Stories, Social Studies, and Another Film I Love

When my sister and I were in high school in the 60’s, we were required to read the book “Lord of the Flies” for social studies. Because she was 2 grades ahead of me, I always had the chance of helping her study and reading assigned books. I’m happy that I read Lord of the Flies before I had to read it.  That is because when a character in book named Piggy died, it saddened me.  I knew what to expect two years later when it was required reading for my social studies class.

Lord of the Flies is a novel written in 1954 by Nobel Prize winning English author William Golding.  In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British plane carrying school boys crashes on an uninhabited island. Only the boys survive.  They make a disastrous attempt to govern themselves.  Of the boys who tried to organize and form a democratic society and responsibility to help rescuers find them, only one survived to the end of the book.  He is alone as the other boys descend into savagery.

The book has an allegorical level, such as the human conflict with having rules as opposed to becoming savages to survive and how each person has the potential of both within them.

By the 1980’s and with the creation of VHS, some high schools began showing the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy” in their social studies class.