On Lord Of The Flies From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Reception aesthetics arises from the middle of1960s in Germany which is mainlybased on phenomenology and hermeneutics. It breaks the traditional author-text studymode and establishes text-reader research paradigm, taking readers into consideration inliterature study. It is the birth of reception theory that results in the focus of literarystudy to shift from text-oriented to reader-oriented and opens up a new criticalapproach.William Golding (1911-1993) is an outstanding writer during the postwar years inBritain. His masterpiece Lord of the Flies helps him win the Nobel Prize for Literaturein1983, which brings him great reputation around the world. Reviewing the previousstudy on Lord of Flies both at home and abroad, the study approaches of the novelgenerally focus on these perspectives such as the theme of human beings’ evil nature,eco-criticism, myth-archetypal theory, feminism, narrative structure and so on. From theperspective of reception aesthetics, especially from the concept of “horizon ofexpectation” and “blank theory”, this thesis aims to analyze readers’ role and functionin literature, the interaction between readers and text, and their further understanding ofLord of the Flies.In this paper, the first chapter gives a brief introduction to William Golding and hisliterary achievements, the previous study on Golding in China and overseas, and thefeasibility and significance of this study. Chapter two presents the theoreticalperspective of the thesis which analyses the development and some relative importantconceptions of reception aesthetics, especially horizon of expectation and blank theory.Reception aesthetics transfers the focus of literary study from the author and text toreaders, and emphasizes readers’ active participation in the process of recreation. Thesignificance of literary texts is fulfilled by the joint efforts of the author and his readers.Chapter three analyzes the realization and reconstruction of readers’ horizon ofexpectation of Lord of the Flies from the perspective of Jauss’s horizon of expectation.On one hand, the background of war and language characteristic of the novel meetreaders’ horizon of expectation and arouse their reflection on the cruel war and human nature. On the other hand, the meaningful title, the suspenseful plot and the hiddenartistic technique of Lord of the Flies break readers’ horizon of expectation andstimulate the tension and vitality of their reading expectation. Chapter four appliesIser’s blank theory to interpret the art of blanks and the interaction between readers andthe text in the process of readers’ fulfillment of these blanks in Lord of the Flies.Through a series of semantic blanks and structural blanks in the novel, Golding calls forreaders to participate in the literature text actively and use their rich imagination tothink and fill in these blanks. The last chapter of the paper comes to the conclusion. Itsummarizes the reception aesthetics applied in Lord of the Flies and re-confirmsreaders’ role, function and their active interaction with the literary text in the novel’screation process.