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

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

为什么The 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

提示A sea object that makes a loud sound.

为什么The 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

提示The boys are hoping a vessel will notice them.

为什么The 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

提示A creature the younger boys have been afraid of for days.

为什么The 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

提示He arrives in the dark in the middle of a ritual dance.

为什么Simon 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

提示A vessel has noticed the blaze.

为什么The 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

提示The destruction of the conch and a death happen together.

为什么The 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

提示Look at what he is standing in front of.

为什么The 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

提示The same as the months in a year.

为什么The 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

提示It explained why the boys were on the plane.

为什么His 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

提示A name for the devil, linked with pride and war.

为什么The 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.