LOTF Chapter 4

1. LOTF Chapter 4

2. Antithesis • Based on pointing out the contrast in opposing ideas • Note the shift in their daily lives • “The pleasures of the morning, the bright sun” • “Strange things happened at midday.” “At midday the illusions merged into the sky and there the sun gazed down like an angry eye.” • “menaced by the coming of the dark” • The chapter begins in the morning and ends at night. Begins by the ocean and ends on the mountain. Begins with water and ends with blood.

3. Littluns and Savagery • Following only their basest instincts • “They decrease in size” • “led a quite distinct, and at the same time intense life of their own.” • “their passionately emotional and corporate life was their own” • What is the symbolic meaning of the littluns?

4. Roger- The Evolution of the Psycho • The only boy whose skin never seemed to tan, and his black hair “made a unsocial remoteness something forbidding.” • Destroys the sand castles of the littluns- “Maurice felt the unease of wrongdoing”- Roger did not • “Roger waited too.” – stalking his prey • “At first he hid behind a great palm… he stood out in full view.” • Threw stones to miss- “Here invisible yet strong was the taboo of old life.” • “A darker shadow crept beneath the swarthiness of his skin.”

5. Painted Faces • Red, White, and Black- significance? • “Jack planned his new face.” • He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger.” • The masque of a new identity= new morals • Liberated from shame and self-consciousness- the power of mirrors • The mask compelled them • Notice how this party is separated from Ralph and Piggy

6. Piggy • “his glasses STILL flashed when he looked at anything” • The only boy whose hair never seemed to grow. • “this imperfect covering would soon go” • Why is Piggy the outsider? • Notice how he compares to Ralph whom is described as the most comfortable on the island and has given up chance of rescue

7. The Hunters return • Wore black caps but were otherwise naked • Simon looked from Jack to Ralph and what he saw made him afraid- child scared of his parents arguing • “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.” • Several bits of importance in this chant • The pigs dropped “black gouts on the rock” • “I cut the pig’s throat” … twitched as he said it • “You let the fire go out.” What replaces the fire?

8. The Language Barrier • Notice how the boys rarely talk in more than one sentence at a time. • As their frustrations rise, their use of language falls. • Therefore, Jack resorts to violence in the face of Piggy’s logic • “There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill, and there was the world of longing and baffled common sense.” Apollo v Dionysus • It is violence that cracks Piggy’s specs. Significance? • Jack’s apology vs. Ralph’s lack of acceptance; whom is right in their actions? • The statement of Ralph holding his ground

9. They were on different sides of a high barrier • Jack breaks the trust that held them together and Ralph cannot forgive him for it. • “a link had broken and fastened elsewhere.” • The Dionysian- “the fantastically attractive flowers of violet and red and yellow, unkindness melted away.” • Notice the violation of the meal ritual • “I got you meat!” Vs. “I’m calling a meeting.” • Came “down the mountain.” Mountain is a masculine gender symbol. By descending the mountain and closing into the ocean, the boy metaphorically descend into a more communal environment.