Content. Synopsis i

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1 The Conflict between Civilization and Barbarianism Content Synopsis i Introduction Chapter One: The Life and Works of William Golding 1. The Life of William Golding Major Influences on Golding s Literary Creation An Introduction to Lord of the Flies Chapter Two: The Fall of Civilization 1. The Relationship with The Coral Island The Weakening of Democracy The Death of Common Sense Chapter Three: The Ascension of Anarchy 1. The Sources of Lord of the Flies The Ascension of Anarchy Chapter Four: The Death of True Insight 1. The Death of True Insight An End Which Does Not End Conclusion Bibliography Index Index Allard, Majorie... the Allies...,, Alfred Tennyson s poetry... ancient Egyptian and Greek culture... 1

2 The Conflict between Civilization and Barbarianism ancient mariner... Anglo-Saxon literature... antiutopian...,, archaeology..., asthma..., the At lantic... D-Day assault... a dead parachutist...,, he democratic Allies... the double-blade-sword effect of science.. diarrhea... Double Tongue... dystopist... The Baal... Ba`alzvuv... The Bacchae... Ballantyne...,,, Ballantyne, Robert M... beast...,,,,,,,,,, Beelzebub... Bishop Wordsworth School..., the Bismarck... a boat-shaped island... the Booker Prize... Brasenose College of Oxford University... The Brass Butterfly... Britain...,,,, British boys...,, the British Empire... Britons..., Brookfield, Ann... C sharp...,, Capitalist... Castle Rock...,,,, Christianity..., classical Greek culture... Close Quarters... Cold War...,,, Communist... conch...,,,,,,,, The Coral Island..,,,,,,,,, Cornwall of England... Darkness Visible... the early Semitic peoples... Egyptian archaeology... An Egyptian Journal... Envoy Extraordinary... Ethiopia..., ethnical cleansing... Euripides... an exhilarating but risky place... Faber and Faber..., fable... Fable... fabulist... faint..., the fascist Germany... Fire Down Below... Frank Kermode...,, Free Fall... Freudian... ghost stories... gimmick... God..., the god of Ekeron... Golding...,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Golding, Alec...,,, Golding, Mildred...,

3 The Conflict between Civilization and Barbarianism Golding, William..,,,,,,,,,,,,, Golding, William Gerald... Greek and Egyptian literature and culture... Greek myth and drama... Greek tragedies... hallucination... head choir boy... head chorister...,, Hebrew myth... Hiroshima... Hitler, Adolf... the holocaust... homo sapiens..., The Hot Gates...,,,,,,, The Hot Gates and Other Occasional Essays,, an ideas writer... The Inheritors...,,, Jack...,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, K Keating, James,,,,,,,, Macmillan...,,,, Mango... Marlborough Grammar School... Mars... Martin, Jack..., Merridew, Jack... Milton... A Moving Targe... 6,,,,,, Mr. Pope... Nagasaki... the Nazi regimes... Neanderthal man... Neanderthals..., neoclassicism... New York...,,,,, Nile... the Nobel Prize..., the Nobel Prize for literature... nuclear energy... a nuclear war... Off-Broadway theatre... orgiastic feast...,,, orgiastic party... George Orwell..., Outline of History..., Oxford..., Labour Party... The Ladders and the Trees... Laub, Dori... Lok... Palestine... The Paper Man... London...,,,,,, Paradise Lost... Perranarworthal... Lord of the Flies...,,,,,, Peterkin...,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

4 The Conflict between Civilization and Barbarianism Piggy,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Pincher Martin... Poems...,, Poland..., Pope, Alexander... The Pyramid... R. Ballantyne... Ralph...,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Rites of Passage... Roger..., Royal Navy..., saint...,, Salisbury... Sam and Eric..., Satan... The Scorpion God... Second World War..,,,,,,,,,,,, Shakespeare s dramas... signal fire...,,,,,, Signal fire... Simon...,,,,,,,,,,,,, social stratification... South Pacific... he Soviet Union...,,, the spectacle...,, The Spire..., St. Columb Minor... Swift, Jonathan... symbols..., Synoptic Gospels... the Third Reich... the Third World War... the Titanic... The Two Deaths of Christopher Martin... Trilling, Lionel... two military and polit ical groups... two World Wars... United States..., the Victorian period... Victorian time... Wells, H. G.... Wiltshire... women suffrage rights... WWII...,,,

