Connected Text Essay: Lord of the Flies and Life of Pi
How do the authors explore the concept of ‘conflict’ in texts that deal with survival and savagery in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies and Ang Lee’s film Life of Pi?
The film Life of Pi directed by Ang Lee and novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding are both survival texts in which the protagonists must deal with a range of conflict. In Life of Pi the protagonist, Pi Patel, is a religious teenager who lives in Pondicherry, India with his small family. Forced to move, and start a new life with his family in Canada, Pi is truck with the challenge of facing great conflict and loss when he becomes the sole survivor of the capsizing ship, which leaves Pi stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with nothing but a 300 pound Bengal tiger for company. Unlike, Life of Pi, Lord of the Flies’ narrative of survival is presented on an isolated island. As a war broke out in the UK a group of young school boys are forced to evacuate the country, but the escape plane is shot down and crash lands on a boat-shaped island. Without any parental guidance the boys are first excited with the thought of independence. However, they soon realise surviving on an isolated island leads them to face conflict which brings out their inner savagery. Both authors use foreshadowing to highlight the conflicts that the protagonist face when they are brought to the challenge of taking the life of a creature in order to survive. In addition to this, the technique of contrast is used to communicate to their audience the conflict that the changing environment has on both characters. Last of all, a climatic resolution in both stories allows the audience to understand the character’s need to reflect on their initial conflict with other characters to recognise how important their relationship was to their survival. Like all survival stories, the characters in Lee and Golding’s text must overcome many conflicts in order to survive their journey.
Both Ang Lee and William Golding use the
The film Life of Pi directed by Ang Lee and novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding are both survival texts in which the protagonists must deal with a range of conflict. In Life of Pi the protagonist, Pi Patel, is a religious teenager who lives in Pondicherry, India with his small family. Forced to move, and start a new life with his family in Canada, Pi is truck with the challenge of facing great conflict and loss when he becomes the sole survivor of the capsizing ship, which leaves Pi stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with nothing but a 300 pound Bengal tiger for company. Unlike, Life of Pi, Lord of the Flies’ narrative of survival is presented on an isolated island. As a war broke out in the UK a group of young school boys are forced to evacuate the country, but the escape plane is shot down and crash lands on a boat-shaped island. Without any parental guidance the boys are first excited with the thought of independence. However, they soon realise surviving on an isolated island leads them to face conflict which brings out their inner savagery. Both authors use foreshadowing to highlight the conflicts that the protagonist face when they are brought to the challenge of taking the life of a creature in order to survive. In addition to this, the technique of contrast is used to communicate to their audience the conflict that the changing environment has on both characters. Last of all, a climatic resolution in both stories allows the audience to understand the character’s need to reflect on their initial conflict with other characters to recognise how important their relationship was to their survival. Like all survival stories, the characters in Lee and Golding’s text must overcome many conflicts in order to survive their journey.
Both Ang Lee and William Golding use the