Do Now: Hand in your close reading homework. Take out your writing notebooks - SILENTLY-  Copy and respond:10/21 What is an enlightenment thinker? Give an example of an individual who was considered an enlightenment thinker and explain what their beliefs were.

Enlightenment  The Scientific Revolution changed how people viewed the world in Europe  Human Reason – through the use of reason people can solve every social, political and economic problems (The Enlightenment)

Golding’s Message “The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature.” --William Golding

Thomas Hobbes ( )

Thomas Hobbes  Best known for his political thought  His main concern was the problem of social and political order--how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict  Fear of violent death is sole motivation to create civilizations

HOBBES’ PHILOSOPHY:  Human beings are naturally cruel, greedy and selfish  If not strictly controlled, humans will fight, rob and oppress one another  Everything human beings do is determined by the natural inclination to relieve physical pressures  Specific desires and appetites arise in the human body and are experienced as discomforts or pains which must be overcome.

Hobbes believed…  …humans were selfish creatures who would do anything to better their position.  …left to their own devices, people would act on their evil impulses.  …people should not be trusted to make decisions on their own.

Hobbes Cont.  Emphasizes our animal nature, leaving each of us to live independently of everyone else, acting only in his or her own self-interest, without regard for others  Produces "state of war," a way of life that is certain to prove "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

?  The only escape is by entering into contracts with each other—mutually beneficial agreements to surrender our individual interests in order to achieve the advantages of security that only a social existence can provide.  How is this social contract present in our society?  How is it present on the island?

Take out your laptops:  Look up the name Beelzebub in a good dictionary.  Who was Beelzebub?  Allusion is a reference in literature to a familiar person, place, thing or event.  Consider the title of the novel.  Who or what is the author alluding to with the title?  What might this allusion say about the novel?

LORD OF THE FLIES  Lord of the Flies is a translation of the Hebrew word Ba’alzevuv, or its Greek equivalent Beelzebub.  Beelzebub is the name given to the devil and is only used in the New Testament.  For Golding, this devil comes from within the human psyche rather than acting as an external force.

On Writing Lord of the Flies “It was simply what seemed sensible for me to write after the war when everyone was thanking God they weren’t Nazis. I’d seen enough to realize that every single one of us could be Nazis.” --William Golding