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William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”
Following material is being provided for your understanding of the literary devices. Answers to the questions can be composed by extracting the relevant information.
Q.Characterization like many elements of storytelling technique is an invisible tool that helps build and portray strong flawed/ flawless and realistic depiction of characters. Explain the above statement in the context of any work of fiction you have read and discuss how a character undergoes different phases of development?
Characterization
Definition
Characterization is a literary device that is used in literature to highlight and explain the details about a character in a story.
In the initial stage the writer introduces the character with noticeable emergence. After introducing the character, the writer often talks about his behavior; then, as the story progresses, the thought-processes of the character.
The next stage involves the character expressing his opinions and ideas, and getting into conversations with the rest of the characters. The final part shows how others in the story respond to the character’s personality.
Types of Characterization
An author can use two approaches to deliver information about a character and build an image of it. These two types of characterization include:
1. Direct or explicit characterization
This kind of characterization takes a direct approach towards building the character. It uses another character, narrator, or the protagonist himself to tell the readers or audience about the subject.
2. Indirect or implicit characterization
This is a more subtle way of introducing the character to the audience. The audience has to deduce for themselves the characteristics of the character by observing his/her thought process, behavior, speech, way of talking, appearance, and manner of communication with other characters, as well as by discerning the response of other characters.
Characters: Lord of the Flies presents both static as well as dynamic characters. Ralph is a dynamic character, as he goes through various changes and has several issues to deal with, while Jack Merridew is also a vibrant character on account of his ambitious and unpredictable nature. Piggy, however, is a static character in that he does not witness any change in his thinking from the first day to the last. Simon, too, is a static character.
Ralph represents leadership, the properly socialized and civilized young man. He is attractive, charismatic, and decently intelligent. He demonstrates obvious common sense. Ralph is the one who conceives the meeting place, the fire, and the huts. He synthesizes and applies Piggy's intellectualism, and he recognizes the false fears and superstitions as barriers to their survival.
Ralph's capacity for leadership is evident from the very beginning (he is the only elected leader of the boys). During the crisis caused by the sight of the dead paratrooper on the mountain, Ralph is able to proceed with both sense and caution. He works vigilantly to keep the group's focus on the hope for rescue. When the time comes to investigate the castle rock, Ralph takes the lead alone, despite his fear of the so-called beast.
Having started with a schoolboy's romantic attitude toward anticipated "adventures" on the island, Ralph eventually loses his excitement about their independence and longs for the comfort of the familiar.As he gains experience with the assemblies, the forum for civilized discourse, he loses faith in them. "Don't we love meetings?" Ralph says bitterly, frustrated that only a few of the
boys actually follow through on their plans.
Over time, Ralph starts to lose his power of organized thought, such as when he struggles to develop an agenda for the meeting but finds himself lost in an inarticulate maze of vague thoughts.
When "[w]ith a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay," he is symbolically discovering humankind's dark side.
Although he becomes worn down by the hardships and fears of primitive life and is gradually infected by the savagery of the other boys, Ralph is the only character who identifies Simon's death as murder and has a realistic, unvarnished view of his participation. He feels both loathing and excitement over the kill he witnessed.
Once Ralph becomes prey, he realizes that he is an outcast "Cos I had some sense" — not just common sense but a sense of his identity as a civilized person, a sense of the particular morality that had governed the boys' culture back home.
When Ralph encounters the officer on the beach at the end of the book, he is not relieved at being rescued from death but discomforted over "his filthy appearance," an indication that his civility had endured his ordeal. In exchange for his innocence, he has gained an understanding of humankind's natural character, an understanding not heretofore available to him: that evil is universally present in all people and requires a constant resistance by the intellect that was Piggy, by the mysticism and spiritualism that was Simon, and by the hopes and dreams that are his.
(Since Ralph figures prominently in every chapter, there are many diverse incidents throughout the novel that reveal his character—e.g., the first meeting in chapter 1; Ralph’s discovery that the hunters left the fire unattended in chapter 4; revelations of his thoughts and feelings at the beginning of chapter 7; the conversation with Piggy the morning after Simon’s death).
Character sketch
1.Ralph
At the beginning, Ralph sees the experience as a welcome adventure away from adult supervision. He is good-looking, fair-haired, and athletic-looking. When he is elected leader, he gives Jack a position of responsibility as head of the hunters, while he himself attempts hut-building. He is exasperated at the others’
irresponsibility and becomes gradually but increasingly aware of his inadequacy as their leader; he tires of this island adventure. He participates in and later is appalled by the killing of Simon, then finds himself left only with Piggy, Sam, and Eric. After Piggy is killed by the boulder, he is forced to flee for his life and is saved only by the appearance of the navy. As the novel closes, he cries tears of relief, exhaustion, and grief—very different from the happy-go-lucky boy in the opening chapter.
Along the way we see that Ralph is a more-than-decent person who learns to think and to doubt his own abilities. He also learns to see below the surface of people and to be compassionate. Circumstances force him to understand the brutality of which even the very young are capable.
2.Jack
Jack, too, figures prominently throughout the novel, but Golding presents little access to the inner workings of his mind. Again, students should select incidents that span the text. Among many possibilities are the following: Jack’s first appearance with the choir in chapter 1; hunting at the beginning of chapter 3; his behavior after the hunters kill the sow in chapter 8; his responses to Piggy and Ralph in chapter 11.
He was the choir leader at school—a position of considerable respect. From the beginning, the text asserts that he is not an attractive person (the only boy for whom Golding uses the word “ugly”), and his irritability, competitiveness, and desire for control are evident. He successfully learns to hunt and strives to wrest control from Ralph, whom he grows to despise. He is cruel to Piggy just because the boy is so vulnerable. Jack is a bully who feels bigger by demeaning others. As he draws the others away to his gang, he becomes increasingly tyrannical. The killing of the sow is a vivid portrait of what he becomes. By the end, his actions are mindless and totally destructive. The arrival of the navy at the end abruptly shifts readers’ perspectives, as the savages, including Jack, appear as the little boys they are.
We can only guess what might become of Jack after the events in the novel. Would he experience remorse, engage in denial, or only laugh about what happened on the island? Is his nature genuinely evil, or did the castaway experience come at a particularly dark time in his early adolescence? Readers
know that he craves a position of power and is a doer rather than a thinker. He is a powerful leader, capable of manipulating the others, easily angered,
and ruthless.
3.Piggy
For Piggy, too, many moments in the novel offer rich insights. Some of the most telling include his conversations with Ralph and his efforts to participate in the boys’ meetings, as well as his brave determination to demand his rights in chapter 11.
Piggy is overweight and asthmatic—and he has weak eyes. He seems to have been raised by his aunt, and he loathes the nickname given him by previous schoolmates and restored by Ralph at the very beginning. He expresses a lot of confidence in adults’ ability to enforce order and to solve problems. He believes in the authority represented by the conch. He is interested in ideas and intensely loyal to Ralph, partly because he recognizes his own vulnerability to Jack. He is outraged by the theft of his glasses, on which he is very dependent.
Readers can deduce his intelligence and interest in science and technology, and he shows a surprising bravery and idealism in his approach to demand the return of his glasses. He is loyal to Ralph, and senses the dangers posed by Jack’s leadership. Piggy is a thinker rather than a doer. At the end Ralph, who at first made fun of Piggy, mourns the loss of a boy he grew to value deeply; many readers also mourn this loss.
Q.2 Explain climax and anticlimax with reference to any narrative work of literature you have read.
Plot
In a narrative or creative writing, a plot is the sequence of events that make up a story.The plot is the story, and more specifically, how the story develops, unfolds, and moves in time.
Reading a story is like climbing a ladder, with the climax at the top.Climax is the highest point of tension or drama in a narratives’ plot. Often, climax is also when the main problem of the story is faced and solved by the main character or protagonist. The basic elements of plot are as follows:
1. Exposition: Characters and setting are established and the conflict, or problem, is introduced.
2. Rising action: The conflict begins to affect the characters, complicating their lives.
3. Climax: The conflict is faced during the main, most dramatic event of the story.
4. Falling action: The story begins to slow down, showing results of the climax.
5. Resolution: The story is tied up and concluded.
Anticlimax
These re the events that occur after the climax . The protagonist loses control and there is a snowballing effect.After the murder of Simon ,only Ralph comprehends what has happened and how far the group has fallen .Ralph who was leading to rescue all the boys was later abandoned by everyone.He had to escape inorder to save himself from their savagery.This was the anticlimax of the novel.
Setting
Setting is where and when the story takes place. It includes the following:
Setting can function as a main force that the characters encounter, such as a tornado or flood, or a setting can play a minor role such as setting the mood. Often times, the setting can reveal something about the main character as he/she functions in that place and time period.
