ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 A METAPHYSICAL QUEST IN THE NOVELS OF

DR. G. CHRISTOPHER Assistant Professor, Senior, Department of English, VIT, Vellore

E-mail: [email protected]

Received: 14 April 2020 Revised and Accepted: 8 August 2020

ABSTRACT: NWilliam Golding's world lacks order and that is the fundamental dilemma of the modern human race. Golding believes that the world is contaminated with the evil nature of modern man and that men struggle in all ages to rescue himself from that wickedness, which is born of his own absurd behaviour. William Golding's pursuit of moral vision is demonstrated in his early novels. He is interested in the metaphysics of human behavior that governs each of his first five novels that deal with the fall of man and describes a man's struggle for survival in the face of alien nature. He is concerned with the degradation of the human condition and his profound awareness of "mankind's essential illness" is worked and reworked in almost all his novels. He believes contemporary man lacks vision because of the ignored religious dimensions of humanism experience. He establishes the only hope for humanity is self-knowledge attained and practiced by the individual. There is a metaphysical quest of the author through the protagonists of his early novels; the characters undergo trials to overcome the inherent evil qualities of human beings. The protagonist of Golding’s novel symbolizes the entire humanity.

KEYWORDS: dilemma, absurd, metaphysical, vision, quest

I. INTRODUCTION

William Golding, who acquired a new stature as the Nobel Laureate of Literature in 1983, was born in Cornwall on 19 September 1911. He has spoken of how he was born into a world of "sanity and logic and fascination" to employ his own words. He seems to have possessed a sense of perpetual wonder when he was young. Golding experienced two things that he counts the greatest influences on his writing—first, the war and his service in the navy and second, his learning ancient Greek. Golding's works lie before us as a systematic body of writing: written over four decades, characteristic yet flexible, various, changeable, open to new initiatives yet with a recognizable coherence. His first two novels (1954) and The Inheritors (1955), are carefully worked out allegories in which man is presented as a creature unredeemable fallen from grace. His third and fourth novel (1956) and Free Fall (1959), tells of his courageous and ingenious struggle to preserve his life and to live until he is rescued. The knowledge of his previous life is revealed through a series of flashbacks. Our admiration of Martin's epic fight for life is slowly undermined by our increasing knowledge of his viciousness and greed. The truth is that he is already drowned, his long battle for life on the rock was a fantasy sustained by his will, a frantic refusal to "die into heaven."

The Spire (1964) is based on the actual building of the Spire of Salisbury Cathedral in the fourteenth-century. For the first time in Golding's work, the narrative is based on historical facts rather than on earlier fiction. Jocelin instructed by God, forces his Spire upwards, at the cost of friendship and health, at the cost of other men's lives, at the cost of sacrilege. And when it is completed, he is dying, and he no longer knows whether the work is blessed or damned, scared, or obscene, only that the Spire is there. It shows a man apparently achieving something good. Yet everything connected with it is evil. Before he dies, he reflects that there is no innocent work and this is the truth of the book.

William Golding's pursuit for moral vision is demonstrated in his early novels, Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, Pincher Martin; Free Fall and The Spire. As a novelist, Golding is very much concerned with the artificial patterns man has tried to impose upon the "natural chaos of existence." He is concerned with the degradation of the human condition, his religious sense does not drag him from the reality of human life but makes him observe and comment upon human fate with deep sympathy and compassion. He deals with the inner chaos of man to explain the outer world of social behaviour. His profound awareness of "mankind's essential illness" is worked and reworked in almost all his novels.

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 In Golding's view, contemporary man lacks vision. He insists upon the ignored religious dimensions of humanism experience. He is interested in the metaphysics of human behavior that governs each of his first five novels. Golding's first novel Lord of the Flies is a fable which deals with the story of a group of children isolated on an island. He presents his view of the human condition with a moral vision. The children typify all human beings with their feelings of love, hatred, pain and guilt. The second novel, The Inheritors is concerned with man's loss of innocence. The pride of the modern man who imagines that he is in complete control of his own destiny is attacked. It attempts to reveal the absurdity that lies under the facade of "civilization." Pincher Martin deals with the fall of man and describes a man's struggle for survival in the face of alien nature. He believes the only hope for humanity is self-knowledge attained and practiced by the individual. Pincher symbolizes the entire humanity. Free Fall, Golding's fourth novel, is anchored in social surroundings, but it also deals with the illusion that man can rationally control his world. The fifth novel, The Spire, tells the story of Jocelin, Dean of a cathedral and his inspiring dedication to the erection of a crowning four hundred foot spire.

