Resources

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 […]

Marion Chumley appears in both Close Quarters and Fire Down Below, the second and third parts of ‘The Sea Trilogy’. Chumley is a passenger on […]

The theme of social class, and its effects, appears in many of Golding’s novels, including ‘The Sea Trilogy’ and Lord of the Flies.

Reverend Robert James Colley appears in the first book of Golding’s Sea Trilogy, Rites of Passage, and is often mentioned in the following two volumes. He […]

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 […]

The Prince is the Pharaoh’s petulant son in ‘The Scorpion God’. He is reluctant to fulfil his destiny as heir to the throne and is […]

Pretty Flower is the Pharaoh’s daughter in ‘The Scorpion God’. She is lauded for her beauty and has an elaborate silver mirror which gives the […]

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