Symbolism in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Its Appilcation to English Teaching

• Main Authors: Hsin-yuan Wang, 王幸媛
• Other Authors: Shui-mu Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/42299705899607238159

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語學系 === 93 === The importance of Lord of the Flies by William Golding, an English novelist, lies in its attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The novel explores the corruption and evilness of mankind thoroughly. It makes good use of symbolism to describe the human nature and behaviors to warn readers to control and prohibit the wicked nature. Golding uses the omnipotent third-person narration associating some major characters with symbols of ration and viciousness, making his novel achieve an unrivaled situation. It examines the dark side of human nature and proves that civilization and social system can prevent man from regression to savagery. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one introduces Golding’s biographical background and points out the practicality of applying Lord of the Flies to senior high school English teaching. Chapter two examines the major characters in the novel associated with rational symbols. Chapter three inspects the major characters in the novel associated with evil symbols. Chapter four concentrates on the application of Lord of the Flies to the EFL senior high school classroom in Taiwan and the analyses of the major findings in the teaching experiment. Chapter five concludes the above analyses and discussions, and suggests the application of the novel to English teaching.