5 The Conflict between Civilization and Barbarianism 55

6 Synopsis At the beginning of a new century, a reflection of the past century and even the whole human history is both necessary and valuable. The Twentieth Century was a century of great achievements and progress as well as a century of distressing and tragic disasters and setbacks. While looking back at the history, some philosophers and artists are dreaming about a brighter and better future of human beings and the world and give their answers. William Golding ( ), an English novelist, was such a writer. His masterpiece, Lord of the Flies (1954), is a serious reflection of the Second World War and the Cold War and the human history and human nature as well. The most frequently criticized theme is the evil nature of human beings, but in this thesis, another perspective is taken. While Golding s emphasis on ethic nature of individuals and his awareness of the weaknesses of democracy, rationality, and civilization are agreed upon, the conflicts between civilization and barbrianism are stressed. The reasons are: in the past century democracy and civilization met unprecedented challenges and were undermined frequently; anarchy became rampant and atrocities are committed quite often; even nowadays the weaknesses of civilization, the threats of anarchy, and the possibility of regression of human beings still exist. Meanwhile, the formation of individuals ethics are closely related with environment, or we may say, with society and civilization, so the importance of improving civilization and preventing anarchy and regression become more crucial. Lord of the Flies is often classified as a fable and profound lessons are contained in it. One forceful way for the expression of these lessons is the portrayal of characters, so this thesis will study the conflict between civilization and barbarianism through interpretation of the major characters who adopt three different ways when confronted with the gradual deterioration of civilization, the gradual ascension of human instinctual desires, and the weaknesses of civilization, rationality, and commonsense. The three ways are demonstrated mainly through three groups of boys: Ralph and Piggy, who represent authority, common sense and civilization, Jack, who represents anarchy and instinctual desires, and Simon, who is the symbol of true knowledge of human nature and the sense of mission. They take different ways when the binding force of

7 civilization is lifted: Ralph and Piggy cling to civilization and do not dare to face the truth of human nature; Jack chooses to let his instinctual desires to be freely expressed and wins the heart of most of the boys, but also dares not to face the true nature of human beings; Simon, whom Golding tries to depict as a saint, knows the true nature through his intuition and his courage to face the darker side of human heart. This thesis, being a thematic study through interpretation of characters, will include basically three parts in accordance with the three different ways the four boys take. In addition, a chapter about William Golding s life and works, the influences on his literary creation, and an introduction to Lord of the Flies is also included. The emphases are laid on three aspects: the deterioration of civilization and the ascension of irrationality and the realization of the true knowledge of human nature are a process, thus challenging the truthfulness of the inherence of evil human nature; the weaknesses of civilization should be realized so as to strengthen itself and stop anarchy and regression; and finally while the ethics of individuals should be enhanced, the roles of society, civilization and institutions which nurture the ethics should be stressed. Keywords: William Golding, Lord of the Flies, an interpretation of characters.

8 Introduction At the beginning of a new century, it will certainly do human beings good to have a look back into the past century, although it is hard to predict precisely what the future of human beings will look like. The Twentieth Century was a century of prosperity and atrocity, of progress and regression, and of glory and sorrow. The two World Wars and the Cold War and other atrocities committed in the century greatly shook people s faith in civilization and human beings. The conflicts between civilization and savagery posed serious challenges to human beings. For a man who had lived through the two World Wars and the Cold War, the nature of human beings and civilization would be a crucial topic that he had to think over. William Golding ( ) is such a writer. The experience in the Second World War and the Cold War changed his optimistic belief in human society and human beings and turned him into an antiutopian. He determined to explore the question of what was wrong with man and human civilization. His masterpiece, Lord of the Flies (1954) came under such a circumstance. Being rejected 21 times before published, Lord of the Flies is the first and possibly the only novel by William Golding that is widely read and much acclaimed. It tells a story that a group of British boys are evacuated due to a future atomic war, but their plane crashes and the boys miraculously land on an island in the South Pacific and their society degenerates from a civilized one to a primitive and wild one. Golding once commented on the novel, The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical and respectable. 1 The point that Golding tries to drive to is: it is dangerous to solely rely on political system or rationality; man tends to regress into savagery and commit atrocity, if the obligations and the binding force of civilization are lifted; the only cure is to depend on individuals with high ethics and with clear and true knowledge of himself. 1. E. L. Epstein s notes on William Golding s Lord of the Flies (New York: Putnam s Press, 1959), 189, abbreviated as LOF hereafter.

