Every card in Modern texts, Year 11: the story and how the novel is built (Lord of the Flies option)
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- How do the boys come to be alone on the island at the start of Lord of the Flies?
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.
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.
- What do Ralph and Piggy find that Ralph uses to call the survivors together?
A conch shell, blown like a horn
HintA sea object that makes a loud sound.
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.
- Ralph tells the boys that something must always be kept burning on the mountain. What is it for?
A signal fire, so that smoke can be seen by any passing ship
HintThe boys are hoping a vessel will notice them.
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.
- What do the boys on watch mistake the dead parachutist for?
The beast
HintA creature the younger boys have been afraid of for days.
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.
- What happens to Simon when he hurries back to tell the others what the beast really is?
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.
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.
- Who finally arrives and ends the hunt for Ralph at the end?
A naval officer from a British warship, drawn by the smoke of the burning forest
HintA vessel has noticed the blaze.
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 does the conch lose its power for ever in Lord of the Flies?
When a boulder, rolled by Roger, kills Piggy and smashes it
HintThe destruction of the conch and a death happen together.
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.
- The novel ends with a naval officer who is shocked by the boys' behaviour. What irony is there in his reaction?
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.
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.
- How many chapters does Lord of the Flies have? (number only)
12
HintThe same as the months in a year.
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.
- Golding's first draft began with a section that was later cut. What did it describe?
An evacuation from a nuclear war
HintIt explained why the boys were on the plane.
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.
- The title of the novel is a translation of the name of which figure?
Beelzebub, a demon in the Bible
HintA name for the devil, linked with pride and war.
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.
1★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0059
2★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0060
3★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0061
4★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0062
5★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0063
6★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0064
7★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0065
8★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0066
9★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0067
10★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0068
11★ GCSE-ENLI-MOD-0069
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