LORD OF THE FLIES
OUTLINE
-Source and literary Tradition.
-
Aspects
of Ritual and Myth in " lord of the Flies"
(seen through the characters in action)
Born in september 19, 1911, dean of his generation of
novelists, William Golding came to writing as his profession
relativily late in life.
His main works include:
-lord of the Flies, 1954 ( Golding´s first novel and the one
that established his reputation)
-The Inheritors, 1955
-Pincher Martin, 1956
-Free Hall,1959
-The Spire, 1964
-The pyramid, 1967
Golding actual position in his generation is almost unique.
There is no easy way to fit him into any current English School
of Fiction.
According to Walter Allen, his novels Strike one as strictly
contemporary: they are rooted in the anguish and anxiety of their
times.
( The modern Novel, New York, 1964, p.288 )
Paradoxically, this is so even thopugh only one ( Free hall ) of
the first half dozen major works he has published is set in a
conventional contemporary environment.
One of Golding great strengths is the sensuous richness
with which he is able to dramatize the plight of beings in remote
and extre me situations, from school boys on an island, to
Neanderthalelrs assailed by unknown enemies...
The actions describes have multiple layers of significance
inviting allegoric readings.
In reply to a literary magazine questionnaire ´The writer
in his age, Golding describes himself as "a citzen",
" a novelist", and "a scollmaster". The
citizen is concerned to correct them by proper instruction, the
novelist finds the apropiate forms in which man own nature may be
embodied, that he may learn to know it.
Golding can compel the reader to look at the world through
new and strange eyes and to ask bleak and anxious questions about
evolution, about the follies of history, or about the egotism of
human nature.
He thinks his novels out very slowly, and in careful detail, and
his endings surprise the reader, and make him ask- can a
paradoxical ending to a novel ever negate, as though erasing, the
experience of the preceding narrative?
A planeload of boys has been evacuated from an England
engaged in some future war fought against " the reds".
After their departure, an atomic bomb has fallen on England and
civilzation is in ruins. IT is the post catastrophic near future
in which nuclear ar has laid waste much of the west. The
aeroplane crash lands on a coral island.
The survivors, a party of scoolboys find themselves cast away in
ideal surrounding. At first, they set out to create arational
society modeled on what grown-ups would do. They established
government and laws, they provide for food and shelter, and they
light a signal fire.
But this rational society begins to break down under two
instinctual pressure- fear and blood lust. The dark unknown
that surrounds the children gradually assumes a monstrous
identity and becomes " The Best" to be feared, and
hunting for food becomes killing. The hunters break away from the
rest of other boys and create their own primitive savage
orgiastic tribal society. They kill two of the tree rational
boys, and are hunting down the third when the adult world under
the form of a naval officer comes to their rescue.
Golding´s most immediate source is R.M. Ballantynes
" Coral Island", a victorian boy´s book of south sea
adventure, but in Ballantyne the boys are able to make use of
island situation pretty well with everything they lay their hands
on, whereas Golding´s boys can only destroy.
The "Island" story" is very much part of the
English Literary Tradition (survival narrative) One only has to
go back to " Shakespeare´s tempest", Stevenson´s
Treasure Island, " Robinson Crusoe" or " Barries
Admirable Crichton"
The traditions embodied in " Lord of the Flies" can
also be discovered in " Gullivers´s Travels";
Swifts´s version of the primeval savagery and greed, which
civilization only masks in modern man. It is also in the
tradition last exemplified by Conrad, Gary and Green in our
century that examine our ulture by transplanting it harshly to an
exotic local where it prospers or withers depending upon its
intrimsic value and strength.
One might say the " Lord of the Flies" is a refutation
of coral Island, and that Golding sets about to show us that the
devil rises, not out of pirates and cannibals, but put of
" The darkness of man´s heart"
The desert- island tale shares certain literary qualities
with science fiction. Both offers a What would happen
if" situation, in which real experience is simplified in
order that certain values and problems may be regarded in
isolation. Both tends to simplify human moral issues by
externalizing good and evil. Both offer occasions for Utopie and
fantaisies.
It is possible to regard the novel as pessimistic or
optimistic, either as a tribute to mankind´s clinging to
civilized codes ( as in the case of some of the characters,
Ralph, Piggy, Simon ) or an indictment of mankind´s return to
savagery ( Jack and his hunters).
