Comparing Themes of Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, and Pincher Martin :: comparison compare contrast essays

Themes of Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, and Pincher Martin A running theme in William Goldings works is that man is savage at heart, always ultimately reverting back to an evil and primitive nature. The cycle of mans rise to power, or righteousness, and his inevitable fall from grace is an important point that Golding proves over again and again in many of his works, often comparing man with characters from the Bible to give a more vivid picture of his descent. Golding symbolizes this fall in distinguishable manners, ranging from the illustration of the mentality of actual primitive man to the reflections of a corrupt seaman in purgatory. William Goldings first book, Lord of the Flies, is the story of a base of boys of varied backgrounds who are marooned on an unknown island when their plane crashes. As the boys try to organize and formulate a plan to get rescued, they begin to separate and as a result of the dissension a band of savage tribal hunters is formed. Eventu ally the stranded boys in Lord of the Flies almost entirely rush off civilized behavior (Riley 1 119). When the confusion finally leads to a manhunt for Ralph, the reader realizes that despite the strong sense of British character and civility that has been instilled in the youth throughout their lives, the boys have backpedaled and shown the underlying savage side existent in all humans. Golding senses that institutions and order imposed from without are temporary, but mans irrationality and nervous impulse for destruction are enduring (Riley 1 119). The novel shows the reader how easy it is to revert back to the evil nature inherent in man. If a group of well-conditioned school boys can ultimately wind up committing various extreme travesties, one can imagine what adults, leaders of society, are capable of doing under the pressures of act to maintain world relations. Lord of the Fliess apprehension of evil is such that it touches the nerve of contemporary horror as no engli sh novel of its time has make it takes us, through symbolism, into a world of active, proliferating evil which is seen, one feels, as the natural condition of man and which is bound to remind the reader of the vilest manifestations of Nazi regression (Riley 1 120).