Penguin Readers Factsheets l e v e l E T e a c h e r’s n o t e s 1 2 3 Web 4 5 by John Wyndham 6 UPPER S U M M A R Y INTERMEDIATE eb opens in England in the 1960s. The narrator of circumstances in which they struggle to survive. Britain W the story, Arnold Delgrange, loses his wife and was under attack from triffids – deadly and mobile daughter in a car accident, and with them his monster plants that could kill a human with one whip of reason for living. their branches. The word triffid has now passed into the Lord Foxfield is a rich and important member of society. language as a general term for a monster plant. He has plenty of money but not many years left to live. He Wyndham went on to write many more best-selling wants to be remembered for something grand. He comes novels. He died in 1969. up with the idea of a perfect society where there is no war, no prejudice, no class structure. He calls it his Project. He buys a Pacific Island and advertises for people to make BACKGROUND AND THEMES his dream a reality. For Arnold Delgrange, this is the Wyndham’s characters are ordinary people who are put in perfect opportunity to start his life again after the terrible a terrifying situation in which they are fighting for their loss of his family. Gradually a strange collection of people lives. As well as battling for survival, these people try to is brought together, all with different skills and different preserve the moral and social values of everyday life reasons for joining the Project. under difficult conditions. They try to re-establish Man’s Ho w e v e r , when they get to the island there seems to be dominance over Nature and rebuild society on the basis of something strange about it. People from nearby islands western European civilization – honour between friends, say there is a curse on it. They begin to explore and soon loyalty to friends and country, honesty, hard work and an discover what is wrong with the island – millions of spiders appreciation of natural and manmade beauty. In Web, the live on it. Not only that, but the spiders have developed a characters go to set up home on an uninhabited island in gr oup intelligence and work together to catch and eat the Pacific about which they know nothing. When the anything that moves, including humans. Thick spiders’ radio breaks, they have no way of leaving the island. It webs cover more than half the island. All the newcomers’ provides a perfect setting for a terrifying battle against ideas of a perfect society are forgotten as they focus all monster spiders. their strength of body and mind just on staying alive. The story of Web begins with a search for Utopia – an ideal society where people live in peace and harmony, ABOUT JOHN WYNDHAM without greed and jealousy. The term Utopia means ‘no place’ and was coined by Sir Thomas More, a sixteenth John Wyndham is one of England’s best-known writers of century English writer and politician. He wrote an essay imaginative science stories. He was born in 1903 in the about the search for a perfect form of government. His English Midlands. After his parents separated in 1911, he solution was very advanced for his day – a form of and his mother and brother lived in many different parts of communism, national education for men and women, and Britain. He finished school in 1921 and went on to try tolerance of all religions. John Wyndham brings the idea various careers, including farming, law, commercial art up to the mid-twentieth century. In Lord Foxfield’s perfect and advertising. None was a success, so he tried writing, world, the priority is for people to be able to think starting with short stories. From 1930 until the outbreak of creatively. His theory is never tested, however, because the Second World Wa r, he wrote stories mainly for the first spider attack takes place within a fortnight of the American magazines. group’s arrival on the island. During the Second World War Wyndham worked first in In Web, John Wyndham plays on a universal human fear the civil service and then in the army. After the war he – spiders. We seem to share an instinctive dread of started writing again, and found fame and fortune in 1951 creatures that live in dark holes, run on eight legs, trap with the publication of The Day of the Triffids. This was a their prey in webs and can be deadly poisonous. Some story about the reactions of ordinary people to terrible facts about spiders are: they have six or eight eyes as well © Pearson Education 2000 l e v e l Penguin Readers Factsheets 5 T e a c h e r’s n o t e s as eight legs; they kill by biting and paralysing their prey Chapters 3–4 and sucking out the juices; some types of spider, e.g. Horace Tupple leaves the ship at Panama (see page 10). tarantulas, can live for up to 25 years; they don’t get Ask students to work in pairs. They work out and practise caught in their own webs because they have oily, non- a conversation between Horace Tupple and Walter Tirrie stick feet; in an average square metre of grassland there when Horace tells Walter of his decision to leave. Ask pairs to act out their conversation. will be 500 spiders. Chapters 5–6 The fictional island of Tanakuatua in the Pacific Ocean where Web is set has suffered two major invasions from Divide students into groups. Each group looks through these chapters and makes notes about the behaviour of the West. First it became part of the British Empire at the the spiders. Elicit the information they have found and beginning of the twentieth century. Between 1875 and write it on the board. Groups then discuss ways of 1914 the major European powers all built empires around defeating the spiders. Then compare the ideas of the the globe. By 1914 the British Empire covered a fifth of the groups. world’s land surface and included a quarter of the world’s Chapter 7 population. After the First World War (1914–18), however, Put students into pairs. They are Arnold and Camilla. They Europe was exhausted and it was no longer considered have to think of arguments to persuade the islanders not acceptable to take whatever land was available. After to kill them. Each pair writes down three reasons why they that, Britain controlled the island of Tanakuatua in name should stay alive. At the end, compare reasons across the only. class. Which is the best? Which is the worst? Not many years later, Tanakuatua suffered its second Chapters 8–9 major invasion. The Western powers started to test their Put students into small groups. Arnold and Camilla fail to atomic weapons in the Pacific Ocean. They chose the save the men in the plane from the spiders. Ask students to imagine that they are Arnold and Camilla. What would Pacific because it is far from major centres of population. they do to warn the men? On May 12 1951, the first hydrogen bomb was tested in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by the United States. The ACTIVITIES AFTER READING THE BOOK question of first world powers testing atomic weapons in Put students into small groups. Ask them to discuss what the Pacific Ocean continues to be an issue today, with they liked about Web and what they disliked. Then have a France carrying out nuclear tests at Muraroa Atoll in the whole-class discussion. 1990s. G l o s s a r y Communicative activities It will be useful for your students to know the following new words. The following teacher-led activities cover the same They are practised in the ‘Before You Read’sections of exercises at sections of text as the exercises at the back of the reader, the back of the book. (Definitions are based on those in the Longman and supplement those exercises. For supplementary Active Study Dictionary.) exercises covering shorter sections of the book, see the Chapters 1–2 photocopiable Student’s Activities pages of this Factsheet. project (n) an important piece of work or an idea that is planned and These are primarily for use with class readers but, with the organized carefully over a period of time exception of discussion and pair/groupwork questions, Chapters 3–4 can also be used by students working alone in a self- biologist (n) a scientist who studies living things access centre. cliff (n) a high steep rock or piece of land patch (n) a part of an area that is different or looks different from the ACTIVITIES BEFORE READING THE BOOK parts surrounding it Tell students to imagine a new and ideal society on a raft (n) this is flat and floats, and is made from long pieces of wood tropical island. It will be a society without war and that are tied together jealousy. Divide the class into groups. Give each group tractor (n) a strong vehicle with large wheels, used for pulling things one aspect of the new society to think and talk about: volcano (n) a mountain that sometimes explodes and smoke and hot social organization, government, the law, money, melted rock come out of the top population size, work, growing food.