AQA GCSE English Literature Paper 2 - Lord of the Flies

1. Choir’s black uniform (6):

Choir’s black uniform:

• Sinister & symbolises military

• Depersonalises & reduces individualism = allows harsher actions via impunity & justification ‘it was just my role’

• Results in duality: human condition is attracted to freedom/innocence & order/punishment

• Jack’s irony: starts from most innocent to most evil (excl. Roger)

• Simon’s escape & solitarity: Christian visionary (how life can be peaceful)

• Golding’s viewpoint: rejects Simon’s approach to achieve salvation

2. Beast & ‘snake thing’ & original sin/fear (3):

Beast & ‘snake thing’ & original sin/fear:

• Vehicle for Jack to instill fear & gain control

• Parallels/alludes to original sin (Garden of Eden)

• Evil is within all of us & passed down through ancestry (Adam and Eve)

3. Jack’s knife (2):

Jack’s knife:

• Golding gives specifically to Jack: increases power & symbolises desire for violence/control

• Can’t kill pig: veneer of civilisation which gradually strips away (through killing of sow)

4. Dislike of Piggy (5):

Dislike of Piggy:

• Feminine role (asks for little-uns’ names)

• Jack as a foil: distrusts the feminine

• Golding’s viewpoint: masculine behavior excludes/looks down upon/exploits women

• Other: (asthma, obese): easier to reject (alludes to Nazi’s demonisation/dehumanisation)

• Simon’s lack of protection: enough to be good or necessary to act positively?

5. Killing of sow (6):

Killing of sow:

• Parallel to Piggy

• Sexual: violence = sexual violence

• Golding’s viewpoint: society allows masculinity to be abuse & treat women without care/respect (rejection)

• Rejection of rational: source of more pigs is killed = symbol of self-destruction (as economy of island is ruined)

• Simon’s rejection of violence: violence still turns on him

• Golding’s viewpoint: pacifism = ineffective (external threat = necessary to produce inner evil & combat it or portrays Simon as a role model for survival?)

6. Simon’s death (6):

Simon’s death:

• Works out Beast isn’t real: suggests that evil is internal (not external) & fear = evil of human condition

• Man on the hill = Jesus’s crucifixion

• Lack of communication = powerlessness (desire for goodness < human evil/masculine control & destruction)

• Attack (‘ripping of tooth and claw’): parody of transubstantiation (consuming wine & bread = turn into Jesus’s blood & body)

• Equality in evil: expression of all boy’s concealed savagery

• Inverted salvation: Jesus dies to save humanity from sin/evil, whereas Simon catalyses it

7. Christian Symbolism (3):

Christian Symbolism:

• Body floating/walking into water = soul being taken into heaven (contrasts with horrific murder)

• Island’s lack of notice = Island’s abandonment of Christianity

• Retelling of Jesus’s story = hope, undermines story as Simon succumbs to the hands of savagery = no hope of salvation (leaving not leading)

8. Killing of Piggy (5):

Killing of Piggy:

• Absolute rejection of femininity/rationality

• Allowing Roger to find a voice & control (even though not all boys are evil) = Roger’s complete evil/beyond control (even overtakes Jack)

• Golding’s viewpoint: even Supreme Rulers (Jack) is not as powerful as the violence that they unleash (turn to violence/destruction = more violence/destruction that can’t be controlled & could result in own destruction)

• Simon’s death: all future deaths are possible

• Golding’s viewpoint: human condition = continual decline spiral of violence/evil

9. Fire to kill Ralph (4):

Fire to kill Ralph:

• Complete dissipation of rationality: all land/food destroyed & leads to suffocation in order to satiate killing

• Golding’s viewpoint: dictatorships (symbolised by Jack) = irrational solution to political/social problems

• Golding’s viewpoint: war appears morally just, however consequence of war = pyric victory

• Golding’s viewpoint: fears & propensity for evil & attraction for tyrannical leaders (i.e. Jack & Roger) = entirely destroys society

10. Improbable rescue (6):

Improbable rescue:

• Pyric irony: fire’s destruction of island = saves boys’ lives (optimistic ending: hope via survival)

• Cruiser (boat of war): taken back & educated into war

• Golding’s viewpoint: Jack’s violence/tyranny > Ralph’s fair play/democracy

• However, Jack not saying he’s in charge: loss of power (order of public schools/public fair play > violent destruction/tyranny & optimistic ending)

• Officer’s insolence: ‘putting on a good show’ when realising that the boys try to murder each other

• Simon’s attempt to rescue boys from destruction (which fails) = Officer’s attempt (which is successful) = optimistic view of society