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BEFORE WE TALK ABOUT LOTF…

- “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

- Social Contract – men are animals until they can act together in civil society and agree to bind themselves to laws. This removes him from the state of nature and makes him into a true man.

- “The heart of the idea of the social contract may be stated simply: Each of us places his person and authority under the supreme direction of the general will, and the group receives each individual as an indivisible part of the whole.”

- When entering into a social contract, it is important that man must be free. He must be able to leave the contract at any time.

- Today we talk about Tacit Consent, which means that, by remaining in territory controlled by a society, we agree to abide by that society’s codes and laws.

THE ROMANTICS

Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake and Byron saw man as a “noble savage” whose natural goodness were corrupted by unjust social laws

The noble savage is more in tune with nature and the divine. He is pure and good, until the world of laws and regulations imprison him.

Romantics valued the individual will, and independence from tyranny. They therefore idealized countries seeking their independence, like America and France.

BUT THEN…

The French Revolution lowers everyone’s expectations of what mankind is capable of

What should have proved that man needs independence and freedom from unjust laws only proves that, without some kind of government, man goes crazy and floods the streets with blood.

Original Sin – the idea that mankind is naturally tainted by sin, that there is something impure and evil in the human soul. Biblical story of Adam and Eve.

KEY QUESTIONS

What happens when no one is watching? How do people act when there is no one telling them what to do (and

what not to do)? The answer will tell us something about human nature: whether

mankind is naturally good, or whether we are all inherently evil.

WHAT’S THIS GOT TO DO WITH LOTF?

Golding wrote LotF in reaction to World War II

He believed that WWII occurred because man could not control his own dark impulses, that there was naturally something sinister and cruel within humans

Themes:

1. Mankind is naturally evil and, without social order and government, will devolve into chaos and violence.

2. Mankind is naturally good and, without social order and government, will develop new laws to protect natural human rights.

KEY CONCEPTS

• Symbol –a word or object that stands for or represents another thing; an object with both a literal and metaphoric meaning

• Allegory – A story in which almost everything is symbolic; a drawn out metaphor.

• Juxtaposition – putting two or more ideas, characters, actions side by side for a specific rhetorical reason – to compare, contrast, build character, make a point

• Irony – • Verbal Irony – the character says the opposite of what is true• Dramatic Irony – the audience knows something that the characters

do not• Cosmic Irony – the sense that some unknown force brings about dire

and dreadful events

• Mob Mentality & Groupthink

MORE KEY QUESTIONS

What is the Beast? Where does its power come from?

What is symbolic ? How do these symbols work together?

Make lots of predictions! What would you do in this scenario?

Who is heroic? What does it mean to be a hero in this novel?