Adapting Famous Writers Assignment

Chapter 1: Volcanic Adventures

 

The boys exhaustingly navigated the cliffs and rocks looking for food until they came to a large rock within the forest. Jack and the other boys had already made his way up with ease. 

“Hold this while I go up,” Ralph ordered as he handed Piggy his stick. 

As Ralph got to the top, he hollered for Piggy: “C’mon Piggy don’t be scared! You’re British!” Ralph added

Piggy then, not wanting to disappoint his friend, unwillingly made his way up the rock to Ralph. 

The boys then scoured the forest, the further they got the hungrier they had gotten.

“I’m hungry!” protested one of the young boys.

“Shut up!” Jack barked. 

“We’re almost there,” Piggy added, lying to the kid to keep some order and stability among the group.

 

The group continued strolling along the forest until they reached a small platform of grass with no creepers, an odd occurrence. The boys looked in shock and amazement as they saw a towering volcano in the distance. From this vantage point, they could see the whole island clearer, the glistening sea, the beach, and the dancing trees. 

Ralph turned to the others. 

“This belongs to us.” 

The boys looked on in astonishment. They had only heard of volcanoes in stories, never pondering that they may one day be brought in front of one. 

“Is it active, d’you think?” asked Jack. 

“No, it can’t be.” Ralph asserted. 

Not wanting to believe their impending doom, he discarded Jack’s idea immediately. By now it was high noon and the hunger grew among the boys. They then left their vantage point in search of food, not before placing Ralph’s large stick there as a reminder of its location. 
 

Reflection

 

In my adaptation of Lord of the Flies, I wanted to depict the group dynamics and relationships just like how it was in the book and add another geographic element (volcano) to the story to add uniqueness to the adaptation. This quotation of my adaptation where Jack responds: “Shut up!” to the young kid, relates to how in the book Jack is depicted as quick to anger and how young boys in the group are usually disrespected by the older ones, laughing at them, etc. Furthermore, Piggy is one of the characters who was never rude to the young ones so it made sense to include him comforting the boy in a way with this quotation: “We’re almost there”. I took inspiration for this quotation, with the quotation from the book where Piggy also defends a little boy among the group: “Let him have the conch!” shouted Piggy. “Let him have it!” (Golding 48). I also made use of a metaphor in the form of personification in this quotation: “...and the dancing trees” because Golding also uses them sporadically in his writing. I wrote in the third person omniscient narrative style because that was what Golding used in the book Lord of the Flies. Third person omniscient narration also gives a neutral insight into what different members of the group think at certain times, as opposed to it being first person where the reader would only experience things through the lens of one individual. I found some challenges here and there while writing this adaptation. The main ones being: not knowing what to write about, and trying to mimic the way William Golding writes. Overall it was more challenging than easy, but to conclude, the adaptation includes some good dialogue and narrative speech similar to the pages in the book.

 

Works Cited

Golding, William, 1911-1993. Lord of the Flies. New York :Perigee, 1954.