Conflict
Conflict is the struggle between two entities. In story writing the main character, also known as the protagonist, encounters a conflict with the antagonist, which is an adversary. The conflict
may be one of six kinds:
● Character vs. character
● Character vs. nature or natural forces
● Character vs. society or culture
● Character vs. machine or technology
● Character vs. God
● Character vs himself or herself
Point of View
Stories are generally told in one of two points of views:
● First-person point of view
● Third-person point of view
First-person point of view means that one of the characters in the story will narrate–give an account–of the story. The narrator may be the protagonist, the main character. Writing in first-person point of view brings the readers closer to the story. They can read it as if they are the character because personal pronouns like I, me, my, we, us, and our are used.
Third-person point of view means that the narrator is not in the story. The third-person narrator is not a character. Third-person point of view can be done two ways:
● Third-person limited
● Third-person omniscient
Third-person limited means that the narrator limits him/herself by being able to be in one character’s thoughts. Whereas, third-person omniscient means the narrator has unlimited
ability to be in various character’s thoughts. Writing in third-person point of view removes readers from the story because of the pronouns he, she, it, him, her, his, hers, they, them, and theirs.
Theme
A theme is not the plot of the story. It is the underlying truth that is being conveyed in the story. Themes can be universal, meaning they are understood by readers no matter what culture or country the readers are in. Common themes include coming of age, circle of life, prejudice, greed, good vs. evil, beating the odds, etc.
Summary of the novel.
A group of English schoolboys are marooned on a jungle island with no adults after their plane is shot down in the middle of a war. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell. Ralph blows into it like a horn, and all the boys on the island assemble. At the assembly, a boy named Jack mocks Piggy for being fat and runs against Ralph to become chief of the group. Ralph wins the election, and declares Jack the leader of the group's hunters. Soon after, Ralph, Jack, and another boy named Simon explore the island and discover wild pigs.
At a second assembly, the boys set up rules to govern themselves. The first rule is that whoever wants to speak at an assembly must hold the conch. At the meeting, one young boy claims he saw a "beastie" in the jungle, but Ralph dismisses it as just the product of a nightmare. Ralph then suggests that they build a signal fire at the top of a mountain so any passing ships will see its smoke and rescue them. The boys use Piggy's glasses to light the fire, but they're careless, and accidentally set part of the forest on fire. The boy who saw the
beastie vanishes during the fire and is never seen again.
Time passes. Tensions rise. Ralph becomes frustrated when no one helps him build shelters. Lots of boys goof off, while Jack obsesses about hunting and takes every opportunity to mock Piggy, who is smart but weak. Simon, meanwhile, often wanders off into the forest to meditate. The rivalry between Ralph and Jack erupts when Jack forces the boys who were supposed to watch the signal fire come hunting with him. They kill their first pig, but a ship passes while the signal fire is out, which causes a tremendous argument between Ralph and Jack.
Ralph calls an assembly hoping to set things right. But the meeting soon becomes chaotic as several younger boys talk about the beast. Now even the bigger boys are fearful. That night, after a distant airplane battle, a dead parachutist lands on the mountaintop next to the signal fire. The boys on duty at the fire think it's the beast. Soon Ralph and Jack lead an expedition to search the island for the beast. While searching, they find a rock outcropping that would make a great fort, but no beast. Tempers between the two boys soon flare up, and they climb the mountain in the dark to prove their courage. They spot the shadowy parachutist and think he's the beast.
The next morning, Jack challenges Ralph's authority at an assembly. Ralph wins, but Jack leaves the group, and most of the older boys join him. Jack's tribe paint their faces, hunt, and kill a pig. They then leave its head as an offering to the beast. Simon comes upon the head, and sees that it's the Lord of the Flies—the beast within all men. While Jack invites everyone to come to a feast, Simon climbs the mountain and sees the parachutist. When Simon returns to tell everyone the truth about the "beast," however, the boys at the feast have become
a frenzied mob, acting out a ritual killing of a pig. The mob thinks Simon is the beast and kills him.
Jack's tribe moves to the rock fort. They steal Piggy's glasses to make fire. Ralph and his last allies, Piggy and the twins named Samneric, go to get the glasses back. Jack's tribe captures the twins, and a boy named Roger rolls a boulder from the fort that smashes the conch and kills Piggy. The next day the tribe hunts Ralph, setting fire to the forest as they do. He evades them as best he can, and becomes a kind of animal that thinks only of survival and escape. Eventually the boys corner Ralph on the beach where they first set up their society when they crash landed on the island. But the burning jungle has attracted a British Naval ship, and an officer is standing on the shore. The boys stop, stunned, and stare at the man. He jokingly asks if the boys are playing at war, and whether there were any casualties. When Ralph says yes, the officer is shocked and disappointed that English boys would act in such a manner. Ralph starts to cry, and soon the other boys start crying too. The officer, uncomfortable, looks away toward his warship.
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