William Golding’s Lord of the Flies- Essay
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This assignment is English, Language and Literature. It is focusing on literature criticism, through an essay. all the information is in the attached, but here below please find the highlights and requirements. NOTE; THE LAST TWO ASSIGNMENTS YOU HAVE RETURNED HAVE BEEN VERY POOR. IF THIS IS AGAIN THE CASE, I WILL BE LODGING A FORMAL COMPLAINT AND DEMANDING A REFUND. Below is the required task. For Literature Criticism Presentation. Please note, this is for an IB student and the quality is expected to be ‘excellent’. Below are the requirements. Should you have any queries, please reach out without delay. 1. Create a PowerPoint presentation to give to a class (presentation must be accompanied by a separate talking points / script document) I. Identify best part of the essay and create discussion points about each part II. Identify and talk at the thesis III. Highlight and talk about the starred passages focusing on literature criticism 2.
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Below is the required task. For Literature Criticism Presentation.Please note, this is for an IB
student and the quality is expected to be ‘excellent’. Below are the requirements. Should you have
any queries, please reach out without delay.
1. Create a PowerPoint presentation to give to a class (presentation must be accompanied by a
separate talking points / script document)
I. Identify best part of the essayand create discussion points about each part
II. Identify and talk at the thesis
III. Highlight and talk about the starred passages focusing on literature criticism
2. Annotate the essay electronically (in below word doc) by using color code and notes on the side
ESSAY 1:
JAMES R. BAKER CONSIDERS GOLDING, HUXLEY, AND MODERNITY
Surely we have heard enough about William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Published in 1954, it rapidly
gained popularity in England, then in America, then in translation throughout Europe, Russia, and Asia,
until it became one of the most familiar and studied tales of the century. In the 1960s it was rated an
instant classic in the literature of disillusionment that grew out of the latest great war, and we felt certain it
was the perfect fable (more fable than fiction) that spelled out what had gone wrong in that dark and
stormy time and what might devastate our future.
But in the postwar generation a new spirit was rising, a new wind blowing on campus, a new politics
forming to oppose the old establishment and its failures. Golding, proclaimed “Lord of the Campus” by
Time magazine (64) in 1962, was soon found wanting—an antique tragedian, a pessimist, a Christian
moralist who would not let us transcend original sin and the disastrous history of the last 50 years. . . .
The identity assigned to Golding during these years was not substantially altered by his later work. . . .
He remained the man who wrote Lord of the Flies, the man who felt he had to protest his designation as
pessimist even in his Nobel speech of 1983 (Nobel Lecture 149–50). Have we been entirely fair?
Golding’s reputation, like that of any artist, was created not simply by what he wrote or intended but also
by the prevailing mentality of his readership, and often a single work will be selected by that readership as
characteristic or definitive. Writer and reader conspire to sketch a portrait of the artist that may or may not
endure. . . .
In 1962 I began correspondence with Golding in preparation for a book on his work (William Golding:
A Critical Study). My thesis . . . was that the structure and spirit of Lord of the Flies were modeled on
Euripidean tragedy, specifically The Bacchae, and that the later novels also borrowed character and
structure from the ancient tragedians. Golding’s response:
With regard to Greek, you are quite right that I go to that literature for its profound engagement with
first and last things. But though a few years ago it was true I’d read little but Greek for twenty years,
it’s true no longer. The Greek is still there and I go back to it when I feel like that; now I must get in
touch with the contemporary scene, and not necessarily the literary one; the scientific one perhaps.
(Baker and Golding, letter 12 August 1965)
Science? What could he mean? . . .
I interviewed Golding in 1982. . . . Had there been a “classic revolt,” I asked, against his father’s
scientific point of view? After some defense of the father’s complexity of mind, the conclusion was clear:
“But I do think that during the formative years I did feel myself to be in a sort of rationalist atmosphere
against which I kicked” (130). I also asked whether he felt he belonged to the long line of English writers
who, especially since Darwin, had taken scientist and the scientific account of things into their own work
—a line running from Tennyson and including among others Hardy, Wells, Huxley, Snow, Durrell, and
Fowles. . . .
student and the quality is expected to be ‘excellent’. Below are the requirements. Should you have
any queries, please reach out without delay.
