Reciprocity between the setting and action brings great meaning and compelling thought to both William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies and the short story “I Only Came to Use the Phone” by Gabriel García Márquez. For within the storylines of these two works, setting dictates the actions, ideas and moral decisions made by the characters. As the settings transition, they directly influence character decision-making, but in ways only the reader sees.
The Beach represents a place of balance and democracy. From Lord of the Flies, the quote “‘Let’s vote –’ This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch” (22) shows how gratifying the boys find it to be creating a democracy on the peaceful beach. And while the beach is also where Jack declares his independence from the group and splits off, he does so in a nonviolent way, without threatening physical harm. Even when harsh words are exchanged, the reader sees these events as non-aggressive, civilized events that accentuate the peacefulness of the beach. The open setting of the beach, with its “shimmering waters” (10) and “miles of length” (18) is reinforcing the characters to get along and to act more civilized.
Additionally, the beach is a creative environment and one of survival. The beach is where the boys formulate their best ideas for survival, such as building shelters, and maintaining a fire for heat and to signal ships.
Castle Rock displays the opposite effect. For, on the other hand, at the setting of Castle Rock, ideas for survival are pushed aside for more defensive, unnecessary measures, like that of the giant boulder for protection, or the many wasteful feasts. There is still a creative environment, shown in their military strategy and traps, but it is not ...
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...ings of love for her. This loss of great feeling for Maria that Saturno experiences is significantly similar to the loss of morals following Marias’ stay in the Sanatorium. Marquez uses this loss of feeling to show that, when in the Sanatorium, no emotions can be felt because the need for survival is so much greater.
Throughout both Lord of the Flies and “I Only Came to Use the Phone,” the interplay between setting and actions of the characters is influenced by the constant change of setting and opportunity. With great leaps in moral changes and stimulating ideas on a basis of setting, these two pieces of writing give the reader great inside aspects into the characters’ thoughts.
Cited works:
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. Print.
Márquez, Gabriel Garcia. Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories. New York: Knopf, 1993. 71-91. Print.
The whole island is in the shape of a giant square with white sandy beaches full of people sunbathing, swimming and fishing right on the shoreline. From the end of the hot pavement parking lot to shore of the beach is an ocean of soft white sand. The pearlescent white sand seems to know how to invade every nook and cranny almost as if it enjoys it. Walking around the beach on the fluffy whiteness surrounding the parking lot, the seagulls are fighting over scraps of food on the ground. “Sandy beach ecosystems provide invaluable services to humankind. Their functions have been exploited through history, with significant anthropogenic effects (Lucrezi, 2015)”. This white sandy beach is a beautiful refuge from the mundane grind of everyday life. The smell of the misty ocean air mixed with the sound of seagulls hovering above and kids playing is a tonic for the mind. The feel of the sand between their toes and the waves crashing over them as people swim in the water, or the jerk of a fishing pole when someone is catching a fish makes Fred Howard Park one of the best places to relax. Standing on the beach looking out on the water, people are kayaking and windsurfing. The lifeguards watching vigilantly in their bright red shirt and shorts, blowing their whistles when they see someone being unsafe. After a long day of swimming and laying around visitors head back over the soft white sand to the showers, in order to rinse off the menacing sand that clings to everything like a bad habit. Everyone rushes over the hot pavement burning their feet to reach their cars so they can put away their beach paraphernalia which is still covered in the white sand, nearly impossible to completely leave behind, so when they get home it serves as a reminder of where they were that
The setting in both Lord of the Flies and I Only Came to Use the Phone contributes to the dehumanization of the characters in each of the readings. The settings are both isolated, which is the cause of all the chaos that takes place because when you take a human being out of the comfort of society, they go back to their natural animalistic tendencies in order to survive. Survival of the fittest is present in these quotes. Also, the island archetype plays a huge role in both of the stories.
Henningfeld, Diane Andrews. "An overview of Lord of the Flies." an Essay for Exploring Novels. Gale, 1998. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
Olsen, Kirstin. "Literary Analysis." , "The Ignoble Savage." Understanding Lord of the Flies: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. 14-15, 35-35. Print.
While this quote may not show the corruption of the staff at the asylum, the reader does see from this quote Maria’s corrupt nature by practically selling ...
