An Analysis Of Adaptive Strategies In William Golding’s The Inheritors From A Literary Darwinist Perspective

This thesis is a Literary Darwinist interpretation of William Golding’s writing,focusing specifically on his novel The Inheritors.Literary Darwinists are primarily concerned with interpreting the author’s work as a response to the adaptive needs of himself(as the implied author),his implied readers and the crisis period in which the real author may or may not find himself.William Golding depicts the tragic story of the extermination of Neanderthals by Homo sapiens in a primitive society.His portrayal of the Neanderthals is an adaptive response to the aberrant development of society,the rapid progress of civilization,the alienation of man in society,the dual opposition of good and evil,civilization and atrocity at a particular time in history.A close reading of the text in relation to the theory concludes the following conclusions:firstly,the implied author,as the author’s second self,experiences a period of crisis similar to that of the real author and expects a realism from the novel that allows him to understand the seeming senselessness of war and conflict.Secondly,Golding directly incorporates Darwinian evolutionary theory into his work and uses it to address the issue of adaptation in a complex social context.He concludes the novel with the extinction of Neanderthals,the result of evolution,to ask about the value of human existence,to question the evil of human nature,to express the necessity of survival,and to prompt us to think deeply about the ultimate salvation of humanity.Finally,the conflict and struggle for survival between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens,portrayed in the context of historical conditions,demonstrates the real existence of literary biology and confirms that literature is also one of the means by which human beings deal with the problem of adaptation.