Golding who has lived through the horrors of Belsen and
Buckenwald writes:
" There were things done during that periiod from which I
still have to avert my mind less i should be physically sick.
They were not done by the headhunters of New guiness or by some
primitive tribe in the amazon. They were done skillfully, coldly
by educated men, doctros, lawyers, by men with a tradition of
civilization behind them, to being of their own kind."
Golding goes on stressing what he considers to be basic to Man´s
nature: His propensity to evil. This he says "is man´s real
nature, yet it was ignored and hidden by those who urged man´s
perfectibility and evolution towards sweetness and light."
"I believed that Man was sick- not exceptional man,
but average man."
"I believed that the condition of man was to be a
morally diseased creature."
This, then is the view of point that each and everyone of us is a
morally flowed creature that is put forward in " the Lord of
the Flies."
Golding´s critics have found " lord of the
Flies" coherent on a number of levels.
-Freudians have found in the novel a conscious dramatization of
psychological theory. Denied the sustaining and repressing
authority of parents, church and state, the children form a new
culture, the development of which reflects that of genuine
primitive society, evolving its gods and demons ( its myths), its
rituals and taboos (its social norms).
- in psychological terms, the members of a " demented
society" may create an irrational, extern evil, and in its
name commit deeds that as rational men they could not tolerate. (
modern persecutions offer example enough).Such a society has to
destroy the man says " the Evil is in yourselves"
- The political-minded see in it Rational Democracy being
destroyed by irrational authoritarianism. A " demented but
partly secure society " will resist an attempt to destroy
anyone who for the irresponsable, unreasoning secure action of
the mass.
- - The social minded have found in it a social allegory in which
life without civilized restraints becomes nasty, brutish and
short.
- In theological terms Golding´s pessimistic view of humanity´s
inherent imperfection is familiar as " The fall of man
" or the idea of "original sin", which seems to be
so central to man´s conception of himself.
THE Lord of the Flies. Beelzebub. ( From the arabic
" Baal-zebub", the fly-lord).
The Geneva Bible of 1560, followed by the Authorized of 1611,
represents the Old Testament word exactly as "
Baal-zebub". From the New testament designation of Beelzebub
as " prince of demons", the word becomes one of the
popular names of the Devil. Milton used it as the name of one of
the fallen angels. The pig´s head holds dominion over all the
subject flies, just as the "beast" or evil whitin the
boys holds dominion over their actions.
In the novel, the "beast" symbolizes the source of evil
in human life.
Aspects of ritual and myths in Lord of the flies (seen through the characters in action)
Golding´s books have called both "Myths" and
"Fables", and both terms usually refer to tight
conceptualized analogical expressions of moral ideas.
While Golding himself acknowledges that writing was worked out
carefully in every way, he has expressed anxiety at the term
"fable" being applied, because he sees this as implying
something which is not inherent in the book of the structure, but
added as a kind of moral appendage ( though Golding is a
moralist, he is not a moral maker)
He himself declares:
"What I would regard as a tremendous compliment to myself if
someone would substitute the word "myth" for
"fable". I do feel "Fable" as being an
inverted thing on the surface, whereas "myth" is
something which comes out from the root of things in the ancient
sense of being the key to existence, the whole meaning of life
and experience as a whole."
In his book, " myths, Dreams and mysteries", Fontana
1968 pp16-17, Mircea Eliade writes:
" A myth always narrates something as having really
happened, as a event that took place in the plain sense of the
terms.
Myths reveal the structure of reality and the multiple modalities
of being in the world. That is why they are exemplary models for
human behaviour. They disclose the true stotries, concern
themselves with the realities. Myth isn´t something which is
extimsic to the nature of man, but part of the essence of his
being, for it provides metaphorical answers to the fundamental
questions. "Why am I here?. For what purpose?, What is the
nature of Good and Evil?, What is my origin and my
destiny?."
Golding´s novel is also concerned with these fundamental
questions. The Mythic element in the "Lord of the Flies
" is intrincately connected with what Golding has called
" The terrible disease of being human"
The elements of myth and Ritual have been finely
assimilated into the structure of the novel. A brief study of the
main characters in action and what each of their stands for will
bring us to discover this aspect of myth and ritual as part of
their inner nature-aspect which probably would have unnoticed in
those characters under other circumstances. Golding´s
characters, like his setting represent neither fictional reality,
nor fabulistic unreality, but rather partake of the naturalistic
and the allegorical at the same time.
