Aim: How does Golding use descriptive language to create setting and convey meaning?
Do Now
We started off today’s class with a simple do now. We were asked to take a few minutes to write/describe a detailed description of our favorite room and then upload our responses to Padlet. Before we began, Ms. Peterson told us we keep in mind the several senses while writing it (including sensory details). Ms. Peterson gave us a brief, but descriptive, example of her favorite room. It read: “The festive wreath is carefully hung over the red brick wall of the fireplace as it emits the scents of burning wood. Roasted marshmallows, melted chocolate coupled with graham cracker cookie makes our mouths water. The feel of Christmas is in the air as we sing and listen to Christmas music and smell the cinnamon and pine from the Douglas Fir Tree whose soft needles gently hang the adorning ornaments.” The entire objective of this do now was to introduce us to the topic of today’s class: how William Golding uses descriptive language to create setting and convey meaning.
We briefly discussed how William Golding uses descriptive language in his work. He doesn’t directly tell us “The children are on an island. They got into a plane crash and ended up stranded.” Yes, that is what technically happened, but we can’t ‘see’ the island. Nor can we smell what the children are smelling. Therefore, Golding uses several techniques to worldbuild and help us visualize what’s happening in the book.
Group Discussion
Moving on, we were asked to discuss what we think is the difference between mood and tone and formulate a response with our groups independently. Our group said that mood was the overall atmosphere of the work while tone was the point of view of the author on said subject. To our surprise, we were pretty accurate.
Definitions of Mood and Tone:
Mood - The atmosphere that pervades a literary work with the intention of evoking a certain emotion or feeling from the audience. In drama, mood may be created by sets and music as well as words; in poetry and prose, mood may be created by a combination of such elements as SETTING, VOICE, TONE, and THEME. The moods evoked by the more popular short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, for example, tend to be gloomy, horrific, and desperate.
Tone - The attitude of the author toward a subject or an audience. Tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words (diction), or the viewpoint of the writer on the particular subject.
For example, if the author is writing about a particular theme and they choose to approach it with a sad and serious tone--the author’s perspective is quite clear. Whereas another author might approach the same topic in a sarcastic and comic manner.
Here are some helpful links if you want to learn more about mood and tone:
What’s the Mood? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQq7XZ_Im34
What is Tone? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=votRSfWfktU
Tone vs. Mood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcCrsVK5dWs
Read Aloud:
Next, Ms. Peterson read aloud Page 12 from the Lord of the Flies and asked us to jot down any specific words or images that stuck out to us. As we read along, I truly became aware of how Golding created the setting with his extensive use of adjectives. A classmate noted that in Chapter 1, the language Golding used was more innocent and lighthearted since the children were full of hope they would get rescued. This ties into the next question that Ms. Peterson asked us:
How does the setting in Lord of the Flies create mood? What is the mood in chapters 3 and 4?
The same classmate stated that in the first chapter, the children were exploring the island and having fun. They simply thought they were going to be quickly rescued. However, we learn that that was, unfortunately, not the case for them. Only in Chapter 4 do we see potential rescuers. Up until then, the children have been stranded on the island alone. In Chapters 3 & 4, we can see that reality is finally settling in for the children. The language that Golding uses to describe the setting gradually changes from hopeful and innocent to harsher. He uses words such as “gaudy” and “ape-like” that have negative connotations. This gives us, as readers, the impression that maybe not everything is as hopeful and safe as we originally thought.
At the beginning of Chapter 4 we can denote that Golding creates a metaphor of life using the cycle of the day. The sunrise represents hope, happiness, and immaturity which, at the same time, represents infancy; noon represents adulthood or mid-life; and the sunset represents death. He reinforces this metaphor by including words such as extinguished to represent somebody’s life being, in a way, ‘put out’.
Reflection
Today’s class was a very interesting and informative class. Ms. Peterson has an amazing way of asking questions that, at first glance, might not seem related to the topic but in reality ties directly to what we’re going to be talking about that particular day. In this circumstance, we were asked to describe our favorite room using descriptive language. Does that sound similar? If you guessed it right, today’s aim was related to descriptive language specifically to how Golding uses it to create setting and convey meaning. After today’s class, I learned that descriptive language can truly make or break a story. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses adjectives to create a world in our heads and, in a way, forces us to experience what the children are experiencing through their senses (e.g. how he describes the island and its beaches). Now, why is what I learned so important? Well, to put it short, without descriptive language, conveying the true meaning of the story, in particular how the setting looks and how the characters behave, would be incredibly difficult. Additionally, reading a story would simply be unenjoyable. Imagine if Golding said “The children are stranded on an island. Oh well” and left the rest up to us. That wouldn’t be the best story, right? To end off my reflection, I would like to mention how I would use what I learned today in the future. If and when I will write my next story, I will be sure to include descriptive language in my work. I know now that it is vital to include ample sensory details or else the readers will simply be left clueless. And, finally, I will now be able to annotate much more clearly now that I know what I am looking for in a story. More specifically, I can look for adjectives that directly describe what the setting is like or what a specific character is feeling, smelling, tasting, et cetera.
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