The Lord of the Flies

About the author:

Sir William Gerald Golding, better known as William Golding was a British novelist,
playwright and a poet. He was born on 19 September 1911 in Cornwall, England. His father,
Alec Golding was a science teacher at the same school where William Golding received his
education – Marlborough Grammar school. Like his father, Golding went for a Science
degree and then shifted to English major due to his passion for it.

Golding’s first work is a collection of poems called Poems, which he

published it with the help of his friend in 1934. Four years later, Golding started to teach
English and music in Maidstone Grammar School. He worked on another school (Bishop
Wordsworth’s School) after leaving the former school in 1940 to teach English, Greek and
philosophy and left it after a short time to join the navy. He resumed his job as a
schoolmaster after his service at the navy, and in 1951, while working in Bishop
Wordsworth’s school, he wrote his first draft for the Lord of the Flies which was initially
names as Strangers from Within. Only after many changes following rejection from
publications many a times, the first draft finalized into the novel we can read today.

Some of his other works are The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956),
The Spire (1964), The Pyramid (1967) The Paper Men (1984). He also published a trilogy
called To the Ends of the Earth. Golding received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
For Darkness Visible in 1979, and for Rites of Passage in 1980, he won the Booker Prize.
In 1983, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Golding’s final work was a draft left
by him, and it was published posthumously in 1995, after his death on 19th June 1993.

Justification of title:

The title refers to Beelzebub, Prince of Hell according to the Christian mythology,
sometimes even referred to as the Satan himself. As the novel exposits the children turn more
and more savage; they stopped caring about human decency and morals long ago and gave in,
rather embraced the darkness and savagery and thus seek an idol to worship for. When Jack
and his hunters kill a boar, they take advantage of the situation by impaling the pig's head on
a stake as an offering to the beast. The head quickly rots and becomes infested with flies. The
head then becomes the “Lord of the Flies” which was worshipped by the savage kids.
Narration:

The narrator here is omniscient. The novel is in third person narration with chronological list
of events with imageries and metaphors that provide deeper understanding of the setting and
the characters.

Plot summary:

War broke out. English schoolboys were prepped up in the plane to be sent to a safer place
only for the plane to get shot in the middle of their journey; as a result, they were evacuated
on an unknown island without any adults. Two of the boys who were first introduced in the
novel were Ralph and Piggy, who found a conch. Ralph then blows into it like a horn in an
attempt to find whether there are other boys like them and all the boys on the island
assembled around him. A boy named Jack was introduced; he mocked Piggy and decided to
run against Ralph for the election to become a leader of the group. Ralph won the election
and he made Jack, the leader of the hunters so both were satisfied. Then, Ralph, Jack went to
explore the island along with Simon who is relatively weaker than them, leaving Piggy. In
their second meeting, the boys decided to have rules to stay in discipline, as there are no
adults around and they need to take care of themselves. The first rule was that whosoever
wants to speak at a meeting must hold the conch and others must stay silent and wait for their
turn. One young boy claimed he saw a "beastie" inside the jungle, but Ralph dismissed his
claim. Ralph then suggested that they must grow a fire at the mountain top as a signal so any
of the passing ships would see it and rescue them. The boys used Piggy's glasses to light the
fire, but accidentally set a part of the jungle on fire. The boy who claimed to have seen the
beastie disappeared and was never seen again.

As time passed, Ralph becomes frustrated as no one helped him to build shelters.
Younger boys focused on playing and cared less about responsibilities, meanwhile Jack was
obsessed with hunting and continuously mocked Piggy. The cold war between Ralph and
Jack blew up when Jack forced the boys who were supposed to watch the signal fire to go
hunting with him. They kill their first pig, but at the same time, they missed a ship because
their signal fire was out as the boys who are supposed to take care of it went hunting. This
creates a major issue between the two leaders.

Ralph calls for a meeting to set things right. But several boys started to talk about the beast,
causing their meet to derail from its purpose. That night, a dead man still hooked on his
parachute lands on the mountain top next to the signal fire. The boys on duty thought he was
the beast. So Ralph and Jack went to search the island for the beast. Rivalry again aroused on
the shore between the two boys soon flares up, and they climb the mountain in the dark to
prove their bravery. They too saw a dead man on a parachute and thought of him as the beast.