9 However, in this thesis, a different emphasis is laid: individuals with ethics and insights are not born out of themselves; they are brought up in social environment and civilization; so while the value of individuals ethics is acknowledged, the conflicts between civilization and barbarianism become the focus of this thesis. The dangers of anarchy and regression still exist in the present world, so Golding s concern about the conflicts between civilization and barbarianism has gained new life in the 21 st century. Correspondingly this thesis is going to explore the relationship between civilization and barbariansim in a perspective of characters. In Lord of the Flies, Golding sets his boys in an extreme situation to test the infinite possibilities of human development. His characters in the novel adopt three different possible developments: clinging to civilization, regressing into bestiality, and facing up degeneration courageously. This thesis, being both an interpretation of characters and a thematic study of Lord of the Flies, will basically follow the three aspects of the possibilities according to Golding s intention of the novel, but the emphasis is laid on that the degeneration of civilization and the rising of irrationality and bestiality and finally the possible salvation of human beings by individuals with insights and conscience are a gradual process, instead of concentrating solely on the theme of evil nature of human beings as what has been reiterated in plenty of critical essays and books. However, before the possibilities are discussed, a chapter which recounts Golding s life and works, the major influences on his literary creation, and an introduction to Lord of the Flies will precede so as to provide necessary background knowledge. Chapter 2 deals with Golding s doubt about the effectiveness of the roles of democracy, order, and rationality under extremity and concludes that if the binding force of civilization is gone, civilization without individual s vision and moral might be subverted by irrationality and anarchy. These are exemplified in the novel through two characters, Ralph and Piggy and naturally the chapter will follow the two children s steps and present the process of how weak and fragile democracy and

10 rationality are and how they are undermined. Standing opposite to Ralph and Piggy is Jack, who is the representative of anarchy and bestiality and irrationality. Nevertheless, we will find that Jack is potentially wicked at the beginning of the book and his process of ascension is not only a process of the release of his irrational desires but also a product of the compromise and tolerance of democracy and rationality. Through the character of Jack, Golding s negative convictions that man has the tendency toward evil and the inherent weaknesses of rationality and civilization determine their inadequacy of coping with this degeneration are shown. Instead of sticking stagnantly to the belief of the omnipotence of civilization or releasing man s instinctual and wild desires freely, Simon s choice is true knowledge of human nature. His insight into human nature and his love of human beings and nature, and his sense of mission make up the weaknesses of Ralph and Piggy. In Golding s opinion, humans always tend to externalize their evils and fears, but Simon, a meditative and saintly boy, finds out, Maybe it s only us. (LOF, 82) This knowledge of man s evils and himself is the very first step to mend the wrongs and to build a constructive future. The process of acquisition of this knowledge and the tragic death will be the main concerns in the fourth chapter.

