Read the passages from Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Passage 1
"Things are breaking up. I don’t understand why. We began well; we were happy. And then—”
He moved the conch gently, looking beyond them at nothing, remembering the beastie, the snake, the fire, the talk of fear.
"Then people started getting frightened.”
A murmur, almost a moan, rose and passed away. Jack had stopped whittling. Ralph went on, abruptly.
"But that’s littluns’ talk. We’ll get that straight. So the last part, the bit we can all talk about, is kind of deciding on the fear.”
The hair was creeping into his eyes again.
"We’ve got to talk about this fear and decide there’s nothing in it. I’m frightened myself, sometimes; only that’s nonsense! Like bogies. Then, when we’ve decided, we can start again and be careful about things like the fire.” A picture of three boys walking along the bright beach flitted through his mind. "And be happy.”
Passage 2
[Ralph said,] "The trouble is: Are there ghosts, Piggy? Or beasts?”
"’Course there aren’t.”
"Why not?”
"’Cos things wouldn’t make sense. Houses an’ streets, an’—TV—they wouldn’t work.”
The dancing, chanting boys had worked themselves away till their sound was nothing but a wordless rhythm.
"But s’pose they don’t make sense? Not here, on this island? Supposing things are watching us and waiting?”
Ralph shuddered violently and moved closer to Piggy, so that they bumped frighteningly.
"You stop talking like that! We got enough trouble, Ralph, an’ I’ve had as much as I can stand. If there is ghosts—”
The universal theme of Passage 1 is the relationship between civilization and nature, and the universal theme of Passage 2 is humanity’s search for meaning in the world. How do these universal themes relate to each other?
They both show that familiarity helps people feel comfortable.
They both suggest that supernatural elements exist in nature but not in civilization.
They both suggest a conflict between technology and nature.
They both show that people want to understand the supernatural aspects of the world.