1. Create a PowerPoint presentation to give to a class (presentation must be accompanied by a
separate talking points / script document)
I. Identify best part of the essayand create discussion points about each part
II. Identify and talk at the thesis
III. Highlight and talk about the starred passages focusing on literature criticism
2. Annotate the essay electronically (in below word doc) by using color code and notes on the side
ESSAY 1:
JAMES R. BAKER CONSIDERS GOLDING, HUXLEY, AND MODERNITY
Surely we have heard enough about William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Published in 1954, it rapidly
gained popularity in England, then in America, then in translation throughout Europe, Russia, and Asia,
until it became one of the most familiar and studied tales of the century. In the 1960s it was rated an
instant classic in the literature of disillusionment that grew out of the latest great war, and we felt certain it
was the perfect fable (more fable than fiction) that spelled out what had gone wrong in that dark and
stormy time and what might devastate our future.
But in the postwar generation a new spirit was rising, a new wind blowing on campus, a new politics
forming to oppose the old establishment and its failures. Golding, proclaimed “Lord of the Campus” by
Time magazine (64) in 1962, was soon found wanting—an antique tragedian, a pessimist, a Christian
moralist who would not let us transcend original sin and the disastrous history of the last 50 years. . . .
The identity assigned to Golding during these years was not substantially altered by his later work. . . .
He remained the man who wrote Lord of the Flies, the man who felt he had to protest his designation as
pessimist even in his Nobel speech of 1983 (Nobel Lecture 149–50). Have we been entirely fair?
Golding’s reputation, like that of any artist, was created not simply by what he wrote or intended but also
by the prevailing mentality of his readership, and often a single work will be selected by that readership as
characteristic or definitive. Writer and reader conspire to sketch a portrait of the artist that may or may not
endure. . . .
In 1962 I began correspondence with Golding in preparation for a book on his work (William Golding:
A Critical Study). My thesis . . . was that the structure and spirit of Lord of the Flies were modeled on
Euripidean tragedy, specifically The Bacchae, and that the later novels also borrowed character and
structure from the ancient tragedians. Golding’s response:
With regard to Greek, you are quite right that I go to that literature for its profound engagement with
first and last things. But though a few years ago it was true I’d read little but Greek for twenty years,
it’s true no longer. The Greek is still there and I go back to it when I feel like that; now I must get in
touch with the contemporary scene, and not necessarily the literary one; the scientific one perhaps.
(Baker and Golding, letter 12 August 1965)
Science? What could he mean? . . .
I interviewed Golding in 1982. . . . Had there been a “classic revolt,” I asked, against his father’s
scientific point of view? After some defense of the father’s complexity of mind, the conclusion was clear:
“But I do think that during the formative years I did feel myself to be in a sort of rationalist atmosphere
against which I kicked” (130). I also asked whether he felt he belonged to the long line of English writers
who, especially since Darwin, had taken scientist and the scientific account of things into their own work
—a line running from Tennyson and including among others Hardy, Wells, Huxley, Snow, Durrell, and
Fowles. . . .
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Since Golding’s death in 1993 his work has gone into partial eclipse, as he himself predicted. While we
wait for recovery, if it ever comes, we should adjust our accounts. We shall find that much of the fiction
was oriented and directly influenced by his knowledge of science and that there is an evolution from the
extreme negativism of Lord of the Flies toward greater respect for the scientist and scientific inquiry. The
much discussed sources for the dark fable lie in Golding’s experience of the war, in his connection with
Lord Cherwell’s research into explosives, in the use of the atomic bombs on Japan, in the postwar
revelations of the Holocaust and the horrors of Stalinist Russia—quite enough to bring on the sense of
tragic denouement and, as he said in “A Moving Target” (163), “grief, sheer grief ” as inspiration, if that is
the proper word.
