Resources

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

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 […]

Pincher Martin In Pincher Martin, Christopher Martin has been shipwrecked and is surviving on a rock, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. His time on […]

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’. […]

As many of Golding’s novels feature aspects of survival, hunger is a recurrent theme.

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, […]

The battle between civilisation and savagery is represented in a number of Golding’s novels, most famously in Lord of the Flies and The Inheritors.

Music is a major theme in some of Golding’s novels, particularly The Pyramid, but it also plays a minor, but important role in others, including Pincher Martin […]

Religion is a theme in many of Golding’s novels, including The Inheritors, The Spire and Darkness Visible.

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.

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 […]