OnlyAmbrose wrote:Alright. I was supposed to read two books over the summer for Humanities next year but I didn't, and I really don't want to spend my final days of summer reading.
Can someone please summarize the plot, themes, and motifs of Lord of the Flies and Five People you Meet in Heaven?
Thanks in advance.
Lord of the Flies: Group of kids get stranded on an island during WWII and must learn to live together. Not long after they have arrived, talk about "the beast" begin to appear and though it starts off as just simple nightmares of the younger kids it quickly grows and becomes one of the primary concerns for the islanders. The main character of the story is Ralph and because he is one of the oldest and the one with the conch he becomes the leader. Ralph being the logical type realizes that their best chances of survival are to be rescued works out a plan with the other kids to start up a fire on top of the large flat topped mountain to attract boats. Another important character in the story is Jack, who was the leader of the boy's choir and ran against Ralph to become leader and later became a hunter and led a team of fellow hunters to kill the wild boars on the island, however Jack does not take orders from Ralph well and goes by what he thinks is right, even at one point letting the fire go out (which he promised that he would maintain) so that he and his fellow hunters could remain on the hunt. As it would happen, while the fire was out, a boat came by and when Ralph and the others had failed to get their attention and realized that the fire was out, an argument broke out between Jack and Ralph fueling already mounting tension between them. Another important character is Piggy, who was with Ralph when he found the conch. Piggy is the nickname given to him by the other kids on the island because of his weight, and out of all the survivors, he is the smartest and often seen giving advice to Ralph (such as blowing the conch to summon the others and starting the fire.) However, Piggy is a shy person and because of this is not a natural leader usually reduced to staying in the background rather than taking the forefront. The final character to talk about is Simon. Simon is one of the quieter kids and the first one to discover the true nature of "the beast", which is actually the symbol for the combined weaknesses of the kids (fear, jealousy, arrogance), however as he goes back to tell the group this he himself is mistaken for the beast and killed.
As time goes by on the island, things grow worse and worse. Fear of the beast reaches an all-time highs as a "confirmed sighting" at the top of the mountain (actually a dead man in a parachute) has everyone panicking and Ralph decides that they should no longer build the fire on the mountain but instead on the beach. At the same time, Jack and his hunters are growing more and more unstable. As tensions grow, Jack begins to make offerings to the beast by leaving the slain boar's head on a pike. At the same time, his relationship with Ralph worsens as rescue seems less and less likely and he convinces his hunters of the same. Eventually during a meeting, Jack announces that he and his hunters would seperate themselves from the rest of them and take many of the other big kids with them.
With the tribe seperated and more and more of the survivors becoming unhappy, the decisions that Ralph and Piggy must make become more important while the more carefree lifestyle of the hunters becomes more favorable to the older kids. As the book nears it's end it also becomes clear that Jack and the hunters have become unstable and even engage on a hunt to kill Ralph and eat him, setting up a massive escape for Ralph and the death of Piggy. In the end, Jack sets the forest on fire to smoke Ralph out killing most of his resources with it and the fire attracts a nearby British ship to come to their rescue.
Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 12:42 am