Lord of the Flies is the Robinson Crusoe of our days. It is known to thousands of children (and to thousands more who were children, and have grown up discovering other Golding novels). Despite this fame, Golding himself remains virtually unknown — as shadowy, almost, as Defoe. That seems a deliberate choice. But, as a teacher-turned-writer, more easily remembered as an "observant, reflective, thoughtful man apparently brooding on problems which he did not seem to share with anyone else" (55) [1], he was more interested in understanding man for what he was and the ills that plague him. In reply to a question, Golding answered thus:

I am serious. I believe that man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own view, in the belief that it may be something like the truth. I am fully engaged in the human dilemma but see it as far more fundamental than a complex of taxes and astronomy (46) [2].

This statement was made in all earnestness and it can be seen from the critical examination of the varied human behaviour in his writings. Though he says he has no solutions to offer, his novels force one to pause and think about oneself and the world that one inhabits. One is aroused to the awareness that no one is perfect and no one is above guilt. Human failings are common. Only the realization comes late, as with Dean Jocelin in The Spire:

I'm a fool... I'm a building with a vast cell a rage where rats live, and t here's some kind of blight on my hands. I injure everyone I touch, particularly those I love. Now I've come in pain and shame, ask you to forgive me. (210 -11) [3]

In book after book, Golding has strived to probe and analyse human failings and weaknesses in totality and silently pass on the message or warning that either one could deliberately choose the evil path of a "Free Fall, or, in all humbleness submit to the Divine Will and Mercy. By making People understand their own humanity" through his writings, Golding perhaps visualizes the day when people would become "self -aware and honest with themselves about the condition they find themselves in, and the kind of life they lead" (19) [4]. Pincher Martin had the benefit of Nathaniel's friendly advice to learn the technique of dying into heaven and give up his present way of living. But, Martin did not pay heed to what Nathaniel said. He did not find it appealing. Neither was he interested in accepting the Compassion or the offer of Heaven of the Merciful. He preferred to live by his own laws and his self-created heaven. For all his bragging, he found himself alone in the end, forsaken and deserted -"I'm so alone! Christ! I'm so alone! Because of what I did I am an outsider and alone" (160) [5]. He would, as Pincher Martin did, end up with no hopes of survival, either in this world or the world hereafter. By showing how Pincher Martin's actions are responsible for his sufferings, Golding clarifies that "if the Universe is as the Christian sees it, you will still go either to heaven or hell or purgatory. But your purgatory or your heaven or your hell won't have the Christian attributes... They'll be things that you make yourself" (68) [4]. If the only man could profit by Pincher Martin's experience, Golding's efforts to cure mankind of his inner darkness and evil would stand achieved.

Like Pincher Martin, Sammy Mountjoy was equally responsible for making a mess of his life. He had thrown the cautioning words of the Headmaster— that nothing could be got without sacrifice and the return would always not be equal to the sacrifice— to the winds. Neither did he take advantage of the red traffic light, holding him back from proceeding towards Beatrice's place. Nor did he listen to the trembling of the body or the sadness that "reached out of me that did not know what it wanted; for it is a part of my nature that I should need to worship, and this was not in the textbooks, not in the behaviour of those I had chosen and so without knowing I had thrown it away" (109) [7]. He went his own way and persisted in seducing Beatrice — an act which finally and irrevocably cost him his freedom. He did not have any control over his actions and was in the power of a force that would not allow him to act according to his own free will:

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 I do not mean what ought I to have done or what someone else could have done. I simply mean that as I have described myself, as I see myself in my backward eye, I could do nothing but run away...I had lost my power to Cohoes. I had given away my freedom... What I was, I had become (130- 31) [7]

Sammy's helplessness is the helplessness of the human race in general. Our sufferings today are directly related to our own misdeeds. Golding in a recounting of Sammy's shameful and painful acts demonstrates that a life of worldly pleasure would only add to our misery. The feelings of guilt would be too much to bear. Only by desisting from senseless acts can man hope to live in peace and find salvation.

Jack is both wicked and proud, and, therefore, finds himself in the wrong company. The democratic methods followed by Ralph and Piggy in choosing a leader to irk him. He feels that he should be the natural leader by choice and not by election. Neither could he give himself to quiet ways of thinking and plan means of rescue. He is an egoist and brutal. Thus, when Ralph was made the chief, he felt hurt and not before long rebelled and brought trouble to the children.

