Symbology in Golding's The Spire

Abstract

William Golding enjoys the reputation of being one of the most distinguished fabulist. He has been acclaimed as a "Literary Phenomenon", the most original, the most profoundly imaginative. A Golding Novel is avidly read over and over again, discussed, debated, disserted and fussed about endlessly. Despite the variety of his work- thematic, structural or stylistic- Golding has concerned himself throughout with the problem of human evil and that the defects of society are directly traceable to the defects of the individual. The fabulous structure of a Golding novel necessarily involves and inevitably generates appropriate imagery and symbolism designed to fit the moral thesis propounded in the fable, they artfully convey Golding's moral vision and tend to elicit more meanings than the author thought of. Whatever the symbolist intends by his symbols and imagery, it is the reader who allegorizes by his commentary.