BEYOND THE BINARY:A STUDY OF THE FICTION OF WILLIAM GOLDING

BEYOND THE BINARY:A STUDY OF THE FICTION OF WILLIAM GOLDING

A Presentation of

PhD (English) Dissertation

By Prakash Bhadury

Chapter I: IntroductionChapter I: Introduction

A period between modernism and postmodernism. Modern novel probed deeper into consciousness ,pluralized

awareness, and multiply perception. Postmodernism questioned the essentialism, foundationalism and realism. Writers projected their personal disgust with life and disbelief in God.

Golding -the most difficult to fit into any particular categories. Focus of this dissertation concerns how Golding's vision of the world

and human being are unfolded by quite a few basic techniques of shifting point of view, differing symbols and metaphors as an unifying artistic genius.

strides beyond the ‘mimetic theory of art’. The concept of "Organic Unity" (Aristotle) is explored.

An attempt is made to show that the fiction abound binary oppositions e.g. good and evil, rational and spiritual and their ontological analysis is made to arrive at author’s different perspectives as a theurgist leading to the thesis statement.

oblique truth against plane statement which reverberates within as lasting myth 2

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1.Lord Of The Flies: Faber and Faber, 1954

2.The Inheritors(1955),

3.Pincher Martin(1956).

4.The Free Fall(1960)

5.The Spire( 1964),

6.Darkness Visible(1979).

7.Rites of Passage( 1980),8.The Paper Men( 1984).

9.Close Quarters(1987),10.Fire Down Below(1989).

11.The Hot Gates and Other Occasional Pieces(1965)

12.A Moving Target(1982),

13.The Double Tongue( 1995)

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Chapter II: Golding's Ontological SearchChapter II: Golding's Ontological Search

Ontology as a philosophical concept is a branch of metaphysics which is concerned with the study of being

Golding’s idea on ontology is that human being must remain intransigent in the face of accepted beliefs and insist upon alternative perspectives, obscure rhythms, beneath the surface of contemporary clichés.

one common theme - man is always likely to revert back to primitive nature. Characters reflect the embodiment of a type of larger human species while laying bare their original nature.

Ontology broadened ,not by delimiting it(deconstruction) Golding’s straight answer -though man’s rise to consciousness is man’s fall,

yet the solidarity of human race with a scope of infinite variation is the plan of

nature. Fusion of differentiations is the march toward unity of existence. Unity

is ever existent amid apparent binaries. Movement from fragmentation of experience to undifferentiated

consciousness. ‘Existence to Essence’.

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Chapter III: ‘Theurgism’ in Golding’s Fiction Chapter III: ‘Theurgism’ in Golding’s Fiction

describe the practice of a series of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action of God, particularly with the goal of perfecting and re-uniting oneself with the Divine.

‘Theurgy’ literally means divine-working. It is close to the concept of magical power or sorcery. Golding creates a vision through his characters that helps drive away the evil curiously mixed in the fabric of life. He is the sorcerer.

Shakespeare’s The Tempest contrasted with Golding characters. The spirit of Ariel is in contrast with that of Caliban. The spirit of Ariel is celebrated.

There is similarities & consistencies in dramatis personae which underlie difference.

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Chapter IV: Golding’s Panoptic VisionChapter IV: Golding’s Panoptic Vision

placing &inducing people in a state of conscious and permanent visibility. The root problem of the world is not the primordial chaos but the limited vision. Knowledge as power is exercised continuously in the very foundations of society, in the subtlest possible way.

Characters are in each case an embodiment of a proposition about human nature, rather than an individual

a perfect microcosm of the macrocosm Man in his microcosmic world seeks a pattern and order

and face a natural chaos of existence in his struggle with the world and with the being.

Golding attempts to bring back the sense of unity, undifferentiated consciousness of human being.

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Chapter V: Beyond the Binary Chapter V: Beyond the Binary

Binary denotes pairs of mutually exclusive signifiers in a paradigm set representing categories which are logically opposed and which together define a complete universe of discourse; e.g. white/black(colonialism),god/man(dualism), conscious/unconscious(Freud-human mind)etc.

Binary opposition or signification is stable and systematic to structuralism, and unstable and decanted to the post structuralists.

Golding avoided being reductive like Marx, Freud or Darwin and attempted “to scrape the labels off things, to take nothing for granted, to show the irrational where it exists”

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A serious ‘Aeschylean’ preoccupation is undertaken with human tragedy to get at the root of the disease of humanity instead of describing the symptoms.

he brings one redeeming moment by reawakening the ‘Delphic Oracle’ (know yourself), the knowledge of good and evil, the binary possibilities and their ultimate reconciliation with the unity. The synthesis is the only hope for humanity.

‘Darkness Visible’ (1979) is a binary opposition emphasizing more on visibility than on darkness. It is an apocalyptic vision that goes beyond the moral atrophy, cynicism and cramping perception of human being at large.

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Chapter VI: ConclusionChapter VI: Conclusion ‘Structuralist’ Golding believed the inter relationship of the

structural world but moved beyond the limitations. Neither he deconstructs to undermine his own philosophy.

Golding plying b/t the Scylla of postmodernist fluidity & Charybdis of the deconstructionist’s unending ‘deferal.

The answer to beyond the binaries is: a continuous process of doing against undoing, knowledge against ignorance.

goes beyond the structuralism’s binary opposition to philosophical ‘monism'; dualism is on apparent level.

Golding has sprinkled fresh water on existing unity amid perceptual variations.

The process itself is a signifying system that has to move on and on in different cloak in different time toward a great chain of being.

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QUESTION-ANSWER

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THANK YOU ALL

MODERNISM &POSTMODERNISM MODERNISM &POSTMODERNISM

•High priests are Elliot, Joyce, Ezra, Woolf etc. Literature seems to be experimental& innovative.Both give great prominence to fragmentation as a feature of 20th C. but in a different way. The modernist register a deep nostalgia for the past; represents pessimism, lament & despair about the world. For the postmodernist fragmentation is liberating, exhilarating phenomenonFollows Baudrillard’s hyper reality. All is surface without depth. Meta narratives(of progress& human perfectibility) replaces for the series of Mini narratives(contingent, temporary & relative).

Why strides beyond the ‘mimetic theory of artWhy strides beyond the ‘mimetic theory of art

Since (mimetic) art is institutionally divorced from truth, goodness or any concern with 'real' beauty, it creates an environment of superficial "flavors" where all sorts of atrocities can be made to seem a tempting confectionHe follows Aristotelian concept of "Organic Unity" the idea that in any good work of art each of the parts must contribute to the overall success of the whole. good work explores psychological forces and the unseen "inner life" of persons.