- Word of the Week: Plethora (n.)- an excessive quantity or fullness
- Notebooks: What is the central theme of LOTF? (Save discussion for end of class)
- Essays generally lacked the detail called for. Directions stated: Discuss in terms of specific events from the story. The following was profided as an example:
The Symbolism of the Conch In The Lord of the Flies
The conch symbolizes democracy and civilized behavior in The Lord of the Flies, and represents, in how it is treated, the decline of that civilized behavior. In the beginning of the story, Ralph and Piggy find the conch. Piggy knows it can be used as a horn and suggests blowing it to gather the boys who were scattered all over the island. This works. When the boys are together, it is decided that whoever holds the conch has the right to speak. This rule enforces mutual respect and the democratic idea of free speech.
However, Jack is constantly talking over whoever holds the conch. In the beginning, he is restrained by the conch’s power, and especially by Piggy’s constant insistence that the conch be respected. However, because of the fear of the beast, the power of the conch starts to diminish. When Jack uses the conch to call an assembly, he was actually stealing authority from Ralph and thereby lessening the value of the conch. Eventually, Jack no longer pays attention to the conch, as he has used the fear of the beast to gather more of the boys into a separate tribe, until it is only Ralph, Samneric, Piggy and a few Littluns left. Finally, they bring the conch to Castle Rock to confront Jack over the stealing of Piggy’s glasses. Piggy still insists in the power of the conch, however its power by this time is gone and Roger destroys the conch and kills Piggy.
The boys have crossed fully into a state of savagery at this point.
- The bolded lines illustrate events that happened in the story
- The rest of the essay questions were discussed.
- The central theme was discussed: The restraints of society/civilization keep humans from savagery.
- We start the movie tomorrow.
11R
- Word of the week (Same as above.)
- Finish TBAF. Add one more vocab word from the reading:
- poignant: keenly distressing, intense
- Start memory log, finish for HW
- Due to half the class being out 7th period, we'll finish the story tomorrow.