It is the rivalry between two boys : Ralph and Jack for the
leadership of the other boys stranded without adult guidance on a
tropical island which provides the action. From the beginning of
the novel we are aware of their opposite personality.
Golding intends to show us a representative set of types.
Ralph has been seen as the democrat, the everyman who accepts
responsability that he iisn´t particulary fitted for, because he
sees that the alternative to responsability is savagery and moral
chaos.
He tires to establish and preserve an orderly rational society.
He takes as hhis totem the conch found on the beach which will
become the symbol of order, of fair speech and the rule of
reason.
Ralph has been elected chef democratically by the boys because:
" There was stillness about Ralph as he sat that
marked him out. There was his size and attractive appearance, and
yet most obscurely, yet most powerfully there was the conch. (
The sound of the Shell, p.22)
Golding also says about Ralph.
"There was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that
proclaimed no devil".
(Chpt. I p.10)
Ralph´s antagonist is Jack. From the staaart we see in him the
dictator, the authoritarian man of power.
I ought to be the chef because I´m chapter chorister
and his boy. I can sing C.Sharp.
( The sound of the Shell, p.21)
- who despises assemblies and the conch and who becomes in the
end an absolute ruler of his tribe.
Golding´s physical description of Jack in contrast with Ralph:
"His face was crumpled and freckles and ugly without
silliness. Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustated
now, and turning on ready to turn to anger."
( The sound of the shell, p. 19-20)
The critic Claire Rosenfield in " men of smaller growth. ( " A psyhological analysis of William Golding´s Lord of the Flies" Literature and psychology, volume XI, autumm 1961, p.93) has pointed out that the antithesis between the two boys is stenghmed by the way in which jack and his followers appear out of the darkness and how jack is duzzled by the sun shinig from behind Ralph as they talk. She suggests.
" If Ralph is a projection of man´s good impulses from which we derive the authority figures – wheter god, king, or father –who establish the necessity for our valid ethical and social action, then, Jack becomes an externalization of the evil instinctual forces of the unconscious."
Ralph and Jack are antithetical, but at the same time complementary to each other. They represent the good and evil sides of man: -Man the destroyer confronting man the preserver.
We see how at first they work together sharing the delight of exploring the island.
"Eyes shining, mouths open triumphant, they
savoured the right of dominion, they were lifted up, were
friends"
( The sound of the Shell p. 29)
But soon there are quarrels between them over the validity of the
conch:
"the conch doesn´t count on top of the mountain said
Jack."
" Where the conch is, that´s a meeting. The same up
here as down there." Ralph.
( Fire on the mountain, p. 41)
-over the building of shelters
"You wouldn´t help with the shelters, I suppose (
Ralph)
"We want meat" (Jack)
-and the keeping alight the signal fire on the mountain top.
" I was talking about smoke. Don´t you want to be
rescued.
All you can talk about is pig, pig, pig ( Ralph)
" But we want meat" (Jack)
"But you like it, you want to hunt! While I...(Ralph)
( Huts on the beach, p.52)
We already see how Ralph feels responsible about his new
leadership, and that for him duty comes first, while Jack only
seeks his own pleasure.
Nothing better than Golding´s own words to express the
spliting up that is about to take place between the two boys
"They walked along two continents of experience and feeling
unable to ommunicate."
( Hunts on the beach, p.53)
We are told that older boys soon prefer the immediate excitement
of hunting wild pig to the activities which Ralph and his closest
follower "piggy" organize. For, if Ralph and jack
display the forces of attraction and repulsion, piggy represents
the voice of reason, the "intellect" which says and
talks what Ralph thinks, but canot put into words. It is piggy
who suggests that Ralph uses the shell.
"We can use this to call the others, have a
meeting, they´ll come when they hear us."
( The sound of the Shel, p.6)
-who appeals for order
"how can you expect to be rescued if you don´t put
first thing and act proper."
(Fire on the mountain)
-who refuses to believe on the existence of a "beast"
on the island (the same as Simon)
" i know there is no beast with claws and all that, I
mean but I know there isn´t no fear either unless...
unless we get frightened of people..."
( Beast from water, p.80)
What Piggy has just said is very significant for withouot knowing
it, he is very nesr the truth. Although Piggy can think better
than Ralph, he is not a "man" of action. His physique
doesn´t help him either. He is very fat and wears spectacles
which are his totem and the instrument used to light the vital
signal fire, - the only contact with the exterior word outside
the island.