Dean Jocelin pride was personified. Despite the expert technical advice offered by Roger Mason, the master builder, that the foundations were too weak to withstand the weight of a towering spire, he was adamant that the Spire should be completed as planned; because, according to him it was the command of the Almighty and he, as the chosen one, had to bow to His Wishes:

The building is a diagram of prayer, and our Spire will be a diagram of the highest prayer of all. God revealed it to me in a vision, his unprofitable servant He chose me. He chooses you...We can neither of us avoid this work... It's senseless, you think. It frightens us, and it's unreasonable. But then — since when did God ask the chosen ones to be reasonable? They call this Jocelin's Folly, don't they? (20, 21) [8].

It anything, it was his pride that was responsible for the insane act that was forcing him to continue with the construction, that was standing on crumbling foundations and singing and swaying all the time. Pangall, Goody, Rachel, Mason, and, the neglected Church were the victims and the high price of his arrogance. He had no means of undoing his rash act. His repentance was of no use. Man has to understand his limitations and know that:

The world of man is wholly absurd, irrational, and evil. For in his absurdity and irrationality, man is proud. There is no hope of good or beauty; the only hell waiting for pride. (231) [9].

Pincher Martin was Golding's special creation. He is greed, personified and believed in living by others. His selfishness had no limits and he derived immense pleasure in stealing from others, big or small, particularly women. He enjoyed their agony and heartbroken cries. Pincher Martin is no stranger. Nor was his behaviour anything out of the ordinary. The world is full of such men. Many among them excel Pincher Martin in meanness and animal-like acts. Only no one is concerned about other's sufferings, as long as they are not directly affected, and allow such persons to survive but are also friendly and subservient to them. Hence, the Pincher Martins of the world continue to rejoice in their exploits. Golding in drawing attention to Pincher Martin wants to remind the world that it has grown indifferent to the ills destroying the society and being a party to it.

Selfishness is not limited to the abuse of woman alone. It stands out in opposition wherever and whenever selfish interests are involved. Selfishness also gives rise to wrath and anger. It exploits people for personal ends, Rowena Pringle could not stand Sammy Mountjoy as her desire to marrying Father Watts-Watt remained only a daydream. Dr, Halde was using Sammy Mountjoy to gather information about POWS planning to escape so that his country's interest was served. It would be seen that selfishness is encountered in every walk of life. By repeated examples, Golding wants to bring home the lesson that unless one can conquer oneself, there cannot be any outward peace or mental satisfaction. Golding wants to prove that there are better ways to achieve one's ambitions in life rather than being utterly selfish. Time and again, Golding has emphasized that it is the inward look that would be far more revealing than what is searched for outside. Man feels threatened by forces, Imagined and real, beyond his control in the world. But, he is not prepared to see what he himself is. He does not slop to examine whether what he sees enacted in the world around him is a reflection of his own thoughts.

When Pincher Marlin found himself trapped on the rock, he cried out that he was deserted and all alone. He laments that people had forgotten what he had done for the country. But, never for a moment does he stop to ponder about his own deeds and seek forgiveness. Jack and the children in the Lord of the Files are haunted by the fear of the hidden beast in the mountains. They are not prepared to accept Simon's opinion that the beast

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 could be within them. Father Watts-Watt suffered from the feeling that someone was out to defame him and had lost his mental stability. But, in reality, he seemed to be under the grip of some suppressed emotions, which were trying to burst out of his control. Instead of mastering his own feelings, he was hunting for the enemy outside. One could understand one's self only by casting a look at himself and encountering the enemy within:

But when the eyes of Sammy were turned in on me with that same stripped and dead objectivity. What they saw was not beautiful but fearsome.... These shapes could be likened to nothing but the most loathsome substances that man knows of. This was human nature found inhabiting the centre of my own awareness. (190) [7].

In his aspiration to free mankind from its present state of gloom, Golding could very well have said these very words of Swami Chinmayananda:

Wake up to the State of pure Consciousness. End all the limitations of the mortal in you. Your sorrows and imperfections are of your own choice. End them all, right away! You can!... You must! (Chinmayananda, 285) [10].

But, with man's impatient and intolerant nature, this becomes difficult. His selfishness, greed, pride, and self- importance allow him no mental peace, and he is always at war with himself and his surroundings.

