摘 要

威廉·戈尔丁是20世纪英国最为杰出的作家之一。他为读者留下了许多经典佳作。其中最为人津津乐道的莫过于他第一部出版的小说《蝇王》。也正是这部作品让他获得了1983年的诺贝尔文学奖。他的作品充满了寓言与神话色彩，着力展示自己对人性的思考。叙事风格平淡而严肃，却又不失艺术感染力，他将深刻的哲理与象征蕴于小说之中，使读者陷入对人性恶的深思。

《蝇王》出版后吸引了国内外学者与读者们的目光。小说主题聚焦于对人性恶的揭示引发人们对人类自身的思考。小说中大量的象征的写作手法也是一大特色，成为许多学者讨论的对象。环境描写作为小说不可分割的一部分，在解读小说主题与塑造人物方面有着不可估量的作用。本文通过对小说中自然环境、社会环境以及人物心理环境这三种不同的环境描写的解读，从孤岛，岛上男孩的关系以及男孩心理活动等角度来进一步解读小说的主题。此外，本文还分析了小说中环境描写对于深化主题，渲染气氛以及人物形象塑造的作用，以展示戈尔丁高超的艺术手法。

关键词：《蝇王》；自然环境；社会环境；心理环境

Abstract

William Golding is recognized as one of the greatest British writers. He has written many classic works in his whole life, among which Lord of the Flies, his first published book, is the most celebrated one . It is Lord of the Flies that makes him win the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1983. Golding’s works are often full of fables and myths to express his deep thoughts about human nature. His narration style is not only plain and serious, but also is full of artistic appealing, which renders readers absorbed in considering about the evil of human nature.

The Lord of the Flies draws scholars and readers’ attention both at home and abroad soon after it was published. The major theme of the novel focuses on discovering the evil of human beings to make people rethink about themselves. Besides, the various symbols make this novel distinguished from other works, which are often discussed by many scholars. Moreover, the environment description, as the indispensable part of the novel, plays an vital part for readers in understanding the theme of the whole novel and the development of the plot . This paper centers on reading three different kinds of environments of this novel from the natural environment, social environment and psychological environment. Furthermore, the theme of this novel will be discussed in detailed parts of the isolated island, the relationship of the boys and their psychological activities. In addition, this paper also analyses the effects of the environment of the novel in deepening the theme, exaggerating the atmosphere and portraying the characters, which shows the novel’s exquisite writing skills.

Key Words：Lord of the Flies；natural environment；social environment；psychological environment

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The Author and His Masterpiece 1

1.2 Literature Review 2

2 Natural Environment in Lord of the Flies 4

2.1 The Isolated Island 4

2.2 The Terrible Storm 5

3 Social Environment in Lord of the Flies 8

3.1 The Society Before Characters' Landing on the Island 8

3.2 The Community After Characters' Landing on the Island 9

4 Psychological Environment in Lord of the Flies 11

4.1 Ralph’s Inner World 11

4.2 Jack’s Inner World 12

5 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 18

Reading the Environment in the Novel Lord of the Flies

1 Introduction

1.1 The Author and His Masterpiece

William Golding is a talented and well-known British writer in the history of literature. However, compared with other writers, he actually starts his writing career at a quite old age. He was born in Cornwall, England in 1911. He showed his interest in literature at a young age. After his graduation from Oxford University, he worked at a small theater in different positions as actor, producer and poetry writer. Later he taught at a public boy school where he knew more about young boys. He joined the Royal Navy one year later after WWII broke out. He served in command of rocket craft. During the war period, he took part in Normandy invasion and witnessed cruelty and brutality of the war where he found out violence hiding inside human beings, which had great influence on him both physically and mentally. The themes of his works can also be traced from his experiences. After the destructive and catastrophic war, Golding was shocked about what he had seen on the battlefield. Since then he has little faith in human beings and he believes their minds are greedy and evil. Once they are set away from the rational and civilized world, their natural evil side will conquer their minds. As a result, his most works often explore human nature.

Lord of the Flies, Golding’s master piece, has been considered as one of the best novels of 20^th century. Though it is rejected by many publishers, the novel gains a great deal of popularity when it came out in 1954. It won the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1983. According to E.M. Foster, a famous British writer, this novel is the “Outstanding Novel of the Year”. Critics and scholars also show their great interest in this novel. Golding’s sensitivity to the various aspects and human condition makes him outstanding in the 20th century British novel (Boyd, 2010, p.10). Lord of the Flies talks about a group of boys, under 12 years old, who lands on an isolated island in an air crash during the war. There is no any adult on the land so that the boys are totally free from any restrictions and rules. The boys are united and try to build a civilized society at the beginning but later they form two groups and turn the island into a terrifying hell in the end. This novel reveals the defects of human nature. The fear inside the boys stimulates their inner desire. Hunting and killing become something fun to them. Simon who finds the truth of the beast and Piggy who has strong faith in adults and science are killed by Jack and his followers without any mercy. It is when the official comes on the island who stops the cruel hunting. The plot of this novel is simple and straightforward while the theme is quite impressive. And the author’s beautiful words portray vivid scenes, which satisfy readers’ imagination as well.

1.2 Literature Review

There stirs a group of scholars who are interested in Lord of the Flies after its big success in the awarding of the Nobel Prize. Readers and scholars give their own understanding of this novel. Generally speaking, the theme of Lord of the Flies is a hot topic for many scholars. Thus many studies on Lord of the Flies focus on revealing the dark side of human nature from the perspective of the plot, characters or artistic techniques. For example, Sun Yunyun analyses the symbols, contrast, irony and the language style inside the novel to show the evil of human beings of Lord of the Flies(Sun, 2008). Characters in the novel also attracts scholars. Philip explores the effects of female characters and history which seem less noticeable(Bhadury, 1993). Beside, Yin Di compares this novel with the traditional desert island novel to show its significance from a broad view(Yin, 2008). Some scholars even interpret this novel from the author himself like Tisdale who points out that the tragedy in Golding’s works result from the fact that he is a pessimistic moralist(Tisdale, 1980). Other scholars choose a more specific point to study the theme. For example, Chen Huiliang analyses scene mode in this novel (Chen, 2014, p.45).

However, these reviews and articles are from the perspectives of the whole novel or several characters. Scarcely have articles, especially in China, analyzed the theme and the characters from the perspective of the novel’s environment, which is actually important views to understand the whole novel. With the environmental analysis, the paper can help readers better understand the novel’s theme from different levels and its representative characters in details.

This paper focuses on the reading of the environment of Lord of the Flies, which may provide a new point for readers to analyze Golding’s other works. Environment refers to the conditions that has an affect on the actions and development of somebody or something(Hornby, 2009). In this paper, I divide the environment into the natural environment, social environment and psychological environment, the environment will be explained in details of the isolated island, the weather, the social background, the group of the boys and their inner world, which may make it easier for readers to understand the theme of Lord of the Files.