Higher: Lord of the Flies extra material

We've talked in class about "man's inherent evil," a major theme of Lord of the Flies. You may have been slightly shocked today in class when we were thinking of the chapter 'Painted Faces and Long Hair', when I said that the boys had actually done quite well to last so long. You may have wondered why...

Remember the references I made to the Stanford Experiment? No? For info, check here and a recent BBC piece here. When I was looking into studies relating to Lord of the Flies, I refreshed my memory, and was surprised to find that I'd forgotten that the experiment was terminated after just six days. Six days. So if the boys' hair had grown 'long' (probably not so much as we would consider long these days, but still!), then they'd made it at least a month... or possibly much more.

This weekend, I watched two films you might be interested in, as one deals with the experiment itself, and the other addresses what might be considered Jack's style of leadership.  The first was a dramatisation of the Stanford Experiment, and the second takes place in a secondary school in Germany. Both, interestingly, deal with very short periods of time.

Both of these films involve some violence which some of you may find distressing (as an aside, it is interesting to note that in Imdb, The Experiment is rated R, but in Netflix it is 15).

The Experiment (2010)

In this gripping thriller, a group of men volunteers to take on the roles of guards and inmates at a mock prison as part of a controversial psychological study. But when the guards abuse their power in alarming ways, the prisoners stage a revolt. (from Netflix)


The Wave (2008) 
Die Welle (original title)


A high school teacher's unusual experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like under a dictatorship spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own.

"High school teacher, Rainer Wegner, may be popular with the students, but he's also unorthodox. He's forced to teach autocracy for the school's project week. He's less than enthusiastic at first, but the response of the students is surprising to say the least. He forces the students to become more invested in the prospect of self rule, and soon the class project has its own power and eerily starts to resemble Germany's past. Can Wegner and his class realize what's happening before the horrors start repeating themselves? Written by napierslogs"

If you do check these out, let me know what you think!