The modern way of living has multiplied this problem manifold for him. Life is not as simple as it was when the Neanderthals lived in peace with themselves and their surroundings. They were gentle, abhorred killing, had no thoughts of the past or worries about the future. They lived in the present, glad for what it was. They could sense no danger and had no feelings of enmity. The advent of the Homo sapiens, or the new people, who had a better insight into things and more comforts, however, changed the position. Man became aware of the fear and took steps to protect him. He failed to recognise the innocence and goodness of the Neanderthals. Rather, the Neanderthals were viewed as enemies to be destroyed. In Free Fall, Rowena Pringle hated and was intolerant towards Sammy, both for himself and partly because she had a crush on Father Watts — who had adopted me instead of marrying her.

What Golding witnessed during and after the war was enough to convince him that people, whoever they were and wherever they lived, could stoop to barbaric levels to satisfy their own needs. It is not that the Nazis alone were capable of adopting inhuman methods and people in other parts of the world were quite virtuous. Placed in the same circumstances, and given the same opportunity. Golding avers, people anywhere in the world would not hesitate to act in the same manner. It was beyond their nature to act differently. Nor could it be said that elders with their maturity and experience were fully capable of guiding their children away from the path of evil. They would be equally provoked to do the same things, as the children in the Lord of the Flies, when confronted with a like situation: The officer stops the children's game of death, yet ironically and paradoxically, he himself is a participant in a war, the one that is devastating the world. Golding comments wearily that the adult world cannot solve the boys' problems, for it is involved in a similar struggle. Virginia tiger says:

There is no major difference between the island world and the adult one...the children's experiment on the island had its constant counterpart in the world outside. The officer is blind not only about what the boys have experienced but also about what he himself is experiencing (130-31) [11].

What Golding likes to convey is that education should be complete and take into view all aspects of human behaviour and living. Undue emphasis should not be given to any particular area of learning to the neglect of the other. Education should be balanced and progressive. It should promote harmony and make peaceful living a reality.

Golding has been emphasizing throughout his writings that one should not be carried away with material progress and lose sight of spiritual values. "Let our religion bring us light and joy into the world around us" (Chinmayananda, 188) [10]. This is what Nathaniel tried to teach Pincher Martin and he himself practiced. God is to whom Matty turned for solace in his desperate fight against an unsympathetic world. Golding seems to be reminded that God is the final refuge and not worldly possessions. It is not that all darkness surrounds us. We are not totally lost. There is time to repent and repair. This can be accomplished if we rise above ourselves and dedicate ourselves to the cause of humanity. By painting the darker side of man, and, throwing light on the goodness that can still be found, here and there, Golding attempts to draw man away from the path of evil. That man was capable of leading an innocent, carefree, contented, united, happy, and peaceful life in the Neanderthals' simplicity. Fear, anxiety, tension, and turmoil were the selfishness of the Homo sapiens, who wanted to survive at the Neanderthals' cost.

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 Simon tries to convey this very thing. He is free of ego, pride, wrath, greed, and selfishness. He happily helps and shares not only the fruits and flowers with the helpless ones, but also prepared to risk himself with Ralph and Jack and walk all alone in the dark jungles to establish contact with Piggy and the other children. He is a source of hope and encouragement to Ralph when he was crestfallen and thought himself helplessly tied down to the island. He assures Ralph, "You'll get back to where you came from," because some "of the strain had gone from Ralph's body." (113) [12]. He spends his time in silent meditation, amongst thick vegetation, away from the boys. This had provided him with the opportunity and ability to understand himself and see things around him in their reality. His vision and thinking are not clouded like the other boys. He is neither afraid of the dark nor seeks the beast outside himself. Self-preservation is not uppermost in his mind. He willingly submits himself to the other. Thus, the talk of a beast haunting the island surprises him. Simon, walking in front of Ralph, felt a flicker of incredulity — a beast with mountaintop that left no tracks and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric. However, Simon thought of the beast; there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick. If only man could understand himself as Simon did, he would not find himself in a mess, as Golding at once notes that he has landed himself into it. Like Simon, instilled with a sense of sacrifice and selflessness, he would strive to do others good, and Golding's lesson would be complete.

Unfortunately, the Simons are far and few in the world today and are heavily outnumbered by the Martins, Sammy and Oliver. In the pursuit of their own selfish aims, they play and trample with the lives of those they come across. They have either to be shocked into realization of their ill-doings or constantly reminded that life is not limited to this world alone.

Sammy Mountjoy had bent Beatrice to his will and then deserted her for Taffy. Beatrice had become insane and confined to a mental asylum ever since he deserted her. His friend, Kenneth, squarely accused Sammy of her condition— "You use everyone. You used that woman. You used Taffy. And now you've used me." "Perhaps you hurt her so badly it tipped her over. I should think so. She's been here ever since, you see" (246-47) [7].