Jack again challenged Ralph’s leadership and Ralph wins; Jack leaves the group, and most of
the older boys join him. Jack's tribe painted their faces and killed a pig, leaving its head as an
offering to the beast. While Jack invites everyone to come to their feast, Simon climbs the
mountain and sees the dead man. He returned to tell everyone the truth on how they
misunderstood the dead man as the beast, the boys at the feast had turned frenzy thought
Simon is the beast and murdered him. Jack's tribe then stole Piggy's glasses to make fire.
Ralph and his last allies, Piggy and the twins named Samneric, went to get the glasses back.
Jack's tribe captured the twins, and a boy named Roger rolls a big rock from the fort that
smashes Piggy and the conch. The next day the tribe set fire to the forest and was ready to
hunt down Ralph. He tried to run away from them but eventually was cornered. Fortunately,
the burning jungle attracted a British Naval ship. The boys stop, stunned, and stare at the
officer who stood on the ship. He joked, asking if the boys were playing at war, looking at
them cornering Ralph and asked whether there were any casualties. When Ralph says yes, the
officer is extremely shocked that English boys would act in such a manner. Ralph starts to
cry, and soon the others too started crying. The officer, uncomfortable, looked away toward
his warship.

Structure:

The book contains twelve chapters and the events are set in chronological order in the
novel. The sentences are also structured in a way that represents the characters involved.

Analysis of characters:

Ralph

Ralph is the protagonist of the novel. He holds power yet he does not wish to
dominate the others. Instead, he wants everyone to work to take care of their needs and to get
rescued soon. Even when others wander off to play whenever they feel like, Ralph is focused
on building shelters. Ralph does turn to give in to the savagery to feel the exciting trance at
once, but soon he comes back suppressing the savage nature that other boys under Jack’s
tribe embraced long ago. The death of Piggy had affected him much. Ralph is left to be at
shock on how humanity can be reduced into beast-instinct savages under conditions. The
conch which is found by Ralph and having Piggy by his side represents the powers held by
him on the boys, as the conch helps to discipline the boys and Piggy’s ideas and advises
which help Ralph to stay as a good leader. However, both of them get smashed by the
boulder that Roger pushes down, and Ralph understands how turning into a savage for basic
instincts and basic needs can drive the boys into the hands of evil too.

Jack

If Ralph is the protagonist, then Jack is the antagonist as he is Ralph’s arch-rival since
the beginning of the novel. The introduction of Jack portrays how much civilized he was, on
guiding his chorus troop towards the sound of the conch. But we quickly learn that Jack,
unlike Ralph loves power and the satisfaction it gives him. So he challenges Ralph to become
the only power. Ralph assigned him to be the leader of hunters. As Jack hunts and kills pigs,
it unlocked the human’s sense of power through dominating others, he started to loose
humanity. He started to attract others into his tribe. This signifies that this savage nature is
inside every human but to suppress it, like Ralph is what defines human as a creature of
reason who has the ability to empathize. But Jack’s sense of power is lost within himself
when the officer arrived to rescue, reminding all the boys about civilization.

Piggy

Piggy is one of the important characters in the novel who stands for rationalism and
believes there must be order and laws for themselves to discipline themselves. Piggy can be
said as the smartest boy in the island. Due to his body weight, he is called as ‘Piggy’; he also
has asthma which makes him weaker than the rest of the boys, thus he cannot toil much like
the others. Other boys cannot tolerate Piggy’s criticism that is based on rational thought.
Piggy’s death symbolizes the death of reason and laws amongst the boys.

Simon

Simon belongs to the chorus troop of Jack, and is a weak one considering his regular fainting.
He is the only one in Jack’s troop who doesn’t hunt or kill, or become savages like the others.
He also acts with generosity and empathy; he shares his meat with Piggy when Jack refuses
to give him any. Simon is the only character who provides insights on one of the central
themes of the novel : the mystery of the ‘beastie’ or ‘beast’; he found out that the beast on the
mountain is a dead man on parachute and the beast is no other being other than the savage
boys themselves. This is one of the important plot drive as Simon sensed the beast within
themselves and tragically die when he came to speak the truth. His death is rather ironic as
Jack’s tribe who was in a state of frenzy trance, thought Simon was the beast and ripped him
to death during their ritual.