There are many different fears that one may have including: Monophobia, the fear of being alone, Agoraphobia, the fear of being in crowded places, and Achluophobia, the fear of being in the dark. While looking at these different phobias, one may notice that they all are specific ways that a person may act depending on the setting they are in. It is common for authors to place their characters in a designated setting to reveal the most basic traits of human conduct. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding establishes to his readers the type of isolation that a group of young boys would feel by putting them on a deserted island with no adults, having to adapt to the setting, and learn to survive and get along in a small, confined space. Similarly, in I Only Came to Use the Phone, Garcia Marquez also portrays the big idea of isolation by making the setting of the story a sanatorium for mentally disturbed women. Maria, the main character, whose car broke down in the middle of the desert, was taken to the institution to use the phone to call home, but once she got there she was separated from the rest of the world and was forced to stay there forever. In both stories the setting is very peaceful at the beginning, and so are the characters. As the stories continue, the setting starts to fall apart until the end where the setting is complete chaos, and the characters also become chaotic. One also will see that in the nighttime, characters become immoral about their decisions and actions. Throughout Lord of the Flies and I Only Came to Use the Phone the interaction between the setting and the characters shows a complete parallel. Depending on what the setting is, the characters will act in different ways.
In the stories Lord of The Flies and “I Only Came To Use The Phone”, there are countless instances where setting obviously affected the characters actions, but there are also instances in which it was not so obvious. Settings in these stories are crucial to how characters act as normal as they do at their house, how they act stirred up or anxious, as well as how they act mad or insane. By examining the textual evidence in Lord of The Flies and “I Only Came To Use The Phone”, setting is proven to be a key factor in how characters act, building up from normal behavior to seemingly mad behavior.
William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of The flies’ presents us with a group of English boys who are isolated on a desert island, left to try and retain a civilised society. In this novel Golding manages to display the boys slow descent into savagery as democracy on the island diminishes.
Olsen, Kirstin. "Understanding Lord of the Flies: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and ..." Google Books. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000. Web. 27 March. 2014.
To begin, survival is the key in every ones mindset. You only live once as most people say. However, with Jack and Ralph and the rest of the boys, they all seemed that all hope was lost. They had been stranded in the island for months, hoping that one day, someone will find them and return them home. Ralph was the most panicked person in the group simply because he hadn’t cut his hair and it was growing. He also did not shower at all, and he did not shave or eat as much simply due to the lack of surviving. He had given up on the hope for rescue, until in chapter 12, he, along with Jack and the rest of the boys, were saved by an officer which saw the destruction and the vicious bodies of the ...
Much of history’s most renown literature have real-world connections hidden in them, although they may be taxing uncover. William Golding’s classic, Lord of the Flies, is no exception. In this work of art, Golding uses the three main characters, Piggy, Jack, and Ralph, to symbolize various aspects of human nature through their behaviors, actions, and responses.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies portrays the lives of young British boys whose plane crashed on a deserted island and their struggle for survival. The task of survival was challenging for such young boys, while maintaining the civilized orders and humanity they were so accustomed too. These extremely difficult circumstances and the need for survival turned these innocent boys into the most primitive and savaged mankind could imagine. William Golding illustrates man’s capacity for evil, which is revealed in man’s inherent nature. Golding uses characterization, symbolism and style of writing to show man’s inhumanity and evil towards one another.
Often, too much power can go to that particular person’s head, and he/she can become corrupt. As readers have seen in literature, abuses of power are often harmful to the abuser and their subjects. Corrupted authority and abuses of power eventually lead to the collapse of society. This concept is shown many times throughout the novel Lord Of the Flies and the short story “I Only Came to Use the Phone”. Displayed through characters and actions, abusive power has dominated what should be morally correct in literature.
When viewing the atrocities of today's world on television, the starving children, the wars, the injustices, one cannot help but think that evil is rampant in this day and age. However, people in society must be aware that evil is not an external force embodied in a society but resides within each person. Man has both good qualities and faults. He must come to control these faults in order to be a good person. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding deals with this same evil which exists in all of his characters. With his mastery of such literary tools as structure, syntax, diction and imagery, The author creates a cheerless, sardonic tone to convey his own views of the nature of man and man’s role within society.
The Lord of the Flies is an ultimately pessimistic novel. In the midst of the cold war and communism scares, this disquieting aura acts as a backdrop to the island. The Lord of the Flies addresses questions like how do dictators come to power, do democracies always work, and what is the natural state and fate of humanity and society, getting at the heart of human nature in a very male-dominated, conflict-driven way. The war, the plane shot down, and the boys' concern that the "Reds" will find them before the British, shows Golding's intention of treating the boys' isolated existence as a microcosm of the adult military world.