Was there a contemporary literary source or precedent on which he could build his own account of the
failure of humanity and the likelihood of atomic apocalypse? . . . In an address titled “Utopias and
Antiutopias” he comes, inevitably, to Aldous Huxley:
As the war clouds darkened over Europe he and some of our most notable poets removed themselves
to the new world. . . . There Huxley continued to create what we may call antiutopias and utopias
with the same gusto, apparently, for both kinds. One antiutopia is certainly a disgusting job and best
forgotten. . . . Yet I owe his writings much myself, I’ve had much enjoyment from them—in
particular release from a certain starry-eyed optimism which stemmed from the optimistic
rationalism of the nineteenth century. The last utopia he attempted which was technically and strictly
a utopia and ideal state, Island (1962), is one for which I have a considerable liking and respect.
(181) . . .
Huxley was the near-contemporary (17 years separated them) so much admired in the early stage of
Golding’s efforts, and he was quite like Golding—knowledgeable about science and scientists, yet
dedicated to literature, intent upon spiritual experience and a search for an acceptable religious faith.
Huxley’s skeptical views were an update on H. G. Wells and his rather quaint “scientific humanism,” a
faith fading in Huxley’s mind and lost to Golding and many of his generation. . . .
In Golding’s island society the man of reason, the scientist, is represented in the sickly, myopic child
Piggy, the butt of schoolboy gibes, but unfortunately many readers and most critics have failed to
understand his limitations and thus his function in the allegory. This may be explained, in part, by the
uncritical adoration of the scientist in our society, but another factor is the misunderstanding found in the
prestige introduction by E. M. Forster in the first American edition of Lord of the Flies and subsequently
held before our eyes for 40 years. We are asked to “Meet three boys,” Ralph, Jack, and Piggy. We do not
meet Simon at all. Piggy is Forster’s hero, he is “the brains of the party,” “the wisdom of the heart,” “the
human spirit,” and as for the author, “he is on the side of Piggy.” In a final bit of advice we are
admonished: “At the present moment (if I may speak personally) it is respect for Piggy that is most
needed. I do not find it in our leaders” (ix–xii). Actually, rightly understood, Piggy is respected all too
much by our leaders, for he provides the means whereby they wield and extend their powers. Jack must
steal Piggy’s glasses to gain the power of fire. Forster, of course, was the arch-humanist of his day and
apparently a subscriber to the “scientific humanism” Golding wished to demean. Contrast Golding’s
remarks to Jack Biles, a friendly interviewer: “Piggy isn’t wise. Piggy is short-sighted. He is rationalist.
My great curse, you understand, rationalism—and, well he’s that. He’s naïve, short-sighted and rationalist,
like most scientists.”
Scientific advance, he continues, is useful, yet
it doesn’t touch the human problem. Piggy never gets anywhere near coping with anything on that
island. He dismisses the beast . . . says there aren’t such things as ghosts, not understanding that the
whole of society is riddled with ghosts. . . . Piggy understands society less than almost anyone there
at all.
Finally, Piggy is dismissed as a type, a clownish caricature who
wait for recovery, if it ever comes, we should adjust our accounts. We shall find that much of the fiction
was oriented and directly influenced by his knowledge of science and that there is an evolution from the
extreme negativism of Lord of the Flies toward greater respect for the scientist and scientific inquiry. The
much discussed sources for the dark fable lie in Golding’s experience of the war, in his connection with
Lord Cherwell’s research into explosives, in the use of the atomic bombs on Japan, in the postwar
revelations of the Holocaust and the horrors of Stalinist Russia—quite enough to bring on the sense of
tragic denouement and, as he said in “A Moving Target” (163), “grief, sheer grief ” as inspiration, if that is
the proper word.