Themes:

The natural or the innate instinct of human

Humans after all, belong to part of the animal kingdom. Being able to evolve and
adapt, and the ability to create a society from the primitive age is what made man to gain
reason and empathy. Civilization is human-made, with values that human created in order to
maintain peace and morality in it. Golding here in the novel demonstrated how a group of
‘English schoolboys’ shed their learning of civilization and turn into raw savagery in the
extent to even purposefully murder one among them. The English believes they’re the most
civilized and decent race, and made the rest of the world believe it to some extent and
children, who we normally don’t imagine doing such savagery like the boys in the island. By
setting the characters as English schoolboys, Golding provided more support to his theme, as
savagery is innate, in every human regardless of who they are. The transformation and
decline of those savagery instincts of the boys is plotted brilliantly, the savagery grew based
on the fear factor, which gave Jack an advantage to drive the people under him. They needed
hunting and killing to manage the fear. Meanwhile Ralph and his little crew manages to stay
apart from the savagery as they generally did not believe in the beast first, thus no fear other
than about getting rescued any soon.

Beast

Beast here is a symbol the author used to refer to the innate savagery of the human that lies
within everyone. Simon is the character who understands this. The beast is opposite to the
law and order that Ralph tries to set in the island. Given the fact the the beast is innate; Ralph
has to g through a circle of emotions to suppress it, and felt it for once and denied it, after
feeling extremely sad for the death of Piggy. Ralph, as opposed to the beast, stands for the
man-made civilization, which only provides a better place for everyone to be productive
without being a potential threat to others.

Withdrawal of Law
This novel is a great example to know what would be the condition of the world without law.
The island detached from the rest of the world is a world of itself and the boys with two kinds
of leaders and motives and how their self-virtue or desires affect the mob that follows them.
Such world is extremely dangerous for people of virtue and reason such as Piggy and Ralph,
had they do not give into the lawless world.

The need of a higher authority

Following the last theme, Golding also provided a solution along with the problems. The
Naval Officer who rescues the boys at the end signifies authority and law. Only after seeing
him the boys, along with Jack come to their senses. They do not deny him, but cry and weep
restoring their memories of civilization.

Literary Devices:

Foreshadowing

. The first is the conch, which is suggested by Piggy that Ralph can call the others
using it. This give conch a built sense of power that others should obey who holds the conch.
The boys gather together for voting and the majority votes that there may be a beast. This
provides foreshadowing as everything would be accepted if it’s done by a majority. The
existence of ‘beast’, the ritual for the ‘lord of the flies’ and even murder of Simon which was
done by all of the savage boys who were in denial about the civilized and had a mob
tendency.

Archetypes

Several main characters in the novel denote a symbol or sign for something. Ralph stands for
law and order, an civilization. Piggy stands for rational thoughts and scientific logic; Simon
who stands for the theme of spiritual nature and its impact on human minds; while Roger and
Jack stands for the sadistic nature of human to feel superior over others and dominance and
lust for power correspondingly.

Allegory

The whole novel is an allegory on what would be the case on lack of civilization and what
happens when humans are left with their raw self.

Reception of the text:

The first draft was initially called as rubbish and pointless. Floyd C. Gale of Galaxy Science
Fiction rated Lord of the Flies five out of five, stating that "Golding paints a truly terrifying
picture of the decay of a minuscule society ... Well on its way to becoming a modern classic"
in 1960. E.M. Forster chose this novel as the outstanding novel of the year. Though the novel
has controversial themes, it was critically acclaimed that it is still given importance today.

Heart of Darkness

About the author:

Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, better known as Joseph Conrad, was a British
writer. Since he was half Polish, he took time until his twenties to speak English fluently, and
now, considered one of the best writers in English literature. He was born on December 3,
1857, in Ukraine. His Father Apollo was a writer and a revolutionist who was actively
resisting the Russian empire. But Conrad did not follow his father; he was made to move
continuously due to his father’s revolution and due to his health too. So, Conrad isn’t said to
have a regular school. He was homeschooled by his father and later educated under his
uncle’s care. Conrad worked on ships for a brief amount of time which was the major source
of his writing themes. After returning from Africa in 1890, he officially started to write and in
1894, he completely gave up on sea voyages and turned full-time into writing as a career. His
first work is Almayer’s Folly which was published in 1895. The writing career is what saved
him from his long debt, and also his life. He attempted suicide because of debts. His works
were acclaimed by his circle and by other English intellectuals and contemporaries, but
wasn’t a commercial success, either gave him a reputation among the reading audience. But
Conrad should be given credits to write based on Realism and psychological themes perfectly
in those times itself. He mainly focused on the style and themes of his works, and he still
stands for those aspects.Conrad died on August 2, 1924, at his house in England.

