*Aşağıda kaleme aldığım kitap eleştirisi okuduğum roman ingilizce olduğu ve bu nedenle alıntıların da ingilizce olması nedeniyle ingilizce yazılmıştır. (avam tabirle:) yabancı dil hayranlığı ya da şovenistlikten değil yani :P) Sözün özü alıntıları Türkçeye çevirmeye üşendiğimden:P İnş. daha az üşengeç bir anımda tercümesi olmasa da kısa bir Türkçe kritiğine de sayfama ekleyeceğim.
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…but for Wickedness and Savagery
William Golding writes his first novel and masterpiece "Lord of the Flies" in 1954. Therefore, one would not be surprised to detect the influence of WWII on this work of Golding, like most of the post-war works written during these years. Golding, himself, affirms this influence in his own words:
If you had met me before World War II, you would have found me to have been an idealist with a simple and naive belief which many other people of my generation shared, especially in Europe. This naive belief was that man was perfectible. We thought all you had to do was to remove certain inequities and provide practical sociological solutions, and man would have a perfect paradise on earth. From World War II we learned something. The war was unlike any other fought in Europe. It taught us not fighting, politics or the follies of nationalism, but about the given nature of man (Golding, 246).
"Lord of the Flies" epitomizes the shattering of perfectible norms regarding both human, social and universal ideals. The work symbollically reveals the darkness in the supposed-light, the evil in the supposedly-innocent, the savage in the supposedly-civilized, the irrational in the supposedly-rational, and the lie in the supposedly-real, just like Ralph -the hero of the book- "[weeps] for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend" (Golding, 242).
Golding in his masterpiece, skillfully, drags his readers into this hallow pit of understanding through the adventures of a number of boys after they become shipwrecked following an unknown accident, the details of which are (voluntarily?) kept from the reader. From this accident, only children survive and they open their eyes on an island where there are no grown-ups, to a world where there are no rules, laws or social norms. However, it will not be long before they begin to set up their own rules, to regulate their new society. Having brought up as social beings, as members of rules-regulated communities, they quickly adapt the macrocosm of the grown-up world to create their microcosm of the boys' world.
Ralph finds a shell – a conch as Piggy names it- and now they have a symbol for their microcosm. It is a way of calling a meeting where whoever holds the conch has the right to speak while others are to listen and therefore where everyone has an equal right of speaking his mind up. We may confidently conclude then that the conch is an instrument of democracy; and metaphorically it is Ralph who finds it and who can be regarded as the symbol and voice of democracy in the book. Ralph finds it but Piggy names it, and explains the way it can be used. It is Piggy –the Wisdom- who to the end accompanies and stays loyal to Ralph –the Democracy.
With its new residents having the social tendency to putting things within frames, to regulating with rules and laws, the island quickly transforms into a proper rule-regulated society with a chief who is elected to come to power. The boys elect Ralph as their chief, because he is strong and because he holds the conch –the tool of democracy. So the island begins to be ruled by Ralph in a fairly just manner, with his continual reminding that in order for them to be rescued (from that savagery) they need to have a fire –which in fact symbolizes civilization, and things are quite good at the beginning. However, as the story evolves, Golding gradually and implicitly asks the reader to question if things can go that well forever, to question whether human nature is intrinsically apt to social regulation or not..
All through the novel, Golding answers this question that it is definitely not. Human nature, he implies, has two faces, the real which is hidden and only shows up upon the first opportunity arises, and the artificial which is visible and is replaced immediately again upon it can find a way to do so. In his artificial or visible self, human is social, democratic, emphatic; in his real or hidden self he is savage, dictator and selfish. The greed for power shapes his real self. This hypothesis is embodied in the novel through oen of the little boys on the island, Henry, who “[becomes] absorbed beyond mere happiness as he [feels] himself exercising control over living things. He [talks] to them, urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints [become] bays in which they [are] trapped and [give] him the illusion of mastery” (69). It is indeed the illusion of mastery, as man childishly believes that he can whatsoever rule the universe when he himself is within that universe, revolving with it, and being nothing without it. Be it an illusion, it nevertheless prepares the opportunity for man to reveal his real self, as Jack, in Golding’s novel, makes use of this opportunity without delay.
However, it is not always that easy for man to get rid of his social shell to come up with the crude reality inside. Being childish and cowardly to scream this reality to the universe, he desperately seeks for a kind of layer –a protection, to be able to “face” the universe or society. Jack is a rebel on the island, he is courageous enough to contradict democracy in a struggle to free his real self, but cowardly enough not to face it in the outfit of the social world. He takes off his clothes, walking around like a savage with paints on his face, which makes him difficult to be recognized. This savage “outfit” and the paint that he wears on his face is his mask –as Golding writes, “the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (72).