( Towards the end of the story Piggy´s galsses will be stoles
by jack´s hunters.)
Piggy has also be seen as " the outsider", the centre
of "social derision", rejected by all, and for that
reason he is killed by his enemies.
Jack and his hunters are now making a habit of going hunting, but soon the necessity of killing in order to survive gives way to a ritual and a feast. We are told that before the hunt Ralph had painted his face with white and red clay and with a stick of charcoal brought down from the fire.
Golding tells us that behind that painted mask, jack hid
himself " Liberated from shame and self consciousness"
( Painted faces and long hair, p.71)
It is jack and his hunters who provide meat and who involve the
others in the mimetic ritual of killing the pig with its circular
dances, its chants, painted faces and symbolic victim. At first
everything seems quite innocent. One of the little boys pretends
to be the pig.
" Then Maurice pretended to be the pig and ran squealing
into the centre, and the hunters, circling still, pretended to
beat him. As they danced, they sang."
"Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in."
( painted faces and long hair, p.72)
but soon under their mask the boys turn into an anonymous
mob of murderous savages.
"Look, we´ve killed a pig, we stole up on them"
" We got in a circle"
" We crept up"
" The pig squealed"
" I cut the pig´s throat"
" You should have seen the blood!"
By then, we are aware that the whole structure of a savage society is built up before our eyes, and that there is no longer one leader, but two, as Golding points out.
" The two boys faced each other."
" There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce
exhilaration, skill" ( Jack)
and
"There was the world of longing and buffled common
sense"
All trough the novel, Golding makes us aware of the erosion of Ralph´s authority and its passing to Jack.
The situation becomes really worriyng when the
boys/savages caught by their chants and their tribal dances are
no longer chasing an imaginative hig, "Roger ceased to be a
pig and became a hunter."
But ine of them in the person of " ssimon" who
had come out of the forest to tell them the truth about the dead
parachutits he found in the trees whom the boys thought to be the
"beast"; and they have nothing to fear but fear
itself."dying god" has various names. In wetern Asia
and grek lands, he was "adonis", in Egypt,
"Osiris", in Phrigia, "Attis", and in
Sumeria, "Tammuz", but whatever the name, the myths
connected with he says their echoes in " The lord of the
Flies".
A.D.Fleck says that in essenccce all were vegetation mths which
told of the sed which is planted and dies in order that harvest
and rebirth will follow, while often the god is killed by a wild
boar, and the corpse is ceremmonially placed in the river or sea.
Sir James Frazer gives us a description of the rituals connected
with the myths.
-"At the festivals of adonis, the death of the god was
annually mourned with a bitter wailing chefly by women, images of
him dressed to resemble corpses were carried out as to burrial
and then thrown into springs."
( Golden Bough, p.493)
according to these descriptions, it is therefore fitting, says Anthony Fleck that the body of "Simon" in the classic mould of the dying god is claimed by the sea death in the passage that follows:
" The water rose furher and dressed Simon´s coarse
hair with brightness, the line of his cheek silvered and the turn
of his shoulder became sculptured marble. The strange attendant
creatures with their fairy eyes and trailing vapours, busied
thamselves round his head. The body lifted a fraction of an inch
from the sand and a bubble of hair escaped from the mouth with a
wet plop, then it turned gently in the water...
The great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the
water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive
bright creatures...Simon´s dead body moved out towards the open
sea."
( A view to death, pp. 146.147)
Connected with Simon is the figure of the dead airman whose
corpse is held in its flying clothes. Like Simon he also is taken
for the "beast" and also like Simon makes his journey
by water like the Greek amd the Egyptiangods. (p.6)
Claire Rosenfield (man of smaller growth ) has pointed out that
this dead parachutist is also like Frazer´s " hanged or
sacrified god", " A man sacrified upon a tree " in
representation of a god"
" The human victims dedicated to odin were
regurarly put to death by hanging or a combination of hanging or
stabbing, the man being strang up to a tree or gallows and then
wounded with a spear."
( The golden Bough, p. 467)
Anthony Fleck ( Aspects of Myth and Ritual in Lord od the
Flies) sees another aspect of the dying god in the association in
the death with pigs and boars as quite appropiate for a
vegetation deity, as pigs are notorius for the damage they can do
any growing crops.