Influences on the writer and the work:

This work is based on the writer’s experience in Africa when he was working on a ship. At
the age of 32, Conrad was appointed by a Belgian trading company to serve on one of
its steamers. While sailing up the Congo River from one station to another, the captain
became ill and Conrad assumed command; he guided the ship up the Lualaba River to the
trading company's station in Eastern Kongo. In the novella, Marlow has similar experiences
as the author.

Structure:

Heart of Darkness was first published as a three-part series in Blackwood’s Magazine

in 1899 and republished as a novella in 1902 in his book Youth, and other stories.

Plot summary:

A ship called Nellie was sailing on River Thames. Five old friends including a
nameless narrator were relaxing on the deck and Charles Marlow, who is one of the five men,
starts to reminiscence about a similar place, which he remarks as one of the darkest places on
the earth. He talks of his past where he gets a job and travels to the Company to sign his
contract. He was first assigned to collect Fresleven’s bones, a man who was murdered by an
African villager chief’s son in a dispute over hens. The villagers left him to die there and
moved away from the place permanently. Marlow leaves for Africa, saying goodbye to his
Aunt who influenced for Marlow to get this job.

After arriving to Africa and already sailing on the Congo River, Marlow feels he
already had seen the devils of violence after seeing native people who were called criminals
but actually are slaves. Marlow was told that he will meet one Mr. Kurtz who is with the deep
indigenous people where Marlow is heading towards to, for their ivory collection for the
company. His ship was repaired and he spent several months waiting for the parts to replace
in the central station. During his stay, his interest in Kurtz grows. Marlow gets the parts he
needs to repair his ship finally and after the maintenance, the ship is set out with a crew of
cannibals on a voyage up the river. The denser it gets, the more everyone got a little nervous.
The drum sounds of nearby villages they cross only added to their nervousness.

Marlow and his crew arrive at a hut with stacked firewood where it is written that the
wood is for them. Taking the steamboat loaded with the firewood. The steamboat soon was
surrounded by a thick fog. After the fog is cleared, the ship is attacked by unknown natives.
An African crew member of the ship is killed in this fight. Marlow then frightens the natives
away with the ship's steam whistle. Marlow and his companions first thought Kurtz died after
arriving to his station, given the aggressiveness of the natives. But they met a Russian, who
says that Kurtz has gone mad. Marlow then gets to know that Kurtz is being worshipped as a
god by the natives and had gone on several raids nearby in search of ivory. There are human
heads on the villages’ post which explains Kurtz too, adapted the barbaric ways of the
natives. They brought Kurtz out and got surrounded by the natives. Kurtz spoke to them and
they disappeared into the woods. Kurtz is obviously very ill at this point. The Russian reveals
that Kurtz himself ordered the fight so Marlow and his crew might assume that he is dead and
would leave him along in the village. The Russian then leaves the crew. The same night,
Kurtz disappears and Marlow goes out in search of him. He finds him crawling by his hands
toward the native camp saying that he has to be there for a ritual. Marlow stops and threatens
him to return to the ship. Kurtz talked to Marlow briefly and hands Marlow with a personal
documents, including a pamphlet on civilizing the savages which ends with an unclear
message that says, "Exterminate all the brutes!" The steamer breaks down, and they have to
stop for repairs. Meanwhile, Kurtz dies, uttering his last words—"The horror! The horror! " .
Marlow returns to Europe and goes to see Kurtz's his fiancée, she is still mourning, though it
has been a year since Kurtz's death. She asks what his last words were; Marlow lies that
Kurtz said her name.

Analysis of characters:

Marlow

A thirty-two-year-old sailor and inarguably the best story teller. He was told to be "a
meditating Buddha" by the narrator. This reveals how his past experience has shaped him
philosophically. Marlow was curious to discover the blank spaces on the map. He longed for
an adventure when he was young. Instead of giving him a thrilling experience, it made him
realize that there is an inner evil barbarian inside every human which Marlow resisted, but
Kurtz, gave in to. Marlow's chief traits are his curiosity and skepticism. It is Marlow’s
curious nature which made him not to stop his journey on meeting Kurtz, which drives the
plot and its main themes. However, he does have little follies; he lies to Kurtz's fiancé to
preserve her innocence.

