Jonathan Swifts Lord Of The Flies Nature

With the setting of the Fens in Waterland, Swift creates ‘the perfect arena for the counter play between… flat-mundanity and everything in human nature that strives against it.’ Using the Fens, Swift also questions our assumption of land bearing civilisation and water bearing nature by the introduction of silt. Its ‘equivocal operation’ poses problems to civilisation and causes the lives of the Fen landers to be shaped by nature. Furthermore, characters such as Dick whose ‘muddy complexion’ and ‘potato coloured face’ blur the boundaries between humankind and the natural world expose the inability of nature and civilisation to coexist. By extension, Swifts vivid depiction of nature triumphs over humankind. However, Tom Crick, whose enduring nostalgia for the …show more content…
Despite the most part of the novel appearing to be set in the Fens, we are fooled into ‘The great pastoral con-trick’ ; The Novels actual setting is Greenwich, London, the home of the entirely artificial, abstract concept of time, the epitome of civilised society. Tom’s ‘persistent brooding on the flat wetland’s of his youth’ from his history classroom is evidence of his enduring nostalgia. His constant recounting of stories to his students, from the pre-pubescent exploration of ‘holes and things’ to the sprawling digressions on eels, is reminiscent of his longing for the youthful joy of the pastoral ideal. However, Tom’s nostalgia exactly embodies Humankinds perceived superiority over nature. Bored of the ‘unspectacular variations’ and ‘regular habits’ of his city life, Tom imposes himself onto the country-side

The natural world of the Fens is set against the civilised nature of Greenwich. The location of longitude 0° symbolises the literal centre of time: the epitome of civilised