Was there a contemporary literary source or precedent on which he could build his own account of the
failure of humanity and the likelihood of atomic apocalypse? . . . In an address titled “Utopias and
Antiutopias” he comes, inevitably, to Aldous Huxley:
As the war clouds darkened over Europe he and some of our most notable poets removed themselves
to the new world. . . . There Huxley continued to create what we may call antiutopias and utopias
with the same gusto, apparently, for both kinds. One antiutopia is certainly a disgusting job and best
forgotten. . . . Yet I owe his writings much myself, I’ve had much enjoyment from them—in
particular release from a certain starry-eyed optimism which stemmed from the optimistic
rationalism of the nineteenth century. The last utopia he attempted which was technically and strictly
a utopia and ideal state, Island (1962), is one for which I have a considerable liking and respect.
(181) . . .
Huxley was the near-contemporary (17 years separated them) so much admired in the early stage of
Golding’s efforts, and he was quite like Golding—knowledgeable about science and scientists, yet
dedicated to literature, intent upon spiritual experience and a search for an acceptable religious faith.
Huxley’s skeptical views were an update on H. G. Wells and his rather quaint “scientific humanism,” a
faith fading in Huxley’s mind and lost to Golding and many of his generation. . . .
In Golding’s island society the man of reason, the scientist, is represented in the sickly, myopic child
Piggy, the butt of schoolboy gibes, but unfortunately many readers and most critics have failed to
understand his limitations and thus his function in the allegory. This may be explained, in part, by the
uncritical adoration of the scientist in our society, but another factor is the misunderstanding found in the
prestige introduction by E. M. Forster in the first American edition of Lord of the Flies and subsequently
held before our eyes for 40 years. We are asked to “Meet three boys,” Ralph, Jack, and Piggy. We do not
meet Simon at all. Piggy is Forster’s hero, he is “the brains of the party,” “the wisdom of the heart,” “the
human spirit,” and as for the author, “he is on the side of Piggy.” In a final bit of advice we are
admonished: “At the present moment (if I may speak personally) it is respect for Piggy that is most
needed. I do not find it in our leaders” (ix–xii). Actually, rightly understood, Piggy is respected all too
much by our leaders, for he provides the means whereby they wield and extend their powers. Jack must
steal Piggy’s glasses to gain the power of fire. Forster, of course, was the arch-humanist of his day and
apparently a subscriber to the “scientific humanism” Golding wished to demean. Contrast Golding’s
remarks to Jack Biles, a friendly interviewer: “Piggy isn’t wise. Piggy is short-sighted. He is rationalist.
My great curse, you understand, rationalism—and, well he’s that. He’s naïve, short-sighted and rationalist,
like most scientists.”
Scientific advance, he continues, is useful, yet
it doesn’t touch the human problem. Piggy never gets anywhere near coping with anything on that
island. He dismisses the beast . . . says there aren’t such things as ghosts, not understanding that the
whole of society is riddled with ghosts. . . . Piggy understands society less than almost anyone there
at all.
Finally, Piggy is dismissed as a type, a clownish caricature who
“ought to wear a white coat . . . ending up at Los Alamos” (12– 14). He is the soulless child who adores
the science that blew up the cities and obliterated the technological society he idealizes.
Putting Forster aside, we have in Golding’s Jack, the lusty hunter who instinctively pursues power, a
diminutive version of Huxley’s ape. In the silence of the forest Jack hunts but is momentarily frightened
by the cry of a bird, “and for a minute became less a hunter than a furtive thing, ape-like among the trees”
(62). He meets his adult counterpart when the boys find the dead airman on the mountaintop: “Before
them, something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head between its knees” (152). And, in his
hour of triumph, he looks down from his castle rock on the defeated Ralph and Piggy: “Power lay in the
brown swell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape” (185).