As Heart of Darkness progresses, Marlow becomes increasingly sensitive to his

surroundings and the darkness he describes. He was slightly alarmed by the doctor's
comments and puzzled by the two women knitting black wool. Given the time the novel was
written, the stand Marlow’s character takes, or even the whole novel for that matter is
obscure, between being racist and against racism.
Kurtz

Kurtz was an intellectual, given the curiosity of Marlow, and his fiancée’s description
of him, gives in the fact that he’s a genius, but eventually he went mad and turned into a
savage like the natives who sees him as a god. He is known as the best in his job, and other
people in rank wanted to be on his place. The fact that he manages to get into very interior of
the natives’ place itself shows how talented he was, given the fact that Marlow thought evil
and greed is full of this place when he was only half way there. Indeed, Kurtz is not so much
a fully realized individual as a series of images constructed by others for their own use. As
Marlow’s visits with Kurtz’s cousin, he says that Kurtz was a great musician; to the
journalist, a brilliant politician and leader of men; and to his fiancée, a great humanitarian and
genius. All of these contradicts with what Marlow’s saw and heard from the man, thus he is
left to wonder who is the real Kurtz, along with the audience.

Russian Trader

The Russian Trader was a representative of a Dutch company. He was along in the
river for two years until he met Kurtz and become one of his native tribal groups where they
worship him. Marlow admired the Russian for his ability to survive this place without going
full mad for two years. However, he also criticizes the Russian for his devotion to Kurtz. The
Russian appears as a jester like character to Marlow, still he admired him on his skill.

Themes:

Imperialism

The novella’s main theme surrounds on different aspects of imperialism, but didn’t
make sure of where it stands. It does accept that the so called civilized British cannot convert
the African natives into civilized, also providing the fact that was not the main intent on their
colonialism, as owning their natural resources by imprisoning the natives for the betterment
of their nation, just like how colonialism works, that is represented by the ivory trade. These
are the irony in the novella and not directly shadowed. Marlow lies in the safety of
commentating on what happens, and his stand is implicit. In the beginning, Marlow felt
colonialism is unwanted by empathizing for his native people, not for the agony that African
people undergo because of slavery. Still, he does empathize more for them than the rest of the
characters in the novel.
Madness

This novel is argues whether it’s racist or against it because of how it handled the
themes. Madness in this novel is connected with the savage customs of the natives, who
attach and murder the white men brutally, who basically trespassed into their lands.
Fresleven, who is known for his good temper lost it in a dispute over some chickens and
eventually lost his life to the natives. Kurtz who happened to stay with the natives turned into
one and the Russian man too, followed Kurtz’s path. The irony is strong here as the British
tried to civilize them but eventually lost its own men to the native’s culture and to their basic
instincts. Madness in this novel is also connected with the human’s innate savage nature
which was his basic instinct.

Reception of the text:

This text was heavily controversial. Though it was analysed more than any other work of
literature at that time, it was not a big success during Conrad's life. The French philosopher
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe called Heart of Darkness "one of the greatest texts of Western
literature" and used Conrad's tale for a reflection on "The Horror of the West". But after
Postcolonial studies emerged, the text received immense criticism. Chinua Achebe, in his
1975 lecture described the text as "an offensive and deplorable book" that de-
humanised Africans. A book that widely talks about imperialism and its effects uses the
natives, who were directly affected by it as a tool to tell the story. On the other hand, there are
some contemporary native African readers who feel that Conrad’s writing style represents the
early age he’s from, when imperialism was flourishing and accept the novel

The Power and the Glory

About the author:

Henry Graham Greene was born on October 2, 1904. He was an English writer and
journalist. His father Charles Greene, was the headmaster of the school he went to –
Berkhamsted School. He then studied at Oxford. Graham became a Catholic in 1926, his faith
stemming in part from his deep conviction of evil in the world. Much of his life up to that
point had been a nightmare and no doubt because he has long kept dream journals. He had
even attempted suicide.
 His first novel was The Man Within which was published in 1929. He was a journalist
and was also a writer and a critic. Many of his works focus upon religious themes, and the
protagonist is almost always the sinner, the spiritual outcast. He was honoured by the Queen
Elizabeth I Greene died April 3, 1991, at La Providence Hospital in Switzerland.

