The English II class started the year reading Lord of the Flies. The overall plot of the novel takes place during wartime and consists of a group of young boys who get stranded on a desert island after their plane crashes. As the boys struggle to come to an agreement on how they will survive on the island until rescue, they become more confrontational. What starts off as a rather civilized atmosphere soon turns into an environment of wild savagery.
Each character in the book depicted significant characteristics that portrayed how they behaved within a group. Some characters were more prone to a civilized society where organized meetings with a leader were important and agreement was essential. Other characters were eventually lost in ideas of savagery, where hunting and killing pigs in a brutal way was the #1 goal, and doing ‘fun’ things on the island was more important than getting rescued.
At the conclusion of the novel, students ‘drew’ a character that they would create a mask for. (In the book, the characters wore masks to camouflage themselves when they went hunting. The masks not only served as a visual camouflage device for hunting, but they also served as a symbol of ‘hiding one’s uncivilized actions’ per-se.)
Through researching the characters further, students found ways to artistically incorporate important symbols, scenes, and settings to their masks that their particular character exemplified. Students also incorporated elements from a Power and Control Wheel and Respect Wheel. These wheels showed ways in which ‘real-life’ and ‘fictional-life’ people/characters can either build their relationships around an abusive premise using power and control or, hopefully, through mutual respect. Unfortunately, for most of the characters in Lord of the Flies, power and control became the norm.
I have added a few pictures of some of the masks that were created.
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