Resources

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: […]

Sim Goodchild owns the book shop in Greenfield, London. He is a peripheral character in the first two sections of Darkness Visible, but he becomes […]

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 […]

Toni is the enigmatic twin sister of Sophy, who narrates the second section of Darkness Visible. The twins have a difficult relationship with their father, and […]

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 […]

Mary Lovell appears in Christopher Martin’s flashbacks of memory throughout Pincher Martin. Martin, a repugnant misanthropist, is obsessed with the idea of possessing her, but is […]

Pincher Martin Christopher Martin’s desire to defeat death forms the narrative of this whole novel, as he battles to survive. Early on, he declares ‘I […]

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

Evie is introduced by Oliver in The Pyramid as a member of a lower class group – she ‘came from the tumbledown cottages of Chandler’s Close’. […]

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.

The garden in The Paper Men was inspired by Golding’s garden at his house Ebble Thatch, in Bowerchalke, Salisbury. Rick Tucker appears at the end of the […]