J.Frazer in the Golden Bough, p.615 notes that in European
Folk-lore the pig is the common embodiment of the corn spirit.
For instance the man who cuts the last stalk of the harvest in
certain parts of Germany is said to "get the sow", in
others, an effigy of a pig is made of straw and cariied by the
man who givs the stroke in the thresting to a neighbouring farm
where they have not yet finished while in Estonia, the last shift
is called the Ryeboar.
The pig was held sacred to both Attis and Adonis as they both
were reputed to have died while hunting the wild boar.
"The relationsship between the deity and the pig isn´t a
simple one, for in the mind of the worshippers the two became
confused."
Frazer says to this respect, ( Goden Bough, p.619)
"It almost be laid down as a rule that an animal which
is said to have in jured a god is the god himself"
According to A.Fleck, the mystic confusion is further compounded in taht pigs were slain to symbolize the death of the god, yet at the same time were offered as a sacrifice to the God himself.
These ambiguities are also present in the " Lord of
the Flies", in the boys-attitude towards the pigs which they
hunt and kill. Not only are the pigs the main source of meat for
the boys, but also the ritual associated with the preparation for
the hunt and the communal feast that follows assumes religious
proportions.
The title of Golding´s "Lord of the Flies" is
applied to the head of the sow which is left impaled upon a stick
as an offering to the best" as the boys call the force of
evil which they feel is on the island.
The beast is seen as a "hunter" who himself eats pig,
and it is Jack who is the first of the bigger boys to accept the
"beast" as possible and the one to offer the
propriatory sacrifice to it. He is a sort of " high
priest" of Belzebuth-lord of the Flies.
"And about the beast. When we kill will leave some of
the kill forbit. Then it won´t bother us, may be."
(Gift for the darkness, p.127)
"This head is for the beast, it´s a gift"
(Gift for the darkness, p.131)
To the boys, the pig therefore becomes both the sacrifice and
the God to whom the sacrifice is made.
But Simon will be sacrified as the beast, and for the beast. His
death is soon followed by that of Piggy who is linked by name
with the myth of the pig.
" Piggy´s arms and legs twiched a bit like a pg after it
has been killed".
(Castle Rock p. 172)
The passing of autohrity and power from Ralph to Jack is
now imminent. Althoughhe tires to live by he rules, Ralph becomes
desillusioned with democratic procedure as Jack said of
him.
" He just gives orders, and expect people to obey
for nothing. All this talk, shouted Ralph, talk, talk who wanted
it?"
(Gift for the darknes, p. 121)
And much more important, willing or not he was present at
Simon´s murder, though soon after he will recognize his share of
guilt.
Golding points out how a human hero can be weak.
" Don´t you see what we, what they did...
That was murdeer...
That was Simon...
I´m frightened of us, I want to go
home, o god I want to go home... "
(The shell and the glasses, p.148-149)
Jack has almost gathered all the boys to himself, and painted
and garlanded has become their idol.
" All the boys of the island were laughing, singing,
lying squatting or standing on the grass, holding food in their
hands. But to judge by the greasy faces, the meat eating was also
done, and some held coconut shells in their hands, and were
drinking from them. Before the party had started a great
log had been drugged into the centre of the lawn, and jack
painted and garlanded sat there like an idil. There were piles of
meat on green leaves near him, and fruit, and coconut shell full
of drink."
(A view to death)
This description shows us how Jack has become almost a God-king to be worshipped and offered gifts.
Although the remaining rational boys who are still struggling
for a civilization in ruins
"..understood only too well the liberation into
savagery that the concealing paint brought"
( Castle rock)
Then when jack and his tribe tretously steel Piggy´s glasses,
the source of fire, and the only connection left with the worls
outside the island, jack definitely holds the power of life and
death.
" he was a chef now in truth and he made stabbing
motions with his spear. From his left hand dangled Piggy´s
broken glasses. "
( The shell and the Glasses)
Ralph and piggy are now left alone without the possibility of making fire, but they still have the conch, the symbol of rational, olderly discussion, but this symbol is ignored by the group of its tribe.
In a last and desperate effort to save this " demented society", Ralph and Piggy defy the tribe with these words that can be considered as key-words and resume the whole idea of the book.
"Which is better to have rules and agree, or to
hunt and kill?"
"Which is better law and rescue or hunting and
breaking things up?"
