Resources

Piggy’s glasses are symbolic for a number of reasons in Lord of the Flies. The spectacles represent the boys’ only means of obtaining fire through reflecting […]

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.

The Naval Officer appears at the end of Lord of the Flies and represents the chance of rescue to the stranded boys. He surveys the […]

In Lord of the Flies Percival is described as ‘not … very attractive even to his mother’. He is one of the ‘littluns’ who first […]

Ha is the strongest male of the group of Neanderthals portrayed in The Inheritors and is intelligent and thoughtful. Described by Golding as ‘the man for […]

In The Inheritors Mal is the oldest member of the Neanderthal group.  At the beginning of the novel, he is clearly very frail but is […]

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.

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 […]