Compare and Contrast Lord of the Flies and Salvage the Bones Essay Example

📌Category: Books, Lord of the Flies
📌Words: 1571
📌Pages: 6
📌Published: 14 June 2021

Throughout one's journey through high school, there are many conflicts and challenges that they will come across. The same is true in Lord of the Flies written by William Golding. The characters in the novel get stuck on an island after a plane crash. They have to overcome all the necessary challenges to survive and get rescued from the island. Although high school is not as extreme as being stranded on an island, there are still challenges in either of the situations. Lord of the Flies is a more compelling and engaging novel than Salvage the Bones written by Jasmine Ward because there are more significant events that occur in each chapter while in Salvage the Bones, all of the chapters lead up to the main event, which is Hurricane Katrina. Lord of the flies should stay in the ninth-grade curriculum because it is a more captivating novel than Salvage the Bones as the characters face many conflicts, and it is a somewhat challenging novel to understand due to some of the vocabulary used; however, it is beneficial for students to learn new words.  

In Lord of the flies, there is a group of twelve-year-old boys that get stranded on an island with no adult supervision. The story takes place around the 1950’s close to when World War II ended, so it is revealed that they could not land at the airport because it had been bombed. The main character Ralph gathers all the boys together, and he becomes the leader of everyone. With the help of some of the older boys like Jack and Simon, Ralph has to perform all the necessary actions needed to stay alive such as gathering food and water, creating a signal fire, and making sure everyone is safe and accounted for. Ralph and Simon attempt to build houses for all of the boys while Jack goes hunting and tries to kill pigs, so the boys have food other than wild berries that they find. The little kids on the island, known as the littluns, play around on the beach and do not help out with the tasks. Ralph gets frustrated with them because he thinks something could happen to them, and he cannot do everything by himself. Ralph, Jack, and Simon have to do everything they can to reach their goal of being rescued. Salvage the Bones, on the other hand, is about a poor African-American family from Bouis Savage, Mississippi, that is getting prepared for Hurricane Katrina. Each chapter is another day that leads up to the hurricane. The main character is a girl named Esch, and she has three brothers named Skeetah, Randall, and Junior. Esch’s father is known as Daddy, but her mother has passed away when Junior was born. All of the characters express different interests such as Randall being a basketball player, Skeetah caring for his dog China and her puppies, and Esch is focusing on reading a story about the Greek myth of Jason and Medea. Due to the financial level of the family, they decide to not evacuate the city and instead put their lives in jeopardy. The plot in Lord of the Flies is more intriguing because more stuff happens in each chapter. 

There are many different types of conflicts in Lord of the Flies compared to Salvage the Bones. In Lord of the Flies, there are more problems the characters face to draw the reader into the story. One of the conflicts in Lord of the Flies is person vs. person between Jack and Ralph. Jack and Ralph’s conflict arises at the beginning of the story during a debate of who should be the leader, and it extends to later in the book when Jack leaves Ralph’s tribe to create his own. Person vs. person plays a role with ninth-graders because there will always be situations where two people have problems with one another, whether it is due to bullying or a small incident between friends. When Jack first starts hunting, he could not kill the pig, which causes a person vs. nature conflict. After deciding to explore the island, the boys find a pig that Jack tries to kill and, “he drew his knife again with a flourish. He raised his arm in the air. There came a pause...then the piglet tore loose from the creepers and scurried off into the undergrowth” (31). Jack not being able to kill the pig causes a conflict between them, and it is an ongoing conflict until he finally kills it. Person vs. nature is represented at McDonogh when people have to get comfortable with the campus and learning where everything is. There are examples of person vs. society in the book as well because Ralph fights against Jack’s whole tribe to get Piggy’s glasses back when Jack steals them to create a signal fire of his own. Being a new student at McDonogh is person vs. society because there are many people that they do not know, so they will have to meet new people that will be in their classes. The main conflict in Salvage the Bones is Hurricane Katrina, which occurs at the very end of the novel and is not a conflict that extends over a majority of the story. Lord of the Flies has important conflicts all the way through that cause it to be a more interesting story. 

During the boys’ time on the island, they lose most of their innocence. The boys seem well-behaved when they first arrive on the island, but throughout the novel, they seem to lose more and more of their innocence. When the boys go from trying to figure out how they can let people know they are on the island to hunting for their own food and killing a couple of their friends, they are no longer as innocent as they were. This comes naturally in life when people get older, and they experience more that there is to life. The same is true for ninth-graders when they enter high school. In their high school years, they will experience things and not be as innocent when they graduate as they were when they first entered high school. A theme in Salvage the Bones was motherhood. The kids did not have their mother in their life for a while, and there were many flashbacks to when she was alive. The loss of innocence is a more intriguing theme because the boys have to act like savages, which is much different than how they acted before they get to the island.

Lord of the Flies is also a more challenging story to read based on the language, but it is important to learn new vocabulary. It was written a long time ago, so some of the vocabulary is somewhat difficult, but using clues given in the story they are manageable to get around such as, “festooned” (48) and “vicissitudes” (49). These words may not be understood by ninth-graders, but they allow for a little bit of a challenge for the reader. In Salvage the Bones, Ward uses a lot of slang in interactions between characters that include, “What was y’all doing?” (23) and “That ain’t it” (110). These phrases are slang and not proper English, so teaching a book with them in it could cause students to use them, which is not beneficial for their future . The words that Golding uses help ninth-graders enhance their vocabulary while Ward’s language is improper and has a lot of slang, so it does not help with expanding knowledge of the English language. Learning new vocabulary is important to freshmen, so they have a stronger vocabulary for when they are older.

Golding uses great imagery in Lord of the Flies. The reader is able to visualize the scenes described due to the adjectives and details that are included. Jack decides to leave Ralph’s tribe to create his own, and his new tribe raids Ralph’s, and Golding writes, “The forest near them burst into uproar. Demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green rushed out howling so that the littluns ran screaming” (140). Jack’s tribe is raiding Ralph’s to assert dominance and prove that they are stronger than Ralph’s tribe. The language Golding uses makes it easy to visualize and be able to imagine Jack storming through the forest. An example of imagery in Salvage the Bones occurs in the dog fight between China and Kilo. During the fight, Ward writes, “China grabs Kilo at the back of the neck again. She sinks her face into him. When she draws back, her jaws are shut, and she rips fur” (171). It is easy to visualize this scene, but the scene in Lord of the Flies draws a better picture in the mind when visualizing. While the scene from Salvage the Bones seems more engaging, the scene from Lord of the Flies describes a better image as people are storming out of the forest to raid the other group of boys. It is important for freshman to use their imagination to vizualize events, and the examples from the book can be useful for students when they have to describe a scene. Golding uses more descriptive and vivid adjectives to describe a scene while Ward uses much more simple words that do not challenge the reader. 

Lord of the flies is somewhat challenging for a ninth-grader to read, but it helps improve their vocabulary, while it also has a more engaging plot and more conflicts than Salvage the Bones. Overall, Lord of the Flies is beneficial for studens to read because it there are many similarities between what the boys face on the island and what high schoolers face while at school such as losing innocence and many different types of conflicts and challenges they will be involved in. Lord of the Flies also gives for a bit of a challenge while Salvage the Bones uses a lot of slang and improper grammar, which does not benefit high schoolers. Lord of the Flies should stay in the ninth-grade curriculum to serve as a way for freshmen to connect the different scenarios in the story back to themselves.

+
x
Remember! This is just a sample.

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Order now
By clicking “Receive Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails.