Goodness And Evilness Visible

William Golding, the Nobel Laureate, was obviously one of those great novelists after World War II. He wrote many novels, essays and poems. His first novel Lord of the Flies was a best-seller after its publishing, especially popular with young school students. Through telling the story of a group of young children stranded on an isolated island degraded into savagery from the original civilized, Lord of the Flies revealed that evil rooted in human nature and the ill nature of human beings would arise without the control of civilization. Almost ten years later after Lord of the Flies, Golding’s another book Darkness Visible came out. Here Golding’s first novel’s moral concern was once invoked. Golding depicted the evil and dark side of human nature in his cold style of writing once again. These two novels present moral issues through various skills. In my thesis, I will probe how the symbol of fire reveals Golding’s moral themes of both novels.The thesis initially briefs William Golding’s life and the stories of his novels Lord of the Flies and Darkness Visible, and explores the origin and development of Golding’s literature creation thought and writing styles. I also conclude the research on the novels at both home and abroad and put forward the chief point of my thesis.Chapter One traces the origin and growth of Symbolism, the basis of the argument, and its function in literature. In this chapter, I also introduce the origin and development of the symbol of fire in western literature, the rich symbolic meaning of fire. Fire represents hope, civilization, happiness and redemption; fire also symbolizes punishment and destruction. Apart from these, I briefly interpret Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Darkness Visible in symbolism.Chapter Two analyzes the moral theme of Lord of the Flies, and discusses the symbolic meaning of fire in the novel. Fire represents goodness here, represents hope, order and life; meanwhile, fire is also the symbol of evilness, represents destruction and animalism.Chapter Three explores the moral theme of Darkness Visible, and analyzes the rich meaning of the symbol of fire. The fire in Darkness Visible also has the symbolic characteristics of goodness and evilness. It can symbolize destruction and the darkness of human hearts; and it also symbolize reconstruction and redemption. By the different symbolic meanings of fire when it comes to Matty and Sophy, Golding fully depicts the goodness and evilness in human nature, declares his moral concern in a more realistic background.Chapter Four makes a comparison between the fire in Lord of the Flies and that in Darkness Visible. Though they have different root and evolution routes, we can see the fire in both novels has the same goal—revealing how rationality and goodness are defeated by irrationality and evilness. Hence, fire becomes a means of testing human nature to reveal the moral theme of novel that is about the goodness and evilness of human nature profoundly.Due to Golding’s relentless exploration of humanity, he is regarded by many as a moral allegorist. In both novels, Golding’s moral teaching gives a more mature understanding of humanity—to understand the good and evil inherent in humanity. Moreover, he shows that he is also an expert with symbolism. By using the symbol of fire, Golding presents the themes exquisitely, penetrates the depths of human nature, and makes the goodness and evils there visible. And the entire thesis, on the basis of close reading, studies the different symbolic meanings of fire in these two novels and shows that the symbol of fire helps enhance the readers’ knowledge of Golding’s moral themes.