Resources

The little Oa is a tree root carried by Liku in The Inheritors.

‘Clonk Clonk’ (From The Scorpion God) Typically in literature, the moon is associated with women, which makes it an important symbol in ‘Clonk Clonk’.

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 […]

On the original manuscript of The Inheritors, Golding wrote that the ‘centre symbol is the waterfall, the time stream, the fall, the second law of thermodynamics’. […]

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

Lord of the Flies The island is the home of a number of animals, most notably pigs, who become the target of the boys’ hunts. Ralph, […]

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.

In Free Fall, Sammy and his ‘Ma’ live on Rotten Row, ‘right in the heart of the Garden of England’; ‘a slum’ with a wooden […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]