WILLIAM GOLDING'S STORY «MISS PULKINHORN» IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ARTISTIC WORLD OF THE WRITER

• Main Author: Anna Igorevna Kuznetsova
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Ural State Pedagogical University 2018-02-01
• Series: Филологический класс
• Subjects: english literature; english writers; writing; stories; gothic tradition
• Online Access: https://filclass.ru/en/archive/2018/3-53/william-golding-s-story-miss-pulkinhorn-in-the-context-of-the-artistic-world-of-the-writer

The research puts into practice the story unknown to the domestic critic and reader which is written by the classic of the English literature of the ХХ century William Golding. The master of a big form, Golding only once risked using the genre of a short story by publishing «Miss Pulkinhorn» in 1960. Formally the narration follows the traditions of the Gothic story: the place of the action is a medieval cathedral, the characters are ministers and believers, the plot contains mysterious deaths, specific coloring, motivation, etc. But the story is led by a specific narrator: the cathedral organist remembering events of the distant past, which is determined both by the history of the story creation (it was originally a radio play) and author’s target relating to the confessional tone of the narration. The similar complicated temporary organization lets the text approach the psychological type of the story devoted to an ontological perspective. One of the goals of the study is to explain the reasons for that special attention the writer paid to his story. This story in some way can be considered as an «embryo» of the Golding's artistic world. It generalized in itself the ideas and concepts of the previous novels «Lord of the Flies» (1954), «Pincher Martin» (1956), «Free Fall» (1959): the concept of ambivalent human nature, the image of the unknown God, the black center motive, the image of the child-sinner, etc. At the same time the analysis of the story «Miss Pulkinhorn» given in this article allows to make a series of important observations about gradually forming author's intention realized in the following novels of the writer «The Spire» (1964) and «The Pyramid» (1967) where cathedral and provincial topoi gain the dominating meaning, the special attention would be given to the theme of music, and some characters of the story would get their full novel embodiment. At the same time perfectly organized story's architectonics, the system of symbols, motives, poetic details and ambiguous psychological motivation of the main characters are built in the story «Miss Pulkinhorn» in a full artistic microcosm that makes one speak about it as about more than a worthy phenomenon of artistic heritage of W. Golding.