William Golding – “Lord of the Flies”

A How-to Guide to outline a step-by-step multimedia integrated study and analysis of William Golding and his "Lord of the Flies"

Stampa / Condividi

Obiettivi

Allowing the students to:
1. fully understand the main features of Golding's works with a more specific focus on his "Lord of the Flies";
2. improve their general knowledge of modern dystopian fiction;
3. enlarge their vocabulary through the study and acquisition of new words;
4. comprehend what lies behind the allegory of Golding's novel.

Tempo di apprendimento

Apprendimento in: 3 hours

L'argomento

A How-To Guide

Stage 1 – On your textbook

1.1. Read page 358 [William Golding] and do Exercise 1.
Listen to the short lecture about his life and works, complete it inserting the missing words. Then read the other two paragraphs about his concerns and the structure of his novels. Pay attention to his belief that man’s propensity for evil is far greater than his propensity for goodness and focus on his creation of a structure used as an emblem of the spiritual life, whose reality is to be found in the realm of imagination so as to convey two narrative movements and two different perspectives of the same situation. In the end, it really matters that you are able to understand that according to Golding paradox is a condition of existence in itself and not only a mere spiritual concept anymore.

1.2. Read page 359/360 [Lord of the Flies] and do Exercise 1.

1. As to the plot and setting it could be interesting to see how, unlike in Robinson Crusoe where the island was the perfect location to prove his faith in God and his middle class use of reason, it is here the hellish place where to show what man is when stripped of any social values and rules, when reason is crushed under the unbearable weight of what is ancestrally irrational and untellable.
2. Focus on the symbolic value of the main characters:

CHARACTERS	SYMBOLS OF
Ralph	reason, democracy and civilisation
Jack	savagery, violence and instinct
Piggy	the voice of rationalism
Simon	intelligence and sensitivity

and the main objects;
3. Pay a particular attention to the two phase structure and to the fusion of the abstract, the symbolic and the concrete in the language that he uses.

1.2.1. Read page 360 [Key Idea]
Read the paragraph and take a good chance for comparing/contrasting the idea of the darkness of the human soul in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, still mixed up with social and ethic instances and situations e.g. the Belgian brutal colonization of Congo, and in Lord of the Flies where it is exposed bare naked with no external influencing factors of any sort.

Stage 2 – Online

2.1. William Golding (PPT Presentation)
Sum up your knowledge through the reading of the PPT presentation from your textbook.
Pay a particular attention to the last two slides, the one about Lord of the Flies as a political allegory and the one about Lord of the Flies as a religious allegory, another clear example of Golding’s typical twofold structure.

2.2. ZTE Test (Online Activity)

Do the test

2.3. Golding’s Introduction to Lord of the Flies (Video Resource)
Complete your knowledge of Lord of the Flies listening to the introduction by William Golding himself. In case you aren’t able to understand some words or sentences you may turn on the subtitles.

2.4. Understanding Symbolism in Lord of the Flies (Final Corrected Version) (Video Resource)
Do as you did in Activity 2.3.

2.5. Lord of the Flies Revision: Themes (Video Resource)
Explore and organize the main themes of the novel together with a better comprehension of Golding’s style and basic ideas.

2.6. What is the meaning of the title in Lord of the Flies? (Online Resource)
A simple but useful explanation about the reason why Golding chose this title.

Read it