Modern texts, Year 11: the story and how the novel is built (Lord of the Flies option)

Their plane is shot down during a wartime evacuation, and the adults do not survive

HintThe setting is a time of war, and the boys are being moved to safety.

The whyThe survivors are boys in middle childhood or just before adolescence, and no adult is left to guide them. The novel never names the island or says exactly where it is.

A conch shell, blown like a horn

HintA sea object that makes a loud sound.

The whyThe shell calls the boys to their first assembly, where Ralph is elected chief. Later it becomes the sign of who has the right to speak.

A signal fire, so that smoke can be seen by any passing ship

HintThe boys are hoping a vessel will notice them.

The whyThe fire stands for the chance of rescue, and so for the link with civilisation. Whether it is kept alight becomes the main quarrel between Ralph and Jack.

The beast

HintA creature the younger boys have been afraid of for days.

The whyThe body of a pilot from a distant air battle comes down on the mountain. The boys flee in terror, which makes the beast seem real to everyone.

The frenzied boys at the feast mistake him for the beast and kill him

HintHe arrives in the dark in the middle of a ritual dance.

The whySimon is the one boy who understands the truth, and he is killed for it. The boys who take part in the killing include some who had been Ralph's allies.

A naval officer from a British warship, drawn by the smoke of the burning forest

HintA vessel has noticed the blaze.

The whyThe tribe's own fire, lit to flush Ralph out, is what summons rescue. The officer thinks of the boys' behaviour as a disappointing game and does not see the full horror.

When a boulder, rolled by Roger, kills Piggy and smashes it

HintThe destruction of the conch and a death happen together.

The whyThe death of Piggy and the smashing of the shell are one event, which ends reason and order together. After it Ralph is a hunted outcast.

He is disappointed at the boys' war-like behaviour, yet he commands a warship from a world that is at war

HintLook at what he is standing in front of.

The whyThe officer takes it for granted that the adult world is civilised, though a war is going on. The ending suggests that the savagery on the island is not so different from the one outside.

12

HintThe same as the months in a year.

The whyThe first chapters build up the boys' attempt at order, the middle ones their fear of the beast, and the last ones their savagery and the hunt for Ralph.

An evacuation from a nuclear war

HintIt explained why the boys were on the plane.

The whyHis editor removed the whole section, so that the novel opens straight on the island. The reader meets the boys already stranded, with the war as a distant background.

Beelzebub, a demon in the Bible

HintA name for the devil, linked with pride and war.

The whyThe title points to the pig's head on a stick that Simon meets in the forest. The head tells him that the beast is part of the boys themselves.