Friday, May 15, 2009

Lord of the Flies, William Golding. Cycle 24 Reading Response, 31-45.

Summary:
In pages 31-45 the search party returns and Ralph blows the conch and holds another meeting and tells the other boys of the news that there on in fact on and island with no other humans because they have not seen any houses or smoke from fires. They talk about things they need to do on the island then some boys interrupt and a young boy has something to say. The young boy is very hesitant and is scared but he gets the conch shell so he can talk and he speaks of a beastie snake he saw in the forest at night. When all the boys hear of this they get scared and ask Ralph if there could really be a beastie snake on the island. Ralph tells them that on an island of this size a beastie snake couldn’t survive and no one saw any kind of snake except for the little kids at night. Ralph says that the kid could’ve been dreaming or they didn’t see right but everyone is still cautious. Jack tells everyone that when they go hunting they will look for the beastie snake and if they find it they shall kill it so there should be no worries. After the talk of the snake dies they start talking about how will they get saved and someone says something about how if someone passes in a boat or ship they wouldn’t even be able to tell that people lived her so they would have to make a fire at the top of the mountain to be seen. Everyone gets really into the idea of this and heads of to the mountaintop to make a pile of wood and start a fire. Everyone goes up except Ralph and Piggy but Ralph finally goes up and Piggy follows. They get to the top of the mountain and they find a huge pile of wood but no one has any matches so Jack yanks Piggy’s glasses off his face and uses them to magnify the light of the sun. They get some smoke and finally a flame. Piggy gets continuously harassed and isn’t treated fair throughout the whole story. He has way better ideas then Jack but Ralph is a sucker for Jack and Ralph is now being a dick to Piggy how Jack was. After the make the huge unnecessary fire they come back down and Piggy tells Ralph they should’ve made shelters before the fire because they have never seen a ship pass yet and they probably couldn’t have seen it at this time of the day. Ralph feels embarrassed now and Piggy asks Ralph where are the young children and Ralph has no idea and Piggy asks him where is the young child that told everyone of the snakes because he hasn’t seen him. He says they could be messing around in the fire or hurt and he they fight back and forth about how he should’ve got the names of everyone but Piggy says he couldn’t have done it by himself then the chapter ends.

Vocabulary:
1. Martyred- a person who I skilled because of their religious or other beliefs
2. Ebullience- cheerful and full of energy
3. Officious- assertive of authority in an annoying domineering way esp. with regard to pretty or trivial matters
4. Contemptuously- showing contempt; scornful
5. Taut- stretched or pulled tight; not slack

Lord of the Flies, William Golding. Cycle 23 Reading Response, 16-30

Summary:
In these pages Ralph blows the conch shell they found but can’t get it to work but Piggy remembers that his friend used to blow and tells Ralph a few ways his friend blew to get it to work. He tells um that his friend used to spit when he blew it and that didn’t work so he told him that his friend used to blow from his diaphragm to make the sound. Before he did this no sound would come from the shell but once he did this he made a remarkable sound that shook the forest and made birds fly and animals squeal like in the movies. He blew repeadielty on the ledge that he and Piggy stood on till they could see people and didn’t stop till they thought everyone came. Everyone who showed were children with children, no adults what so ever. Even teenagers weren’t here. All the children gathered and Ralph and Piggy called a meeting. They needed to know what they had to do to survive and they needed to put someone in order. This one cocky guy from this group of choirboys who bossed them around said that he should be the leader but no one liked him and the only votes he got were because of dirty looks he gave to people. The majority of the kids voted for Ralph so he was leader. He first act of people leader was to find out if this was really and island because if it was just the beach of somewhere they could get saved and go home. Ralph made a search party of three people to climb up the mountain and see. He made it him, the cocky choir leader named Jack and this little boy Simon who was the first to show after blowing the conch. They went up the beach and found a point where they thought it would be easy to climb the mountain and did so. They climbed and ran into some difficulties but got around them. When they were at the top they looked about and they found out indeed this was an island. They saw another little island in the distance almost attached to this island. They didn’t see any houses or smoke so they assumed this was an inhabited island so they went back down to tell the group of the news. On their way down they heard hooves and squealing in the forest so they went to check it out. They found that it was a pig and Jack was going to kill it but he couldn’t because that was mean. They returned to the other boys and told them the news and that there was food here and all the boys had to have different duty’s to better everyone.

Vocabulary:
1. Indignation- anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment
2. Sniggers- a smothered or half-suppressed laugh
3. Embossed- carve or mold design on (a surface) so it stands out in relief
4. Interposed- place or insert between one thing and another
5. Contemptuously- showing contempt; scornful

Lord of the Flies, William Golding. Cycle 22 Reading Response, 1-15.

Summary:
The beginning of this story starts with two characters stuck on a they believe to be an island. The two characters are Ralph and a boy nicknamed Piggy because he is a little bigger. Ralph is one of the typical kids who don’t want to be with Piggy because he is not the coolest kid but Piggy is really nice and just wanted to be liked. Piggy has an asthma problem as well as being bigger. The two find each other on the island first and need to find a way off or to see if there are others on the island. They walk around a little on the ocean shore and decide to take a bath in this pool of hot water and when they are done they go to this ledge and see what they think is a stone but is actually a conch shell. When they get closer they realize what it really and decide it is so cool they must have and once they get it they get the idea of using it as a horn to maybe gather the other people on the island by blowing it.

Vocabulary:
1. Hither- to or toward this place
2. Specious- superficially plausible, but actually wrong
3. Proffer- hold out (something) to someone for acceptance