William Golding Life Works and Critique
WILLIAM GOLDING (1911-1993)
LIFE, WORKS, CRITIQUE
WILLIAM GOLDING’S LIFE AND HIS WORKS
Sir William Gerald Golding is one of the 20th century 's greatest novelists. He is best known for his novels Lord of the Flies and Rites of Passage. He was born in Cornwall, the son of a school master, William Gerald Golding, attended Marlborough Grammar School before going up to Brasenose College, Oxford, to study sciences. Against his parents’ wishes he change in his second year at university, to follow the course in English Literature. However Golding had always been interested in literature and had begun writing at the age of seven. On leaving he entered the teaching profession, where he remained until he enlisted in the Royal Navy at the start of the Second World War (1939-1945), during which he had a distinguished career, being promoted commander and seeing action which was shock him into questioning the horror of war. These experiences inform his writing, he was appalled at what human beings can do to one another, not only in terms of the Holocaust and other wartime atrocities, but also in their being innately evil. When war was over Golding return to teaching, at Bishop Wordsworth School, and writing but his experience made him no longer believe in the innocence of human beings and he had come to believe that without the laws and social pressures that keep order in society, a dark and ruthless side of human nature emerges. The Lord of the Flies was published in 1954 and it was followed by The Inheritors in 1955 which overturned H.G. Wells 's Outline of History (1920) and depicted the extermination of Neanderthal man by Homo Sapiens. Neanderthals are first portrayed compassionate and communal, but when they meet the more sophisticated Cro-Magnons, their tribe is doomed. The Finnish professor of paleontology, Björn Kurtén has offered in his novel Dance of the Tiger (1978) the explanation, that the Neanderthals disappeared because they fell fatally in
LIFE, WORKS, CRITIQUE
WILLIAM GOLDING’S LIFE AND HIS WORKS
Sir William Gerald Golding is one of the 20th century 's greatest novelists. He is best known for his novels Lord of the Flies and Rites of Passage. He was born in Cornwall, the son of a school master, William Gerald Golding, attended Marlborough Grammar School before going up to Brasenose College, Oxford, to study sciences. Against his parents’ wishes he change in his second year at university, to follow the course in English Literature. However Golding had always been interested in literature and had begun writing at the age of seven. On leaving he entered the teaching profession, where he remained until he enlisted in the Royal Navy at the start of the Second World War (1939-1945), during which he had a distinguished career, being promoted commander and seeing action which was shock him into questioning the horror of war. These experiences inform his writing, he was appalled at what human beings can do to one another, not only in terms of the Holocaust and other wartime atrocities, but also in their being innately evil. When war was over Golding return to teaching, at Bishop Wordsworth School, and writing but his experience made him no longer believe in the innocence of human beings and he had come to believe that without the laws and social pressures that keep order in society, a dark and ruthless side of human nature emerges. The Lord of the Flies was published in 1954 and it was followed by The Inheritors in 1955 which overturned H.G. Wells 's Outline of History (1920) and depicted the extermination of Neanderthal man by Homo Sapiens. Neanderthals are first portrayed compassionate and communal, but when they meet the more sophisticated Cro-Magnons, their tribe is doomed. The Finnish professor of paleontology, Björn Kurtén has offered in his novel Dance of the Tiger (1978) the explanation, that the Neanderthals disappeared because they fell fatally in
Bibliography: 1. Bent, Andrew,(1995) A Study Course on William Golding 's "Lord of the Flies", London: First & Best in Education Ltd. 2. Carey, John, (2009), William Golding, The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies, London: Faber and Faber Limited. 3. Friedman, Lawrence S.( 1993) William Golding (Literature and Life) Continuum Intl Pub Group 4. Golding, William (1997), Lord of the Flies, notes by S.W. Foster, London: York Press. 5. Hanscombe, Gillian,( 1999) William Golding : Lord of the flies: Penguin 6. McCarron, Kevin (1994), William Golding, Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd. 7. Sir William Golding. (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 16, 2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/237863/Sir-William-Golding 8. SparkNotes Editors. (2007). SparkNote on Lord of the Flies. Retrieved November 9, 2009, from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/ 9. Stephenson, William. A substantial introduction to William Golding, Literary Encyclopedia, 3/7/2003 10. Stewart, Martin (1994), Lord of the Flies, China: Letts and Lonsdale.