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 […]

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.

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 […]

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 […]