Influences on the writer and the work:

Though Greene denied it when he was called as a ‘Catholic Novelist’, most of his
works had religious themes deep rooted into it, just like the Power and the Glory. His writing
was influenced by writers like Conrad, James, Stevenson, etc..,

Plot summary:

A stranger appeared in the dentist’s place and asked for a drink. Then a boy came
over and asked the dentist to help look at his mom. The dentist explained he is not a doctor,
but assumed the stranger is one and thus asked him to go with the boy. The stranger hated the
boy and his mother because of whom, he missed his ship. Meanwhile Captain Fellows
returned home to find that a Lieutenant spent the night in their house; he was looking for a
priest who is told as a betrayer of the country and asked questions to his wife and daughter
Koral. Mr. Fellows promised he would inform if something happened, or if they saw the
priest, so the lieutenant left. Koral actually helped the priest to lay and hide in the shed. Mr.
Fellows was very angry with his daughter and said to the priest to leave at once. Koral gave
the priest some food and beer and he left. On his way an old man and some other poor people
gave him a refuge and in turn asked the priest to hear their confessions. The priest agreed, so
all the people living there came to confess to the priest. The governor wants the priest to be
caught before the season of rain as when rains starts the police would stop the searching. The
lieutenant wanted to take into prison one person from each village and if the priest did not
show up to shoot them all, and again take one person into prison. It would repeat until the
priest gave up. Maria, the priest’s former lover gave him food and people let him spend a
night in the village. When he was holding a mass someone run in and said that police was
approaching the village. Nobody exposed the Priest down but they want the priest to move.
While moving the priest met a man who he suspected. The man kept on asking whether he
was a priest and the priest denied him. The priest parted his way on the night. The man was
angry that the priest separated.
 Then the priest went to the capital and got arrested for drinking. The priest spent a
night in jail, but the policemen did not recognize him. He confessed to his inmates that he
was a priest, but none of them told the police in the morning who this man really was. In the
morning the priest also met the man who wanted to give him to the police. The Man came to
the police and said he saw the Priest, but did not expose him actually, satisfied with his new
job and food. So, he let the priest go away.

The priest did leave the capital and started to the farm where he met Koral, and the people
helped him there. But after the policemen took one as a hostage, he eventually went to the
capital willingly and three days after he was shot

Analysis of characters:

The Priest

Being protagonist of the story, the priest is waging a war on two fronts: haunted by his sinful
past internally, and evading the authorities. The priest is not portrayed as a hero as he
constantly runs away in cowardice. He is also self-interested, suspicious, and pleasure-
oriented, in other words, a human. The long run away from the government had transformed
him, yet his inner guilt remains. Greene's writing of this main character, just like in his other
novels is with follies is that he refuses to spare us the priest's less-than-noble side, and yet
also convincingly shows him overcoming his weaknesses and performing acts of great
heroism. The priest does not have a true conception of the value of his life, and therefore,
remains an extremely humble man to the day of his death. He also feels that he can never be
truly penitent for his sexual relationship with Maria, since it produced Brigida, his daughter,
whom he loves very deeply.

The Lieutenant:

He can be considered as the antagonist of the story. He believes that exterminating all
the clergymen and religion would bring his country development, and he is sincere in his
thoughts; he wanted best for his people. But, he got obsessed with finding and executing the
last standing clergyman and thus is driven to catch him at any means. In the midst, he even
hurt lots of innocent people because they did not expose the priest. The Lieutenant is not
extremely bad, neither good, but is written cleverly by Greene as a man given into his goal
that he himself was breaching for what he set the goal in first place. After capturing and
talking to the priest, the Lieutenant understands that not every clergyman are bad, as he
believes for his political stand.

Themes:

The irony of Christianity:

One of the themes in this book is how difficult it is for a Christian to be truly humble.
The priest realizes that he is trapped in this paradox. He originally stayed in Mexico during
the persecution so that he would appear good before God and his people. But owing to some
situations, he decided to run from the lieutenant as long as he can. He was also an alcoholic.
Though he has this folly of never becoming humble as a Christian, he eventually attains
humility for not getting humility.

Political idealism:

On the other hand, the novel carefully constructed how the desire for extreme
idealism on the political agenda can lead to danger. The lieutenant did not mean any harm for
the people on his agenda, rather wanted them to have a better life without clergymen and with
actually development in practical sense. But his goal to eradicate religion and the priest lead
him to hurt innocent people, making to question his idealistic sense at the end of the novel.
This novel does juxtapose but does not drive into any conclusion over these arguments over
the two main themes, rather brings out the follies in both.