( Castle Rock )
But this time the antogonism of mankind´s clinging to civilized codes is defeated by mankind´s easy return to savagery, and Golding seems to win his battle when he said " Man´s real nature is his propensity to evil"
With the final destruction of the conch.
" the conch exploted into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist."
( Cry of the hunters)
and the death of Piggy, the transition of kingship from Ralph to
Jack is now a reality. It is the triumph of evil
"See, see that´s what youll get, I mean that!
There´s not a tribe for you anymore, the conch is gone.
" I´m chef !
" Visciously with full intention he hurled his spear
at Ralph"
( Cry of the hunters)
We now come to the end of the book. Ralph is now left alone and
must die in order to secure the new leader´s succesion. So Jack
organize his tribe ( for they can no longer be regarded as
children) to track and kill their former leader.
Ralph now hides in the darkness of the forest tract as a beast,
without food, waiting for death, or the knows:
" These painted savages would go urther and
further"
It is only the fortuitous arrival of a navy officer attracted by
th smoke of a bush fire which saves Ralph from the fate of the
pigs whose heads have already been offered to placate the "
beast", which is nothing but part of their very selves.
The survival of Ralph has often been interpreted as the
triumph or victory of the forces of good over the forces of evil.
Although the proper Golding believes in the 2darkness of man´s
heart, by letting his protagonist alive, he seems to give him a
residual hope of salvation. The question that arises is
–What kind of hope, what kind of salvation is awaiting
Ralph?. Is he going back to a better world than the one he is
running for? Is he going back to that perfectly organized and
rational society of his elder, society whose rules and he has so
bravely tried to defend and maintain, and for which he nearly
died.
The reader certtainly feels happy about Ralph´physical
salvation, but worries for him, for we musn´t forget that this
idealized adult world is itself engaged in an atomic war from
which the boys were escaping before their accidental landing on
the island. We feel that Ralph is going to recive much less than
he gave, Certainly the future awaiting him is far from being
optimistic, but quite ironic, and who asks Golding will recue the
adult world and his cruiser?
Perhaps the only true victory is that insistence upon individual
responsability, upon this quality is the one that rather than
what one would rather do, and this qualty is the one that defines
Ralph best all through out the book. If he didn´t succeed in his
enterprise, at least he tried hard, and his raward is precisely
his survival.
Goilding´s endings to his novels have been often seen as
surprising ironies or dubious gimmicks which cast a transforming
light on the preceding action.
Some critics have seen in the narrative movements which begin
with a community and end up in total disorder, the
characteristics of "tragedy2 with one man emerging out of
it. In that case Ralph would be almost like a tragic hero, except
that he is rescued in the end.
Frank Kermade has said in " Continuities", London, 1968
that the myth of all Golding´s books is:
"The fall of man, the expulsion from paradise,
Erected wit and Infected will"
And to come back to that aspect of myth in " Lord of the
Flies" and as a sort of open-conclusion, nothing better than
Sir james Frazer´s observation:
"It is not our businees here to consider what bearring
the permanent existence of such a solid layer of savagery beneath
the superficial changes of religion
"and culture, has upon the future of humanity. We
seem to move on a thin rust which may at any moment be rent by
the subterranean forces slumbering below...
From time to time a hollw murmur underground or a sudden spit of
flame into the air tells of what is going on beneath our
feet."
( The golden Bough)
It seems to be Wiliam Golding´s task to re-emphasize man´s
mythic inheritance, which is barely concealed " by the
surface of society". – a society which prefer to ignore
the primitie side of man´s nature.
-Golding, William. Lord of the Flies .Penguin modern classics.
(All reference to the book are from this edition)
-Oldsey, Bernard & Weinraub, Stanley, The art of William Golding . Indian University Press. Bloomington and London
-Hynes, Samuel. William Golding
-Bergonzi, Bernard and Whitley, S. John (Contributors). The english novel. Sussex publications Ltd.1976
- Fleck, Anthony. On the novel
-(Contributor), Aspects of myth and Ritual in the Lord of
the Flies.Edited by B.S.Benedikz.London J:M. Deutch and son
Ltd.
References to works quoted by Anthony Fleck
Frazer, Sir James.The golden Bough ( The magic Art, volume i)
Rosenfield, Claire., Men of smaller Growth .A psychological analysis of William Golding´s Lord of the Flies.
Eliade, Mircea. Myths, Dreams and Mysteries.Fontana,1968;pp 16-17