The notion that landscapes have the power to stimulate contemplation about human nature is clearly articulated in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Through subverting traditional adventure tropes from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to Ballantyne’s The Coral Island, Golding posits through his dystopian novel that landscapes, rather than delivering a sense of the sublime, provokes us to question our human condition and ultimately elucidate “traits that define humanity” (Orslen) – spite, insecurity, and fragility. Like philosopher Montaigne, Golding sees humankind as inherently cruel and volatile, and throughout his text, landscape becomes the primary means by which such human conditions are evoked.
Golding constructs the representation of people …show more content…
In the absence of connection with the outside world, the landscape evolves from a place of hope into a place of fear, a transition in perspective that is dictated by the boys’ emotional and mental state. The possibility of perpetual abandonment coupled with the suggestion of the “beast” in the landscape heightens the boys’ fear; in the state of fear, the antagonist is able to consolidate his power as “The tribe …was shaken; as if by a flow of wind. The Chief saw the effect of his words and stood abruptly”. In this scene, the metaphor of the wind functions to demonstrate fear as a manipulative tool for despotism. Through his use of bipartite narrative form, Golding further reveals how such state of terror can evolve into violence. In the first few chapters of the novel, the boys are depicted as merely innocent children who fear the imaginative “beast”, but in the remaining chapters, the boys are primitive and volatile, subsumed by the orderless landscape. This development from fear to brutality is amplified by Golding’s use of animal imagery: “This is head for the beast. It’s a gift.” The irony in the role of the head – first intended as a “gift” but later as a representation of the beast itself – symbolizes the violence of the boys that has become the beast itself. – CONCLUDING SENTENCE
Golding constructs the representation of people …show more content…
In the absence of connection with the outside world, the landscape evolves from a place of hope into a place of fear, a transition in perspective that is dictated by the boys’ emotional and mental state. The possibility of perpetual abandonment coupled with the suggestion of the “beast” in the landscape heightens the boys’ fear; in the state of fear, the antagonist is able to consolidate his power as “The tribe …was shaken; as if by a flow of wind. The Chief saw the effect of his words and stood abruptly”. In this scene, the metaphor of the wind functions to demonstrate fear as a manipulative tool for despotism. Through his use of bipartite narrative form, Golding further reveals how such state of terror can evolve into violence. In the first few chapters of the novel, the boys are depicted as merely innocent children who fear the imaginative “beast”, but in the remaining chapters, the boys are primitive and volatile, subsumed by the orderless landscape. This development from fear to brutality is amplified by Golding’s use of animal imagery: “This is head for the beast. It’s a gift.” The irony in the role of the head – first intended as a “gift” but later as a representation of the beast itself – symbolizes the violence of the boys that has become the beast itself. – CONCLUDING SENTENCE