Reception of the text:

Greene received criticisms from the Catholics. The Cardinal of Westminster called
Greene and read him a pastoral letter condemning him. On the other hand, the Pope Paul
called him and told Greene not to mind the Catholics getting offended over his work. In
1941, The Power and the Glory won the Hawthornden Prize and in 2005, the book was listed
by Time Magazine as one of the 100 greatest English-language novels of the past 75 years.
 The Golden Notebook

About the author:

Doris May Lessing was born on 22 October 1919 in Iran. She was initially Doris
May Tayler; her parents are Captain Alfred Taylor and Emily Taylor, who both are British.
The couple had met amidst a war and moved to Iran for work. Then the family moved to
Zimbabwe which was one of British Colony then.

Doris was educated in Dominican Convent high School and then in a girls school in
Salisbury. She had to leave school and start her self-education since 13. Doris got married
around 1937 and left the marriage, leaving the two children with the father. Only after her
divorce, she found interest in politics and joined in the Book Club community. Doris met her
second husband shortly from who gained her last name, Gottfried Lessing; she divorced
Lessing in 1949 and moved to London with her younger son Peter where she focused on her
writing career.

Lessing’s first novel is The Grass Is Singing, which was published in 1950. She used
to sell her short stories to the magazine since the age of fifteen. She wrote two novels under a
pseudonym Jane Somers too. Some of her works are The Good Terrorist, The marriages
between zones Three, Four and Five. The Golden Notebook is the work which gained her
fame as a literary writer; it was published in 1962. It represents the feminist aspect of the
writer which also represents women of multiple generations. Lessing was also involved in
political as well was literary movement such as Modernism, Post-modernism, Sufism,
Feminism, Socialism and scepticism. In 2007, Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature; she
is the oldest winner of Nobel Prize, at 88. She died on 17 November 2013, after suffering
from stroke long ago which depleted her health and restricted her travel.

Aside from the Nobel Prize, she was also awarded Somerset Maugham Award in
1954, WH Smith Literary Award in 1986, James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1995, and
David Cohen Prize in 2001. It has been told that Doris, when receiving the message that she
won Nobel Prize, she exclaimed and said that she now won every British prize.

Influence on the author and text:

The novel speaks a lot about the world war and also of the Nazis’ genocide and the growing
movement of Africans who were enslaved by the British. Lessing has been an activist in
many moments and thus the historical events which were active during her era must have
influenced her to write as there are strong elements of them in this book.

Plot summary:

The novel is about a writer called Anna Wulf. Anna has written four books, all about
her life. The Golden Notebook is her attempt to merge all four of her previous notebooks kept
separately. Anna has a friend called Molly. Molly is an actress. Both women discuss about
women and their role in families and also their experiences as a woman.

The narration shifts between the ‘Free women’ which follows the two friends, and
that of the notebooks. In Black Notebook, Anna wrote about her experience in Africa, where
she spent some of her time in the colonial part of the continent and about her novel. In the
Red Notebook, she wrote about her mixed feeling about The British Communist Party and
her decline from it. In the Yellow Notebook, she wrote a novel that is parallel to her actual
romantic life in London. Finally in the Blue Notebook, she treats it as actual diary and writes
her personal feelings on it.

In Free Women, Molly talks about her ex-husband Richard and also about the son
Tommy. Her husband who was once a leftist along with Molly, who had actually bought
them together, now violently denies the idea. Molly had to find a job for their son and to help
him with his marriage; his wife has become alcoholic because of his unfaithfulness. Anna
talks about her reducing interest in writing and about her communist circle and also her
difficulties on getting over her ex who is now married. Then the narrative of Black Notebook
begins, it is a synopsis of her first successful novel Frontiers of War. Then the narrative shifts
among Red notebook and yellow notebook and blue notebook again ending with the Free
woman as the last section, Anna decided to work at a marriage counseling center and Molly
married a progressive man.

Analysis of characters:

Anna

Anna Wulf is the protagonist of the novel. She is a novelist and an activist who belongs to
the communist movement, but has her oscillations on supporting the party. She’s a single
mother in her early thirties who had spent some of her time in Colonial part of the Africa and
rest in London; she wrote her experiences on the places on her notebooks. Willi Rodde was
her first husband who is the father of her daughter Janet. After leaving him, she fell in love
with an already married man called Michael who leaves her after five years. She is unable to
move on. Anna then has a short termed affair with Saul Green, which drove them both into
madness and with no balance in the relationship, but leaves shortly. Anna was self-
contradictory and felt fragmented because of this, but in the end of the novel, she picks
herself.

