The Unfortunate Triumph of Anthropocentrism over the Carnivalesque  In William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies

<p>This paper presents the findings of a study based on students’ response to participating in an international project. This international project was a collaboration between Pakistan, the UK and Norway. Collaborative teaching techniques of using literature circles within each class and google circles across the three contexts (online) were used. Twelve participating students from Pakistan were interviewed to explore their reactions to the international study. Students felt that they learnt new things from the use of these innovative methods, were able to learn from foreigners and felt a sense of connectivity to their groups. It is recommended that students from Pakistan be given such exposure to overcome their hesitation. It is recommended that further research be carried out in other contexts as well to determine if the use of such teaching pedagogies can benefit other teachers of literature.</p>

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Golding’s Narrowed Attempts at Defining Human Nature in Lord of the Flies

Research Journal of Social Sciences and Economics Review (RJSSER) ◽

10.36902/rjsser-vol2-iss1-2021(45-50) ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 45-50

Author(s):

Rabia Khan ◽

Sajjad Ahmad ◽

Ali Ammar

Keyword(s):

Human Nature ◽

Social Factors ◽

Social Problem ◽

Political System ◽

Research Work ◽

The Novel ◽

Biological Factors ◽

Single Character ◽

William Golding ◽

Lord Of The Flies

This paper is an attempt to prove the assumption that William Golding is a failure who claims to have written his novel Lord of the Flies on the idea of human nature. He considers that he wrote about human nature in general, but he is a Western and has those ideas of being superior to other people. He takes all his characters from among the English boys. Not a single character who is shown as civilized belongs to a marginalized race. This act of Golding reveals his ethnocentric attitude. He does not bother to include a female character in this novel. All his characters are male. It shows his androcentric nature. Though he tries to put the evil like every man whenever he wants to show the brutality or savagery of a human, in the form of his chosen English boys, he portrays them as the hunters of Africa or paints them with mud. In doing so, he is affiliating savagery with the blacks and Indians. Thus, he propagates the same stereotypical concept of “Orients” as uncivilized and savages. Golding relies solely on the biological factors of human nature. He ignores to consider any social problem for the conflict of the two groups of boys. These social factors may include political system, religion, or Marxism. This research work has proved that Golding’s self-critique of human nature in the novel is a failure on his part.

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Excursus D: “Lord of the flies”

Israel and Hellas, [I], Israel and Hellas ◽

10.1515/9783110882940.219 ◽

2012 ◽

Keyword(s):

Lord Of The Flies

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William Golding

10.1093/obo/9780199846719-0182 ◽

2022 ◽

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Nobel Prize ◽

Human Condition ◽

Class Consciousness ◽

Human Society ◽

Narrative Art ◽

College And University ◽

Fiction Writers ◽

Lord Of The Flies ◽

Human Conflict

Sir William Gerard Golding (1911–1993), the writer of Lord of the Flies (LOTF), occupies a pivotal position within the post–World War II canon of writers. Though Golding does not seem to belong to any particular “school” or movement of fiction writers who wrote at the height of Cold War and its aftermath per se, he is a staple in high school, college, and university curricula all over the globe. His magnum opus, Lord of the Flies (1954), transformed him into a writer who commands worldwide attention. In the book he attacked the belief in any stable notions of civilization, society, and culture, and was keen to show the innate depravity of the human spirit. His trilogy To the Ends of the Earth, which comprises Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989), further explores his themes of the civilizing process and class consciousness, while the travelogue An Egyptian Journal (1985) shows his fascination for the ancient land and his journey there after he won the Nobel Prize in 1983. His famous quote about humanity, “Man produces evil as a bee produces honey,” speaks of his disbelief in the progress and the health of modern civilization and any stable notions of human progress. His Nobel Prize citation stated it was given “for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in a world of today,” thus summarizing his lifelong mission as a writer. Golding’s themes are class consciousness, human society (particularly what happens to it in isolation), modern and postmodern trauma with respect to human dreams and aspirations, and, lastly, the entire notion of “civilization” itself. His fiction has been analyzed with recourse to anthropology, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, narratology, trauma studies, and queer scholarship. Critical commentary on Golding continues to grow, especially around LOTF, due to its continued relevance owing to themes of violence, totalitarianism, queer studies, and its apocalyptic vision. It should be stressed, however, that compared to LOTF, his only play, The Brass Butterfly (1958), his Poems (1934) and his other nonfiction, such as A Moving Target (1982) and The Hot Gates (1965), the three short narratives in The Scorpion God (1971), and even his posthumous The Double Tongue (1995), have received scant attention. Though the themes of the essential drama of human conflict played against the backdrop of morality, human choice, and postmodern trauma that remain foundational to human existence might be applied to any 20thcentury writer, they are particularly germane to Golding’s works.

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WHY AND HOW ARE CHILDREN FAT?

PEDIATRICS ◽

10.1542/peds.34.3.303 ◽

1964 ◽

Vol 34 (3) ◽

pp. 303-307

Author(s):

WILLIAM M. WALLACE

Keyword(s):

Violent Death ◽

Lord Of The Flies ◽

Standard Deviations ◽

The One ◽

Eventual Loser

IN SONG AND STORY, obesity has always had an association with the positive and happy values of life. The fat person was the image of the one to be trusted. He was kind, happy, jolly, and successful. If he were lazy, it was a good sort of laziness. If he were the butt of a joke, the jokester was the eventual loser. In the female, two standard deviations above mean weight was a sign of beauty. Today all this, for not easily discernible reasons, is changed. The pediatrician who would begin the study of obesity today could well start with a study of Piggy in the "Lord of the Flies." Either by intent or intuition, Golding has made him physically inept, myopic, frightened, and carried to an early and violent death, his wisdom and foresight unheeded.

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