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12 Chapter 1 The Life and Works of William Golding 1. The Life of William Golding William Gerald Golding was born on September 19, 1911 in St. Columb Minor, Cornwall of England. His father, Alec Golding, was a schoolmaster, while his mother, Mildred Golding, was an activist in women suffrage rights. Before reaching school age, Golding spent most of his childhood with his family and this isolation from outside world cultivated his interest in books and his vivid imagination as well. Then he attended his father s school, Marlborough Grammar School. There was another school in his town which was a public school and more prestigious and more expensive and where only boys from a well-to-do family went. The social stratification between the two schools left Golding a deep impression and is found in Lord of the Flies, in which the differences between the lower-class boy Piggy and the others from upper-middle class families are vividly presented. Golding had a strong passion for words when he was a child. At the age of 12, he tried to write a novel of his own which was intended to be in twelve volumes. Although he did not make it a reality, his interest in literature is shown. In 1930, Golding entered Brasenose College of Oxford University and studied science for two years. Then he turned from science to Anglo-Saxon literature which was remote from science and modern world. This was the natural result of his love for archaeology, Greek and Egyptian literature and culture, and his obsession with imagination which remained throughout his life. One year before his graduation, one of Golding s friends sent a collection of Golding s poems to Macmillan and got it published under the title Poems which was commented by Golding himself as melancholy slim volume of my extreme youth 2 and which also enabled Golding to realize his weaknesses in poetry, but the characteristics of the poetic imagery and concise language remain two distinct features of his later writings. In 1935, Golding graduated and became a social worker in London, while writing, acting, and producing 2. Recited from James Draper and others, Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 81 (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1994), 318.

13 for a kind of Off-Broadway theatre. 3 In 1939, he married Ann Brookfield, an analytical chemist, and became a teacher at Bishop Wordsworth School in Salisbury, Wiltshire. The year of 1939 also marked the beginning of the Second World War and Golding joined the Royal Navy in the next year. At the beginning, he worked at a research center because of his good knowledge of science, especially in propellants and explosives. Then he was sent to New York to wait for the building of a minesweeper, but he found that minesweepers were no longer needed when he went back to Britain. Later he was made commander of a rocket ship and got involved in the chase and sinking of the Bismarck and took part in the D-Day assault in 1944.Golding returned to Bishop Wordsworth School after the war and taught English and philosophy. Meanwhile he kept writing derivative novels and all of them were rejected by publishers because they were accused of catering to the taste of publishers. His first published novel, Lord of the Flies, came out in 1954 by Faber and Faber after being rejected 21 times. The book was not an instant success, but it encouraged Golding to keep writing. His second novel and also his favorite novel, The Inheritors, was published in In the following years he also published Pincher Martin (1956) which is entitled The Two Deaths of Christopher Martin in the United States; Envoy Extraordinary (1956), in a volume with two stories by two other writers; a play The Brass Butterfly, which is adapted from Envoy Extraordinary, and Free Fall (1959). Meanwhile the paperback edition of Lord of the Flies was published in the United States and was embraced by young college students and their teachers and became a best-seller. Partly owing to this success, Golding resigned from his post and concentrated on literary creation and interviews and lectures. After the publication of The Spire (1964), The Hot Gates and Other Occasional Essays (1965), a collection of essays, in which the importance of classical Greek culture on Golding s thought and art is revealed, and two minor novels, The Pyramid (1967) and The Scorpion God (1971), Golding sank into a long 3. Bernard Oldsey, ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 15 (Detroit: Gales Research Company, 1983), 121.

14 silence in literary creation. Just when some critics were predicting the end of Golding s literary talents, Darkness Visible came out in 1979, which was a signal of the revival of his creativity and critical attention. Rites of Passage (1980) won Golding the Booker Prize. Two years later, another collection of essays, A Moving Target, was published and became an immediate occasion for his subsequent award of the Nobel Prize. 4 In 1983, Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Although his qualification for it was challenged, many critics agreed that Golding deserved it. After that, Golding also wrote three novels: The Paper Man (1984), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989) (the latter two forms a trilogy with Rites of Passage), as well as An Egyptian Journal (1985) which is an account of his boat tour down the Nile. William Golding died of heart attack on June 19, 1993 in his home in Perranarworthal, England, at an age of 81, leaving one novel, Double Tongue (1995), unfinished. 2. Major Influences on Golding s Literary Creation In a writer s literary career, he may be influenced by a variety of sources, but after a brief introduction to Golding s life, three influences seem to be more conspicuous than others: parents, the impact of the Second World War, and his lifelong concerns about the contradictions of humanities and science, civilization and anarchy, and goodness and evil. Parents Golding s childhood was a very crucial period for the formation of his world outlook and his parents were the most crucial people in this period. His father, Alec Golding, was incarnate omniscience 5 in William s eyes and a representative of a world that was sane and logical. 6 William Golding admirably recollected in The Ladders and the Trees, 4. Patrick Reilly, Lord of the Flies: Fathers and Sons (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992), xii. 5. Golding, A Moving Target (New York: Farra, Straus, and Ciroux, 1982), 168, abbreviated as A Moving Target hereafter. 6. Oldsey, 120.

