Resources

The little Oa is a tree root carried by Liku in The Inheritors.

Pincher Martin Stranded on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic, Christopher Martin suffers from insomnia. Sleep represents both comfort and fear to Martin: […]

‘Clonk Clonk’ (From The Scorpion God) Typically in literature, the moon is associated with women, which makes it an important symbol in ‘Clonk Clonk’.

Golding visited Australia in 1975, and he was fascinated by the country, describing it as a place of ‘clear light and clean emptiness’. He was […]

On the original manuscript of The Inheritors, Golding wrote that the ‘centre symbol is the waterfall, the time stream, the fall, the second law of thermodynamics’. […]

Lord of the Flies The island is the home of a number of animals, most notably pigs, who become the target of the boys’ hunts. Ralph, […]

Pincher Martin was adapted into a stunning opera by Oliver Rudland in 2014. Staged at the Royal College of Music, London, the opera combined music with […]

Golding’s biographer, John Carey, writes that Savernake Forest, on the outskirts of Marlborough,Wiltshire, was the inspiration for the setting of The Inheritors. Golding’s parents would take him […]

Fire burns through many of the novels.

The title story of The Scorpion God is set in Ancient Egypt and features the custom of the mummification of pharaohs. In his introduction to the new […]

Building work on Salisbury Cathedral began in the 1200s, and the tower and magnificent spire were completed in the 1330s. Golding taught at Bishop Wordworth’s […]