Sir William Gerald Golding

Sir William Gerald Golding English novelist who in 1983 won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his parables of the human condition. He attracted a cult of followers, especially among the youth of the post-World War II generation. Much of Golding's writing explores moral dilemmas and human reactions in extreme situations.

Educated at Marlborough Grammar School, where his father taught, and at Brasenose College, Oxford, Golding graduated in 1935. After working in a settlement house and in small theatre companies, he became a schoolmaster at Bishop Wordsworth's School, Salisbury. He joined the Royal Navy in 1940, took part in the action that saw the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck, and commanded a rocket-launching craft during the invasion of France in 1944. After the war he resumed teaching at Bishop Wordsworth's until 1961.

Golding's first published novel was Lord of the Flies (1954; film 1963 and 1990). It was extremely successful and is considered one of the great works of 20th-century literature. Based on Golding's own wartime experiences, it is the story of a group of schoolboys lost on a desert island after a plane crash. An allegory of the intrinsic corruption (порочность) of human nature, it chronicles the boys' descent from a state of relative innocence to one of revengeful barbarism. Its imaginative and brutal depiction of the rapid and inevitable dissolution of social mores aroused widespread interest. The title is said to be a reference to a line from King Lear - "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, — They kill us for their sport". (King Lear Act IV, Scene). It may also be a reference to the Hebrew name Beelzebub (בעל זבוב, Baal-zvuv, "god of the fly", "host of the fly" or literally "Lord of Flies"), a name sometimes used as a synonym for Satan. To critics Golding said that the book was written to show the flaws in human nature.

The Inheritors (1955), set in the last days of Ne`anderthal man, is another story of the essential violence and depravity of human nature. The guilt-filled reflections of a naval officer, his ship torpedoed, who faces an agonizing death are the subject of Pincher Martin (1956). Two other novels, Free Fall (1959) and The Spire (1964), also demonstrate Golding's belief that “man produces evil as a bee produces honey.”

In The Spire (шпиль) Jocelin, dean of the cathedral, begins the construction of a huge spire. Jocelin is determined to build a monument that will scrape the sky, thereby exalting the town and bringing them closer to God. The work is full of symbolism. One of the symbols is the spire, which symbolizes mans ambition to achieve and be noticed. It also shows blind ambition because although many people do challenge what Jocelin is doing, he chooses to ignore them and continue on regardless of all the advice he has received.

Darkness Visible (1979) tells the story of a boy horribly burned in the London blitz during World War II. His later works include Rites of Passage (1980), which won the Booker McConnell Prize, and its sequels, Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989). Golding was knighted in 1988.

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