15 I have never met anybody who could do so much, was interested in so much and knows so much. (A Moving Target, 168) Alec wrote books on various scientific subjects and was able to play five musical instruments as William could later and was a skillful carpenter and wood carver. He was also a political activist and campaigned for the Labour Party. Alec Golding was a dedicated upholder of rationality and believed that sciences were the culmination of the ladder of learning, so he encouraged William to study sciences at Oxford. William soon found that science was not his real interest, but it took two more years for William to make the switch from science to literature, the reason being that William was afraid that he would displease his father who was almost his idol and whose encouragement was his stimulus. Compared with Alec Golding, William s mother, Mildred Golding is little mentioned in criticisms about influences on Golding, but her influence on the formation of William s conception and writing skills is immense too. She was a persistent lover of the past and the mysterious. She was an excellent storyteller and liked to tell her children ghost stories which enriched William s imagination and taught him ways to make a story vivid and real. She was also sentimental and uncertain about the world and life. She confided to William that the world was an exhilarating but risky place from the day she knew the sinking of the Titanic. 7 The uncertainty and skepticism about the future of the world were inherited by William and became major themes in Lord of the Flies. War Golding s deep concerns about human history and nature and his profound skepticism about the omnipotent role of science and progress, and his spirit of humanity together with his strong interest in literature made it possible that he would be a great writer. However, if the Second World War had not broken out and he had not got involved in it, his understanding of human history and nature would not have been much penetrating and intense and he would have remained an amateur writer. In 1940, Golding joined the Royal Navy and became an officer later. 7. Oldsey, 120.

16 Ironically, it was because of his good knowledge of science, especially about propellants and explosives that made him an officer and later lieutenant of a rocket ship. His war experience was good 8 as he remarked later and he was not confronted with much danger, but for a humanist with keen observation and sensitive mind and deep concerns about human beings and human civilization, the war was a catastrophe in Golding s eyes. The wide geographical range of the war, the great consumption of material wealth, the atrocious ethnical cleansing, and finally the disastrous atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki posed serious challenges to the established value systems and institutions which man held as perfect and effective. Dori Laub and Majorie Allard, two psychologists on psychological effects of the holocaust during WWII, points out, It exists as part of the world s history as a reality we cannot ignore, yet it exists as a challenge to our understanding of history to any belief in progress or civilization. 9 If we change the word holocaust to Second World War, it will fit exactly Golding s feelings about the war. Much worse than that, there had appeared the tendency of the emerging of two military and political groups after the war: the Capitalist one headed by the United States and the Communist one led by the Soviet Union. By this time, the United States had exploded its atomic bombs and the Soviet Union was intent on the research and development of them. The Europeans and most people in the world found that when they had just celebrated the victory of the nightmarish Second World War, the shadow of a more disastrous war, the Third World War, had been cast over their heads. So what we think good, such as science, democracy, rationality and even civilization may be destructive forces if they are misused and thus the destiny of human beings no more merely depends on society and civilization, but also depends on human being themselves. The experience in the Second World War and the threats of the possible Third World War greatly deepened Golding s skepticism about 8. Oldsey, Dori Laub and Mojorie Allard, History, Memory, and Truth, Michael Beren Baum and Abraham J. Peck, eds., The Holocaust and History: the Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998), 800.

17 Degree papers are in the Xiamen University Electronic Theses and Dissertations Database. Full texts are available in the following ways: 1. If your library is a CALIS member libraries, please log on and submit requests online, or consult the interlibrary loan department in your library. 2. For users of non-calis member libraries, please mail to etd@xmu.edu.cn for delivery details.