Structure in LOTF

The themes are revealed in the first half of the novel and then reworked at a frightening, pained, deeper level  in the second half.

This is structure and you need to explore it in the exam.

Repetition enhances the reader’s understanding of the novel.

Go through the following five points and find quotations where they link in the novel; the, analyse the quotes.

1. Boys exploration of island in the beginning – second exploration in Chapter 7
2. Roger just missing the littlun with stones – to  rolling a rock at Piggy
3. Jack’s first attempt to kill the pig, to the sharpening of both ends of the stick at the end. (lots of stuff for this one, each more sickening than the other)
4. Chanting ‘Kill the pig!’ – ‘Kill the beast!’ with Simon and the sacrifice.
5. The fire in Chapter 2 reveals first glimpse of ‘hell’ – final chapter island is on fire

To an extent we could call this - Incremental repetition, a modern term for a device of repetition commonly found in ballads. It involves the repetition of lines or stanzas with small but crucial changes made to a few words from one to the next, and has an effect of narrative progression or suspense.

It creates what we can call narrative echoes and, of course, foreshadowing. But what’s the effect?

•          It creates tension and a sense of foreboding

•          It moves the novel forward with pace. The amount of things that are repeated mean that we get a sense of the degeneration of the civilisation and progression into violence.

•          It makes it readable too! Golding ensures that we know things are getting worse and we want to read on

The novel’s development is revelatory. It begins by revealing a little by little. Repetition is used with variation to allow the reader further insight into the novel. This repetition is not monotonous, but  heightens what has happened before with more power and, consequently, at a deeper and darker level. This also gives the text an accumulative progression that reaches much further than the superficial narrative, but tells of ‘man’s essential sickness’ as Ralph weeps for the ‘loss of innocence’. Golding’s use of incremental repetition gives the reader a profound insight into the human condition that is in stark contrast to the facile optimism of Swallows and Amazons and Coral Island. The cumulative triumph of bad over good is overturned with the sudden intrusion of the naval officer, the deus ex machina. Golding himself said that the novel is symbolic except for the end where ‘adult life appears, dignified and capable, but enmeshed in the same evil as the symbolic life on the island’. Golding uses this as an antidote; it is there to deliberately shock the reader and throw everything else into perspective. There is fragility within civilisation; it could all quickly disintegrate and we don’t know what we are capable of.