Resources

This film introduces Golding’s 1964 novel The Spire.

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 […]

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 […]

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’. […]

Rachel is the wife of Roger Mason, the master builder, The Spire. Dean Jocelin compares her unfavourably to Goody Pangall and thinks of her as […]

In The Spire, Pangall and his wife Goody live within the walls of the Cathedral in a cottage – Pangall’s Kingdom – which is being […]

Lady Alison is Jocelin’s aunt and principal benefactor in The Spire. She is a scandalous character, having conducted an affair with the king. As such, […]

In The Spire, Goody is married to Pangall, the impotent servant of the cathedral.  At the beginning of the novel, she is described by Dean […]

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.