up in a daze to a sow’s head covered in blood and flies on a stick. Jack and his crude hunters had killed the sow and sacrificed her head as a gift. “This head is for the beast. It’s a gift” (137). Upon waking up, Simon sees this disgusting creature as “dim-eyed, grinning faintly, blood-blackening between the teeth” (137). In his daze Simon and the Lord of the Flies hold a conversation. The head, blackened by flies tells Simon, “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!” (143). The Lord of the Flies meant that Simon couldn’t defeat the beast. The beast was more