“Gift for the darkness”

1. “Gift for the darkness” William golding’slord of the flies

2. William golding: Nobel Prize for literature

3. conversation with william Golding: what part did the war play in the writing of your novel? • I don’t think I can answer that question, except in general terms and by putting it this way: in a way one saw during the war much more… what happened. All this had nothing to do, directly, with the Nazis or anything; it has much more to do with people. One had one’s nose rubbed in the human condition.

4. … continued: • [During the war] I had discovered what one man could do to another. I am not talking of one man killing another with a gun, or dropping a bomb on him or blowing him up or torpedoing him. I am thinking of the vileness beyond all words that went on, year after year, in the totalitarian states.

5. “lest I should be physically sick” • It is bad enough to say that so many Jews were exterminated in this way and that, so many people liquidated – lovely, elegant word – but there were things done during that period from which I shall have to avert my mind lest I should be physically sick. They were done skillfully, coldly by educated men….

6. Simon’s encounter with the Lord of the Flies… • Whether Simon’s encounter is imagined, dreamed or supernatural is not very clear…

7. … the “lord’s” message is central to the novel: • The Lord of the Flies explains to Simon that it is useless to try to kill the beast: • “I am part of you,” he says. • Golding seems to IMPLY that no matter what name you give to EVIL: sin, devil, neurosis, beast, violence, hate, terrorism, destruction… • These traits are inside of man; we are, by nature, evil.

8. Microcosm: • The book pictures the downfall of a small society on an unknown island:

9. Macrocosm: • It also gives a portrait of what it means to be human – in light of the atrocities of World War Two…