Aim: How does William Golding Formulate the island into a microcosm of WW2 through allegory?
The Do Now was to think about the structure of the school and compare it to a type of government. A couple of answers were really interesting, such as feudal japan (with the principal being at the top. His advisors and helpers under, samurai being the teachers and students being the peasants.)
Microcosm: A representation of something on a much smaller scale. Microcosm means “small world”
Allegory: a literary, dramatic, pictorial device in which each literal character, object, event, represent symbols illustrating/showing an idea on a larger scale in real life.
Whole class discussion- what do you know about WW2??
A couple of answers summed up what happened. Germany and Russia declare war on one another after Poland is invaded and France falls. Meanwhile in the east, Japan invades china. Eventually Germany is chased back into its own land and Japan is defeated.
The axis powers-(Germany, Italy, japan)
The allied powers-( USA, Russia, Brittain)
The boys were on a plane flying out of Britain to escape the war, but what’s so tragically ironic is that the situation they’re making for themselves really isn’t much different from the war back in the real world. They’re creating a very dangerous situation for themselves with all of these developing power struggles. Jack is becoming a bit of a threat, while Ralph and Piggy try their best to keep the situation under control.
Some allegories- Ralph is FDR, Jack is Hitler and Piggy is Churchill. Piggy keeps nagging Ralph about the danger of Jack, but Jack can’t be bothered until the situation is too late, just like in the war where Churchill wasn’t ok with letting Hitler keep taking land for himself, but no one listened until it was much too late. Jack is hunting people down with his loyal crowd, causing mayhem as things get more and more out of control (just like Hitler and his loyal following).
Then, we looked through the details of the new project we’ve been given. We read all of the details and requirements out loud.
Conclusion-
Overall, today was actually quite enjoyable. We were talking about something that everyone already knows about (WW2), and were making very interesting connections between the book and the war. Making connections not only teaches you things, but makes the book itself more enjoyable and reveals countless layers into the author’s genius- it’s not just a fairy tale anymore, you could even go as far as saying it’s a childish recreation of one of the most catastrophic and influential events in world history- WW2.
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