WILLIAM GOLDING

WILLIAM  GOLDING

William Golding (1911 - 1993) is considered a particular novelist since there can

be noticed a certain detachment from his work, which is a very rare situation a more or

less any writer's personality can be guessed at behind or between the lines of his work.

Golding's prose is built up round the same themes: the concern with humanity's fallen

nature - which from a Christian point of view implies the original sin - and his religious

association. Referring to his first novel, Golding stated in his essay Fable: "I decided to

take the literary convention of boys on an island, only make them real boys instead of

paper cut - outs with no life in them: and try to show how the shape of the society they

evolved would be conditioned by their diseased, their fallen nature".

The Lord of the Flies proposes through its title a puzzle for the reader, as this is a

literal translation of Beelzebub, the Hebrew prince of devils 414c26e , and because of the

characters chosen to illustrate inexorable fall of humanity. Children are symbols of

innocence and purity yet, with Golding innocence, sin and evil are parts of the same

whole. He also suggests the latent existence of evil in man while childhood should be

considered an Eden stage. The novel offers a mixture of ideas starting with Christian

concepts, references to mythology, Darwinism, and pessimism on a background similar

to R.M. Ballantyne's adventure story The Coral Island (1857).

The childern,s arrival on the island seems to be the result of an unspecific, maybe

atomic, war. Their arrival can be interpreted either as an attempt at a new beginning, a

return to the Eden stage since only boys are marooned on a virgin island, and they are

supposed to re- establish the world where they have come from; or a fall from civilisation

to wilderness. Even the landscape creates a play between light and darkness: "The shore

was fledge, with palm trees. These stood or leaned or reclined against the light and their

green feathers were a hundred feet up in the air. The ground beneath them was a bank

covered with coarse grass, torn everywhere by the upheavals of fallen trees, scattered

with decaying cocoa- nuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the darkness of the forest

proper and the open space of the scar. (..)

Within the irregular arc of the lagoon was still as a mountain lake - blue of all shades and

shadowy green and purple. The beach between the palm terrace and the water was a thin

bowstave, endless apparently, for to Ralph's left the perspectives of palm and beach and

water drew to a point at infinity; and always, almost visible, was the heat."

In this descriptive fragment the author puts together water, earth and air: the palm

trees that grow on the shore have feathers instead of leaves, but these elements suggesting

life and escape are somewhere up, almost impossible to be reached. The situation is

emphasised by the "decaying cocoa - nuts" or "skull - like cocoa - nuts" - a hopeless

image which can be associated with humanity's fall. By putting together the phrases

"decaying cocoa - nuts" and "palm saplings". Golding suggests the idea of cycle - those

saplings are just like those children between flight and fall between life and death.

Symbols of death are scattered everywhere: "smoke was rising here and there among the

creepers that festooned the dead or dying trees".

Golding offers only two images with a single end: "dying " is only a stage in the way

towards death, here it becomes synonymous with "living". However, he refers to infinity;

palm, beach and water harmoniously coexist in a continuous alternation between life and

death. The way in which the novel begins can be considered an anticipation of the

following events, the perfect frame for the original sin, the reader can see the novel

mirrored in this description of nature.

Ambiguity, confusion, good and evil reflected in nature confer a predominant

feeling of fear and hopelessness to the story. Actually the children's feelings and fears

presented through an empathic landscape. The events alternate and interfere with frequent

description of nature which contribute to increase the passing from a seeming harmony to

an unavoidable disorder. The oppressive view is intensified by the "oppressive" silence

and heat and at this hour of the day there was not even the whine of insects".

By charging these children with such a great responsibility - actually the

responsibility of surviving - the author makes the process look like a play, life is a toy in

the children's hands which are very frail and vulnerable. In certain circumstances they

become the toys of their own toy - just like the hunters who felt as if they had been

hunted by their game. The reader can notice a kind of minimisation of the process'

towards civilisation and an increase of the outcomes.

There is a boy who does not belong to any group, Simon and his condition helps

him to see things differently, he is more appropriate for an objective observation and

presentation of the things although he also seems to be more sensitive. He foresees the

following events in the aspect of the island; "As if it wasn't a good island" and realises

that their fears are justified: "As if the beastie, the beastie or the snakething was real".

The omnipresent beastie, the bad thing that threatens the boys is associated with the

snake - an obvious reference to the Bible and the original sin. The snake represents

Lucifer's embodiment after his fall and the symbol of temptation. It is at the same time

the cause and the outcome which means that evil and good exist one as a condition of the

other, and this confers a cycling aspect to existence.

Reiteration is another aspect of the novel. Obsessive descriptions are repeated so

often that the character's presence is made indistinct, they become parts of the

background and their actions and moods "harmonize" with the environment. The idea of

cycle is suggested by the hunter's feeling of being hunted: "If you are hunting something

you catch yourself feeling as if you're not hunting, but being hunted; as if something's

behind you all the time in the jungle".

Danger and fear actually are deeply rooted inside these children; they can be a result of

the boys' imagination and associations: "skull like cocoa - nuts", "green candle - like

buds". Their inner terror is scattered everywhere round them through strange

associations, even paradoxical ones: 'green" which is a symbol of youth and suggests

optimism and "candle" which leads the reader to "death", even "children" which

generally means innocence and "hunters" who finally become murderers.

The situation on the island is getting worse and worse and the boys try to do

something to change it, therefore the head of the sow is a gift for the beast. Their attitude

takes back to the ancestral myths of vegetation. The oblation of the pigs or of the sow, in

some countries, is seen as an act that protects the community against magic and evil. The

hunters offer the head of the sow to the beast hoping that it will let them live in peace,

they try to create a saint place but it turns out to be a bad one just like the whole island.

Instead of worshipping a god, they worship the prince of devils.