The Spire-A Myth About Human Nature

In The Spire, William Golding tells a story of Dean Jocelin's building of a four-hundred-foot spire on a Cathedral which itself lacks sufficient foundations. The plot of the novel seems to be simple, but Golding has successfully extracted a myth about human nature from this seemingly simple story. Compared with his previous work Lord of The Flies, on which Golding's literary reputation chiefly rests, The Spire is much more complex and thought-provoking, for it has transcended the limitation of fable and reached a much profounder literary plane, that is myth. As far as subject matter is concerned, in the novel The Spire, Golding has shifted his thematic focus on the darkness of human heart to a much grander subject, namely the whole human nature seen in human experience.Through the analysis of the artistic features of the novel, this thesis endeavours to trace Golding's myth-making methods, proving that in The Spire Golding has made a sincere artistic endeavour to explore the archetypal truth—what is man, and that The Spire is a myth about human nature seen in real human experience. In general, the artistic features of the novel, which underlie Golding's successful creation of the myth, are demonstrated in three aspects of the novel, namely its narrative technique, its symbolism and imagery, and finally its language.Chapter I discusses the artistic effects and the significance of the dual structure of the novel and the third person narrative through tracing back the process of the building of the spire and that of Jocelin's self-discovery. The dual structure of the novel creates such a dual impression of the novel, that is, the extreme clarity accompanied by extreme opacity. It is actually part of the meanings that Golding intends to express in the novel, by means of this dual impression, Golding is telling us that no matter how simple a human act seemingly is, it inevitably implies a series of complex human motivations which are even beyond their own understanding and that behind the simplicity of the human act there is always the opacity of human nature.The third person narrative plays a significant role in Golding's creation of myth, because by using this narrative device Golding has managed to achieve such artistic effects as suspense, ambiguity, and the most important-"discovery" which is an essential artistic feature of myth. Moreover, through the visionary eyes of Jocelin, Golding has also successfully created a fabulous world which mainly exists in Jocelin's mind, thus standing apart from the actual world around him, in this way, the world of fable is properly controlled in the presence of the actual world. This is actually the prerequisite for Golding's creation of the myth, for if he intends to create a myth about human nature seen in real human experience, the world of fable must be assimilated to the world of reality.Chapter II analyses the symbols and images of the novel. In the point of view of myth critics, symbolism is a salient feature of myth, so in this part a detailed analysis is made on the images and symbols in the novel. Through the intensive use of imagery Golding has created a fabulous or supernatural world which is also a fundamental part of the characteristics of myth. These images are capable of condensing the myth into concrete forms, thus making it linger in people's minds, they function just as those sculptures and paintings based on mythology do. Structurally, they hold the whole structure of the novel tightly together; thematically, they are the media through which ideas and the evolution of ideas are embodied. In this chapter, four major images and a pattern of the images are analysed in details. (1). The central image of the novel is the spire itself, its symbolic meanings are rather complicated and ambiguous. When it is taken onto the religious plane, it is all together "a diagram of prayer", "a stone bible", and "the apocalypse in stone", but when it is put to Freudian psychoanalysis it abruptly loses all its religious halos and becomes an enormous and repulsive phallus. In philosophical terms, the spire symbolizes human will, which is both creative and destructive (if it is a will without limit like Jocelin's). (2). The pit as an image in the novel has two dimensions of symbolic meanings: on one hand, when interpreted in religious terms, it symbolizes the hell, and the dark power of the pagan force; on the other hand, in terms of psychology, it symbolizes the dark part of Jocelin's psyche, that is, the Id in Freudian terms. (3). The mistletoe first of all symbolizes humanGoody. It also symbolizes the complicated implications of Jocelin's building the spire. Moreover, in a sense it also symbolizes the dark side of Jocelin's psyche which makes him a piece of "unseasoned wood". (4) The apple tree is a rather complicated image; it embraces both the divine and the secular. All the understanding that Jocelin's finally gains about his own human nature is condensed into this image, that is, human nature like the apple tree has more than one branch, and his spire like the trunk of the apple tree, thrusts grandly upward, but also thrusts in many other directions just like the mixed nature of man seen in their motives and works. In short, the apple tree manifests a miraculous totality. Certainly it also symbolizes man's Fall and original sin. (5), In this part, a pattern of images and other minor images are analysed from the points of view of both their structural function and their symbolic meanings.Chapter III aims at proving that the language Golding uses in the novel is basically a mythic language. The first part analyses the three characteristics of the language used in the novel, showing that Golding's language can always create a sense of intensity and immediacy, and it is basically visual, which enables us to form vivid mental pictures of what is being presented. These artistic effects of the language are crucial in the creation of myth, because the significance of myth doesn't lie in any particular religious or philosophical ideas that we can abstract from it, but in its power to make readers experience the myth themselves through reading it and contemplate it themselves.The second part analyses the artistic effects of certain linguistic devices, illustrating that the skilful use of certain linguistic devices not only allows Golding to move rapidly in and out of Jocelin's mind, without any laborious announcement that he is doing so, but also enables him to convey the various levels of consciousness at which the mind is operating; and moreover these linguistic devices also give us an almost kaleidoscopic view of Jocelin's mind.In the Conclusion part, first, a distinction between the nature of Aesop's fabulous world and that of the fabulous world in the novel is made, so as to rule out the possibility that The Spire can be labelled as a fable. Then, in order to consolidatethe argument of this thesis, a comparison between The Spire and the Greek myth Oedipus is made, in which it is pointed out that The Spire like Oedipus, is also a sincere artistic endeavour to probe into the archetypal truth—what is man? Finally the conclusion is drawn that The Spire with the spire as a sigh of real human experience is a myth about human nature located in real human experience.