Pincher Martin was the very picture of an egocentric man. He was too proud himself to believe that there was a Power above him and mercilessly subjected others to his wishes. He did not spare even his friend Nathaniel, whom, for a change, he loved. He did not believe in what Nathaniel said— that one has to learn the technique of dying into heaven. "I don't see and I don't much care but I'll come to your lecture" (Pincher Martin, 183) [13]

As Sammy Mountjoy observes a purer joy is in forgiving. It is a positive act of healing, a burst of light. It is real and precise as aesthetic enjoyment, not weak or soft but crystalline and strong. A new kind of understanding occurs when the heart is ready to submit and is ready to acknowledge its weaknesses and failings freely. It seems that no one is better than the other— "The innocent and the wicked live in one world...But we are neither the innocent nor the wicked. We are guilty. We fall down. We crawl on hands and knees. We weep and tear each other" (251) [7]. The heart also grasps that sin and remorse are common to all, without exception. This vision of one's self and that of others helps man overcome his petty prejudices and see things with a new eye, particularly with kindness and love.

II. CONCLUSION

Golding's novels are also comparable to the Genesis myths in a sense; they talk of man's helplessness as he recognizes the presence of a destructive element in himself. Golding argues that human beings are fallen and that God is absent from the centre of their consciousness, that there is darkness in man's heart. In all his novels, Golding has been concerned with man's fallen nature and with the relation of the "Fall" to the blighting self- consciousness of which language is a product. Language is a sign of loss of innocence and of the longing for redemption to which the loss gives rise. Golding credits the sanctions of a civilized society and he intimates the reality of saintliness on sanctity, the possibility of grace and redemption. Golding visualizes a state in which man lived in perfect harmony with the Universe (The Inheritors). The man was a perfect microcosm of the macrocosm. Being unself-conscious, he was never aware of nature as others and was absolutely free of the tension between order and chaos. Golding depicts man's loss of the sense of unity with the Universe with the fragmentation of his undifferentiated consciousness. Golding sees man's rise to consciousness as a fall.

Golding credits the sanctions of a civilized society and intimates the reality of saintliness, sanctity, and the possibility of grace and redemption. There is a journey of author through the protagonists of his early novels, and the characters undergo trials to overcome the inherent evil qualities of a human being like Sammy realized, and repented for divine grace, asserting that salvation and sanity are possible for every human being on this earth, irrespective of inherent evil.

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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 III. REFERENCES

[1]. Olsen, Kirstin. Understanding Lord of the Flies: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents, Greenwood Press, 2000. [2]. Osborne, John & Colin Wilson 'The Writer in His Age”, The London Magazine, May, 1957. [3]. Golding, William. “The Spire” London: Faber and Faber, 1964. Print. [4]. Hodson, Leighton. “Writers and Critics, Golding”, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969. [5]. Golding, William. “Pincher Martin”, London: Faber and Faber, 1956. Print. [6]. Hodson, Leighton. “Writers and Critics, Golding”, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969. [7]. Golding, William. “Free Fall”, London: Faber and Faber, 1968. Print. [8]. Golding, William. “The Spire”, London: Faber and Faber, 1964. Print. [9]. Kinkead-Weekes, Mark and Ian Gregor. “William Golding: A Critical Study”, London: Faber and Faber, 1970. [10]. Chinmayananda Swami. Kindle Life, Chinmaya Mission, 1983. [11]. Tiger, Virginia. “William Golding: The Dark Fields of Discovery”, London: Calder & Boyars, 1974. [12]. Golding, William. “Lord of the Flies”, 1954. London: Faber and Faber, 1972. Madras: Madras Oxford University Press, 10th Ed. Rep. 1986. Print. [13]. Golding, William. “Pincher Martin”, London: Faber and Faber, 1956. Print. [14]. Subbarao, V.V. “William Golding: A study”, Bangalore: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1987. [15]. Interview with James Keating, Purdue University (7 May 1961), printed in Lord of the Flies: The Casebook Edition (1964). [16]. Oldsey, Bernard S. and Stanly Waintraub. “The Art of William Golding”, New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1965. [17]. http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/4248/9/09_chapter%204.pdf [18]. https://asiandramassite.wordpress.com/lord-of-the-flies-essay/ [19]. https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0101815 [20]. https://www.worldcat.org/title/william-golding-novels-1954-67-lord-of-the-flies-the-inheritors-pincher- martin-free-fall-the-spire-the-pyramid-a-casebook/oclc/20492164

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