Molly

Molly Jacobs is Anna’s close friend and a sister-figure. She separate from her
husband who became an elitist business man but still occasionally contact her to ask advice
for himself and for their son. Molly too expresses her frustration with the party and events
that happen politically. In the end of the novel, Molly finds a progressive businessman and
marries him. Molly’s significance in the novel decreases as Anna’s increase passion in Saul
Green increases but ultimately they both unite after Green’s leaving in Free Women. They
both had discussed about how women can never be free and how their roles are never
appreciated let along their needs to be attended.

Themes:

Fragmentation and Unity

The novel is structured by this very theme. It is also evident in the plot, when Anna
tells her friend that everything’s cracking up. Anna also suffers a mental breakdown over her
novels. When she writes the Golden Notebook, the unity of all four different books which
consists of her fear over growing insane, she descends into madness, but on the other hand,
was able to write and emerged healthy. The four books represents Anna’s fragmentation of
herself and her fear of confronting everything as one but when she does confront herself by
merging all into one, she achieves unity. Anna’s identity was fragments in the beginning; she
felt she was multiple people and not an integrated one. She saw two paths as her goal, first is
to deny her conflict over lots of theories and her wishes, and second is to embrace it. Finally
understand the multiple aspect of her character is natural and embracing it leads her to heal.

Communism

The Red Notebook represents the Communist ideas of the main character, or in some
ways the author herself. Anna supports the communist theory but is in moral dilemma to
practice and support it practically through the British Communist Party. We also find some
characters in the novel that blindly follows the party and others who is extremely
disappointed in the way it is executed that they lost faith in politics let alone the ideology.
Anna transforms from a less radical leftist in terms of politics and more practically
progressive ideology. She at first was upset because communism failed her personally. The
Communist leader of Russia, Stalin had executed many of the opposite party members and
some of his own. While the people belong to the far left simply denies and when it is
confirmed, the parties break in the west. Anna and Molly discuss about how the West
communist members simply support soviet because of its origin, no matter what it does. The
lack of an opposite voice, as opposition is not being tolerated itself is anti-communism as
communism focuses on egalitarian society. Moreover, Anna doesn’t even get paid for her
labour for the party, which is ironic, but very casual on that time when women wasn’t really
looked up as a fellow human being.

Gender

This novel speaks of the identity of women in every ways. In conventional marriage,
men earning money from outside is recognized and appreciated but the women’s toil inside
the house is never recognized. They are seen as objects for man’s pleasure and for his
convenience and never did contributed the important role she played in the making of home
to herself. Molly and Anna discuss about how just because they did not marry, they are seen
as an objects free for men to try and take. Though they call themselves as Free women and
does spoke progressive ideas, analyzing the novel as of now rather makes it as irony as we all
know that Anna and Molly were never free as whatever they are were only defined by the
men around them and their attitudes. Even after the revolution, women who gets into the
workforce after a hard time does not get a fair price for their labour. The women in the
novel’s work were undervalued and men while taking credit to the work they do as they
believe it is their role, fails to recognize or give credit to the women who cooks, cleans, take
of them physically and mentally. It is ironic that even though men believe it is the job women
to do such, they refuse to recognize it.

However, some male critics complained that Lessing poured hatred on men by
reversing the gender hierarchy in the novel, by making the women dominate the men in the
novel by painting the men as bad but that is not the case. Lessing, clearly showed that
escaping from marriage or not marrying is not the way to escape patriarchy and in fact it is
everywhere dominating the women and she never cannot be free even when he works for
herself. Lessing talked about how women cannot be free just by being away from men, but
must work to change the social situations which equally appreciate the work done by them.

Reception of the text:

The Golden Notebook was in Time Magazine’s 100 best English language novels
since 1923, categorized in 2005.

References:

1. “Lord of the Flies Study Guide.” LitCharts, www.litcharts.com/lit/lord-of-the-

flies.
2. “Heart of Darkness Guide.”, SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart-of-
darkness/.

3. “The Power and the Glory .” GradeSaver, www.gradesaver.com/the-power-and-

the-glory.

4. “The Golden Notebook Study Guide.” LitCharts, www.litcharts.com/lit/the-

golden-notebook.