Student Objectives• Students will:

•Gain knowledge about William Golding’s life and how it may have influenced his novel.

• Recognize how social/historical events may have influenced The Lord of the Flies.

• Appreciate stereotype of British schoolboys.

Background Information to The Lord of the Flies

William Golding• Author of The Lord of the Flies.

• Born in 1911. Died in 1993.

• Poet, Playwright, and Novelist.

• 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature.

YouthFather was a science schoolmaster.• Socialist with a strong commitment

to scientific rationalism.

• Mother was a suffragette.

• Educated at Marlborough Grammar School and Oxford University.

• Studied natural sciences for two years before switching to English literature.

Rationalism• rationalism, the philosophical view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge. Holding that reality itself has an inherently logical structure, the rationalist asserts that a class of truths exists that the intellect can grasp directly. There are, according to the rationalists, certain rational principles—especially in logic and mathematics, and even in ethics and metaphysics—that are so fundamental that to deny them is to fall into contradiction. The rationalist’s confidence in reason and proof tends, therefore, to detract from his respect for other ways of knowing.

-Encyclopedia Britannica

• Rationalists used the scientific method of identifying the problem, hypothesizing a solution, and testing the hypotheses until you reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Rationalism• The belief that knowledge is obtained through objective observation of physical phenomenon. This prevailing view held that the world is out there to study independent of our perception and understanding -- our goal was to understand reality as it exists. Things like emotions and social relations were meaningless because they cannot be studied objectively as independent empirical phenomenon.

• But that observation fails to recognize that there are other truths besides the physical or natural world. Scientific realism does not tell you how to prevent wars. It does not tell you how to live. It does not tell you how to define goals or determine what to strive for.

World Events•WWI 1914-1918

•Great Depression 1929

•WWII 1939-1945

•Cold War 1946-1989

Golding’s Occupation as a teacher• Schoolmaster at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury.• Nickname among the boys was “Scruff.”• Outsider among his colleagues.

• Being a schoolteacher provided him insights that were valuable to his writings.

• According to more than one student he would stir up antagonism to observe students reactions.

• Once while in charge of a field trip to Figsbury Ring, he gave permission for the boys to form into two groups. One to attack the enclosure and one to defend it.

British Schoolboys•What stereotypes do you hold?