Journal #2: Lord of the Flies (Summative)

The last week saw great discussions between me, Trevor, and Danny, with all three of us contributing ideas and listening to others, while Brenden and Chyna did not talk much, but they were listening. We tried to post questions to them and encouraged them to get them active in the discussion. Also, Ms. Caldwell visited our group twice which really gave us an extra boost and made us think deeper into the layers.

On the day of the mini-lesson about symbolism, we discussed about examples of symbolism in Lord of the Flies. The fire on the island symbolizes hope to be rescued and power. When Jack disobeyed the rules of the assembly, he had the support of his choir while Ralph lost support and power. Then Ralph's fire dwindled while Jack's fire grew. Another type of symbolism that we noticed was the conch representing power. Whoever had the conch would be able to speak in an assembly and everyone else would have to listen. However, when the rules are broken, chaos occurs. The trust between Ralph and Jack is destructed, along with Ralph's confidence. Our group also discussed the five words that Ms. Caldwell gave us and connotation of the word. I remember our group looked at the word "destruction" and posed the question: When might destruction be positive? When one is using destruction to destroy a negative issue, such as the Allied forces fighting against Germans and the Holocaust in World War Two, that is definitely an example of positive destruction.

Then, on Wednesday, Ms. Caldwell gave us an open discussion. Sometimes, Brenden would go off-topic by shouting random words out, but me and Trevor did a good job putting him back on topic. We looked at the board and discussed irony. One big irony that we discovered was that Jack was the biggest and oldest, however, he is the most immature out of everyone as he says "'Bullocks to the rules! We're strong - we hunt! If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down! We'll close in and beat and beat - !'" (P.99) when Jack was going hunting for a pig other than keeping the fire alive when there was a ship. Had they kept the fire going they might have been rescued, but Jack just lets it go as if he did not care at all, which he does care. Another irony we found was in the front cover of the book. The title of our book is "Lord of the Flies", but for some reason, there is an image of a bloody pig shown. Because that we have not read up to the part where it introduces "Lord of the Flies", we do not know exactly what it is, but we can infer that there is a boy named Piggy, and he is being tortured by an evil person.



Reading this book made me think of the books "Hatchet" and "The Life of Pi". In "Hatchet", the protagonist is living in the wilderness all by himself and tries to survive by making food and shelter with his hatchet that was given to him; and in "The Life of Pi", the main character escaped a shipwreck by sailing off in a rescue boat with a lion. He tries to survive in the middle of the ocean with limited food supplies. Both of these books talk about survival, which is why I made the connection to "Lord of the Flies". Whether it was the main character by himself or with a group of people, they are all stranded somewhere with no grown-ups and try to survive.

When Ralph was on the island for the first time with no grown-ups, he loved it. He would go swimming, exploring - all without the pressure of adults. He had all the freedom he wanted. However, later on in the story, he feels homesick. He had no showered since he was on the island, his clothes were worn and dirty, and wanted to use his nails as a toothbrush! I connect Ralph to myself, as last year when I went on the school trip to Orlando, I felt free and happy because there was absolutely no pressure, and I got to enjoy the sunshine. However, near the end of the trip, I realized how much I missed home, just like Ralph.

Another connection I wanted to make was the Germans cutting off the food supply of the Dutch in World War Two. Because that the Dutch had no food, they were doing everything they needed to survive, which includes eating tulip bulbs. They had no chance of surviving had not the Canadians risked their lives to help liberate the Dutch. The same thing is happening in this book. Ralph and the others have a limited food supply that will run out, if no one rescues them.

Brenden also gave a very insightful connection to note as he connected "Lord of the Flies" to the German translation Beezlebub. Beezlebub, known as the "prince of demons" is one of the seven princes of hell, which can connect to our title saying that there is one person in the group of children who could be evil. The person that I think is the most evil in the book is Jack, as he "made a step forward and smacked Piggy's head" (p.75) and broke his specs. Jack was a bigger and older person than Piggy, but he still beat Piggy up. Not to mention that he disobeyed the rules of only the people who possessed the conch could speak. Is this not looking like the "prince of demons"?



In the past two discussions I had contributed a great amount. I have also listened carefully to what my group members had to say and added on to them. For example, when Danny said that Jack is older but more immature, I said that it was an example of irony. I am also liking the discussions more as our group can come together and pull off effective discussions about the book and I like the book too.

When my group is discussing, time goes by so fast that the class ends before we know it. We are very engaged into the discussion as we talk about the symbolism, irony, characters, metaphors, setting, and the key words. We work really well as a group.