Here's the prompt for the essay you'll write in class on Monday

Imagine that you are William Golding. From his point of view write a letter to the students of Gloucester High School explaining how the character(s) you have been assigned (Ralph, Piggy, Jack, Simon, Roger, Sam and Eric, the littluns) and the motif you have been assigned (the island itself, shell, glasses, fire, rocks, pigs, or the boys’ appearance) contribute to the meaning of the novel. You will write one letter explaining the significance of both the character and the motif.

Support your explanation of the character’s and the motif’s significance by citing at least three specific places where you, as Golding the author, use the character to contribute to the novel’s meaning and three specific places where you, as Golding, use the motif to contribute to the novel’s meaning. Make sure you explain how the parts -- the particular uses of the character & motif -- contribute to the meaning of the novel as a whole.

When thinking about Golding's point of view and Golding’s purpose in constructing the novel, consider some things Golding has written about the novel.

“I believe that man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature.”

“The theme (of Lord of the Flies) is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of society must depend on the ethical mature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.”

FOR THOSE OF YOU LOOKING TO EARN AN ADVANCED SCORE…

Also perhaps consider William Golding's life. The following is an excerpt from the Nobel Prize website. (Golding won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983.)

"Taught at Bishop Wordsworth's School, Salisbury. Joined the Royal Navy in 1940 and spent six years afloat, except for seven months in New York and six months helping Lord Cherwell at the Naval Research Establishment. He saw action against battleships (at the sinking of the Bismarck), submarines and aircraft. Finished as Lieutenant in command of a rocket ship. He was present off the French coast for the D-Day invasion, and later at the island of Walcheren. After the war he returned to teaching [until 1962], and began to write again. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was published in 1954."

And for more of Golding's views you'll find his Nobel Lecture at nobelprize.org.