Question

Can someone check my Lord of the Flies answers please? I think I got 'em all right, but I really need to bring up my grade in English, so I just want to make sure they're okay.
Questions and my answers in comments!

Answer 1

1. Read the following excerpt from Ralph, Jack, and Simon’s exploration of the island:
Here they paused and examined the bushes round them curiously.
Simon spoke first.
"Like candles. Candle bushes. Candle buds."
The bushes were dark evergreen and aromatic and the many buds were waxen green and folded up against the light. Jack slashed at one with his knife and the scent spilled over them.
“Candle buds."
"You couldn't light them," said Ralph. "They just look like candles."
"Green candles," said Jack contemptuously. "We can't eat them. Come on."

What does this moment tell you about the personalities of these three boys?
Answer: Jack only cares about himself and what will help him, and thinks of himself as better than the others. He also has a violent and contemptuous personality. He thinks violence is the answer to everything. Simon sees the beauty in things. Ralph tries to be rational and practical

Answer 2

2. After exploring the island, Ralph's top priority is starting a signal fire so that the boys can be rescued by a passing ship. How do the others react to Ralph’s insistence that they start a fire? What does this demonstrate about Ralph's leadership abilities?
Answer: The others became excited, this shows that Ralph is a good leader as he is able to make his followers enthusiastic about Ralph’s goals.

Answer 3

3. How does Piggy feel about the focus on starting a fire? How do Piggy's thoughts affect your view of Ralph's leadership abilities?
Answer: Piggy feels that starting a fire is childish. Ralph is not as good of a leader as he seems to be, because he is dismissive of Piggy

Answer 4

4. Piggy does not want anyone to take his glasses, and he is obsessed with following the rule that the person holding the conch is allowed to speak. Why is Piggy so concerned about these things? What do the glasses and the conch have in common?
Answer: They are symbols of order and civilization.

Answer 5

5. Jack volunteers himself and his hunters to keep the fire going: "Ralph, I'll split up the choir—my hunters, that is—into groups, and we'll be responsible for keeping the fire going." In some ways, this can be understood as an example of Jack’s contributing to the larger group. However, knowing that Jack is something of a rival to Ralph and how he treats Piggy, how else might Jack's volunteering of his hunters be interpreted?
Answer:
Jack wants to have power. He wants to control his own group. And since keeping the fire going is a position everyone wants, he’s also asserting his power by just bluntly stating that he’ll be in charge of it.

Answer 6

6. There is a set of twins on the island named Sam and Eric. However, when describing them, Golding regularly refers to them as "Samneric." How does this way of describing the twins relate to their behavior and the way that readers understand their characters? What examples of their behavior help readers see that Samneric is really the appropriate way to refer to them?
Answer:
Because they function more as one person than as two.

Answer 7

7. As the boys set out to search for the Beast, Ralph allows Jack to lead the way, and he sinks to the back of the pack, "thankful to have escaped responsibility for a time." What does this moment lead you to infer about Ralph and his feelings about being the group’s leader? What does this moment foreshadow?
Answer: Ralph feels it is his duty to be a leader, but is relieved to have some of the responsibility taken off his shoulders for a while. It foreshadows his eventually losing his power and effectiveness as a leader.

Answer 8

8. While part of the party searching for the Beast, Simon realizes that the notion of the Beast that the other boys have does not make sense. A Beast sitting atop a mountain with claws, a Beast who did not leave tracks, could have easily caught the twins. Simon has a different picture of the Beast: "there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick." How does this picture relate to the Beast that Samneric saw? How does it relate to what Simon said earlier about the beast being "only us"?
Answer: The beast stands for the savagery that exists inside all of us. As the boys descend into savagery, their belief in the beast grows. The boys’ actions are what make the beast more “real.”