In his last years Huxley came to a happier and more balanced view about the relation of science to the
larger culture. His Literature and Science, published just before his death, is far more useful to writers on
either side of that continuing debate than the heated exchanges of Snow and Leavis in the late 1950s and
early 60s, and he avoids the overoptimistic prediction or projection of a “unity of knowledge” found in
Edward O. Wilson’s Consilience (1998). Though Huxley was mentor and guide for many of the ideas and
devices that went into Golding’s allegory, Lord of the Flies offers no real hope for redemption.6 Golding
kills off the only saint available (as history obliges him to do) and demonstrates the inadequacy of a
decent leader (Ralph) who is at once too innocent and ignorant of the human heart to save the day from
darkness. In later years Golding struggled toward a view in which science and the humanities might be
linked in useful partnership, and he tried to believe, as Huxley surely did, that the visible world and its
laws were the facade of a spiritual realm. He realized something of this effort in the moral
thermodynamics of Darkness Visible (1974) and again, somewhat obscurely, in the posthumous novel The
Double Tongue (1995). His Nobel speech asserts that the bridge between the visible and invisible worlds,
one he failed to find in the earlier Free Fall, does in fact exist. Thus both novelists recovered to some
degree from the trauma of disillusionment with scientific humanism suffered during the war, and both
aspired to hope that humanity would somehow evolve beyond the old tragic flaws that assured the rebirth
of the devil in every generation.
Note
6. In a letter to his brother, Sir Julian Huxley, 9 June 1952, Huxley counters the idea that there can be no
redemption for fallen man:
Everything seems to point to the fact that, as one goes down through the subliminal, one passes through a layer
(with which psychologists commonly deal) predominantly evil and making for evil—a layer of “Original Sin,”
if one likes to call it so—into a deeper layer of “Original Virtue,” which is one of peace, illumination, and
insight, which seems to be on the fringes of
Pure Ego or Atman. (Letters 635–36)
the science that blew up the cities and obliterated the technological society he idealizes.
Putting Forster aside, we have in Golding’s Jack, the lusty hunter who instinctively pursues power, a
diminutive version of Huxley’s ape. In the silence of the forest Jack hunts but is momentarily frightened
by the cry of a bird, “and for a minute became less a hunter than a furtive thing, ape-like among the trees”
(62). He meets his adult counterpart when the boys find the dead airman on the mountaintop: “Before
them, something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head between its knees” (152). And, in his
hour of triumph, he looks down from his castle rock on the defeated Ralph and Piggy: “Power lay in the
brown swell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape” (185).
In his last years Huxley came to a happier and more balanced view about the relation of science to the
larger culture. His Literature and Science, published just before his death, is far more useful to writers on
either side of that continuing debate than the heated exchanges of Snow and Leavis in the late 1950s and
early 60s, and he avoids the overoptimistic prediction or projection of a “unity of knowledge” found in
Edward O. Wilson’s Consilience (1998). Though Huxley was mentor and guide for many of the ideas and
devices that went into Golding’s allegory, Lord of the Flies offers no real hope for redemption.6 Golding
kills off the only saint available (as history obliges him to do) and demonstrates the inadequacy of a
decent leader (Ralph) who is at once too innocent and ignorant of the human heart to save the day from
darkness. In later years Golding struggled toward a view in which science and the humanities might be
linked in useful partnership, and he tried to believe, as Huxley surely did, that the visible world and its
laws were the facade of a spiritual realm. He realized something of this effort in the moral
thermodynamics of Darkness Visible (1974) and again, somewhat obscurely, in the posthumous novel The
Double Tongue (1995). His Nobel speech asserts that the bridge between the visible and invisible worlds,
one he failed to find in the earlier Free Fall, does in fact exist. Thus both novelists recovered to some
degree from the trauma of disillusionment with scientific humanism suffered during the war, and both
aspired to hope that humanity would somehow evolve beyond the old tragic flaws that assured the rebirth
of the devil in every generation.
Note
6. In a letter to his brother, Sir Julian Huxley, 9 June 1952, Huxley counters the idea that there can be no
redemption for fallen man:
Everything seems to point to the fact that, as one goes down through the subliminal, one passes through a layer
(with which psychologists commonly deal) predominantly evil and making for evil—a layer of “Original Sin,”
if one likes to call it so—into a deeper layer of “Original Virtue,” which is one of peace, illumination, and
insight, which seems to be on the fringes of
Pure Ego or Atman. (Letters 635–36)
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