Bibliography

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/war/evacuation.htm
http://anglogermanhistoricaltrust.org/exhibit5.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies#Influence
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1983/golding-bio.html
http://www.notable-quotes.com/g/golding_william.html
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/lordoftheflies/

Look at the bottom for graphics.

Thanks for reading!


Warner and Keith

Character

Warner: Ohhh, cos Ralph is like the person in the book that has the most power over everyone else. He just has the leadership skills and uses them for the good of the group. He also possesses common sense.

Keith: Yeah, he does seem like a pretty good leader.

‘The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don’t keep a fire going?

Here Ralph is using his authority to try and get the group to make a fire, which will help the group being rescued. He is doing this for the good of the group. He shows consideration for others, not just himself, in contrary to Jack.

Warner: Don’t forget a leader also needs common sense to make the right decisions.

Keith: Well, I’m sure that Ralph has common sense.

‘We’re silly. Why should we only two go? If we find anything, it won’t be enough’ ~Ralph (to the group discussing about how many people should go to confront the beast’ pg 148

Ralph is using his common sense because it seems too risky to send only two people to confront the new threat – the beast. A normal leader should such as Ralph, obviously thinks of the threats and sees ways to deal with it. He reflects on his decisions and is usually one of the first to comment on the fact that something is wrong.

Keith: I found evidence of both of these qualities!!

‘Listen everybody. I’ve got to have time to think things out. I can’t decide what to do straight off” ~ Ralph pg 31

Here, Ralph knows that he should not think his immediate feelings and decisions; he also has the common sense to tell everyone to give him sometime to think. Ralph knows what to do and what he is capable of, just like a proper leader.

Ralph is a natural leader and also a logical thinker who uses common sense to make decisions.

Context

The book ‘The Lord of The Flies’ is a story about a group of young boys who crash land onto a mysterious island. The boys appear to be from Britain and they are in a time of an unknown nuclear war. Their knowledge of right and wrong and their morals had no longer been apparent.

Quotes

• ‘Didn't you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They're all dead.’ pg 20

This quote proves that the Lord of the Flies is set in an unknown nuclear war but presumably World War II because it was the only war that the atomic bomb was actually used. In the World War II, when children from Britain were evacuated from large towns in Britain because it was thought that there would be German bombings in Britain.

• ‘The Fair Boy stopped and jerked his stockings with an automatic gesture that made the jungle seem for a moment like the mother countries.’ Pg 11

This quote proves that the boys are from Britain and strengthens the fact that these boys were on the downed plane because they had to be evacuated. The stockings are signs that these boys are British.

• ‘Beyond the platform there was more enchantment. Some act of god – a typhoon perhaps, or the storm that accompanied his own arrival.’ Pg 18

From this quote, readers would infer that the story is set on an tropical island because the author wrote ‘typhoon’ which is a tropical storm. The author chose to use the word typhoon not just another simpler loose term.

William Golding who himself served in the war, may have written the ‘Lord Of the Flies’ because he wanted to subtly teach people that war is not pretty and that man is not always good.

During the 1950’s (when the book was written) there was a nuclear arms race between Russia and America. War seemed imminent. Golding would probably write this book because of the fact that he wanted to use his book to influence people's view on mankind and how war, violence and the loss of moral integrity could ultimately destroy mankind.