WILLIAM GOLDING: A PESSIMISTIC MORALIST: A STUDY OF HIS NOVELS

• Main Author: STONE, FRANCES TISDALE
• Language: ENG
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 1980
• Subjects: Modern literature
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8101400

The paper, William Golding: A Pessimistic Moralist: A Study of His Novels confirms the thesis that William Golding is caught in the ineluctable paradox between pessimism and morality; therefore, his view of man combines the duality of his vision. As a pessimist, Golding believes man is selfish, willful, egocentric and morally irresponsible. As a moralist, he perceives a faint hope that a change in behaviour and a re-awakening of moral responsibility is possible if man (in the case of Golding, this paper argues, he means his reader) is forced to see into himself. This dissertation shows how Golding's novels illuminate man's destructive actions and his willful decisions which reveal his nature. Through the vision of man presented in his novels, this dissertation argues, Golding hopes the reader will be persuaded to alter his own behaviour. The focus of the dissertation concerns how Golding's vision of man is revealed by three basic techniques that thread and unify all his novels. First, he creates distant and fabulous settings which correspond to Golding's moral ideas. He concentrates on creating real worlds out of unreal settings where his characters may reveal their true dark natures. Second, the paper discusses how Golding patterns each novel by developing distinct and separate symbols and metaphors that command and control each novel. The idea of darkness within man expresses Golding's vision and this paper shows how darkness as a term and as a vision filters throughout all his works tying them together. Third, Golding is concerned with the concept of reversal. As discussed within this paper, Golding reverses known stories or myths, and he shifts or alters his point of view at the conclusion of each novel. He shifts from the protagonist to an indifferent and distant observer. These reversals focus on Golding's vision and are meant to persuade the reader to see how man should behave, not simply how he does behave.