In his novel, Golding portrays that without social norms to abide by and beliefs to stick to in order to separate what is wrong from what is right, man becomes savage-like, using savage more in the sense of driven by instincts and not mind, more than being civilized. All through the novel, the reader discovers -and to his/her horror, as well, that the further sense is driven from man, the wicked he becomes in a surprisingly quick pace, and the more he regards the sense as “the other” forgetting or ignoring his own otherness. Upon coming across such otherness other than their actual otherness, the boys could think nothing else but either to transform that unwanted otherness to their own or…to destroy that otherness, as it is coldly embodied in the motto of the savages which they shout aloud on their hunts: “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” On the island, the newly-transformed “savages” recognize that otherness more in Piggy –who symbolizes sense, and who can never be assimilated into their own savageness, and who can never be let to survive, either, since the savages with their newly-revealed selves cannot bear to face the social and mannerly self which reminds them the darkness of their souls. Therefore in order to forget that self and to exercise their savagery and the illusion of mastery forever, it will not be long before that the otherness in Piggy is destroyed:
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist (216).
This is the death of Piggy –the Wisdom, together with the death of the conch. Now without wisdom and the tool of democracy, how could Democracy on its own survive among anarchy? Sure of all, anarchy would wnat to destroy all which lies outside of their systemless system. The other boy that the savage group cannot assimilate other than Piggy is Ralph who –symbolizing democracy supported by Wisdom up to now, is also sensible enough not to hide behind the wild mask of anarchy, as he himself is well aware, “lying there in the darkness, he knew he was an outcast. ‘Cos I had some sense’”, says Ralph.
Confronting murder, blood, savagery under the loud shouts “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” of the children, the reader cannot help but feel the irritation and the desire not to believe upon witnessing such Wickedness in Innocence. And this is exactly what Golding wants us to feel, just like what he must have felt upon his witnessing the wicked face of the war. Golding painfully waking up from his dream of man’s perfectibility, weeps for the end of the innocence and the fall of Wisdom, just like Ralph at the very end of the novel, who "[weeps] for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend" (Golding, 242).
Then what happens at the end of the novel? To the readers’ comfort (Golding grants at least this single relief to his poor Readers, who have been shocked with murders and wickedness in the childrens’ world all through the novel) Ralph escapes form being murdered at the hands of the savages, and a ship, seeing the big fire on the island –as the island is set on fire out of savage frenzy to kill Ralph, arrives at the island to rescue the boys. Wit the adult world –the world of rules, norms- intersecting with their microcosm, we witness the shattering of the illusionary world into pieces, with the social selves again coming into light and the real selves delving into the depths of man’s soul, waiting for another oppurtuny to arise again. And what we have at the very end is all crying boys ,who just a short while ago were ready to coldbloodedly kill the beast, cut his throat and spill his blood.
However, now everything will be as smooth as it was before? The answer to this question should not be that difficult to give, according to Golding, as the officer at the end of the novel looks at “the trim cruiser in the distance” (243), probably being ready to set out to go for war (in this particular case WWII) and definitely not in the name of sense or civilization, but for..
If you had met me before World War II, you would have found me to have been an idealist with a simple and naive belief which many other people of my generation shared, especially in Europe. This naive belief was that man was perfectible. We thought all you had to do was to remove certain inequities and provide practical sociological solutions, and man would have a perfect paradise on earth. From World War II we learned something. The war was unlike any other fought in Europe. It taught us not fighting, politics or the follies of nationalism, but about the given nature of man (Golding, 246).
"Lord of the Flies" epitomizes the shattering of perfectible norms regarding both human, social and universal ideals. The work symbollically reveals the darkness in the supposed-light, the evil in the supposedly-innocent, the savage in the supposedly-civilized, the irrational in the supposedly-rational, and the lie in the supposedly-real, just like Ralph -the hero of the book- "[weeps] for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend" (Golding, 242).
Golding in his masterpiece, skillfully, drags his readers into this hallow pit of understanding through the adventures of a number of boys after they become shipwrecked following an unknown accident, the details of which are (voluntarily?) kept from the reader. From this accident, only children survive and they open their eyes on an island where there are no grown-ups, to a world where there are no rules, laws or social norms. However, it will not be long before they begin to set up their own rules, to regulate their new society. Having brought up as social beings, as members of rules-regulated communities, they quickly adapt the macrocosm of the grown-up world to create their microcosm of the boys' world.
Ralph finds a shell – a conch as Piggy names it- and now they have a symbol for their microcosm. It is a way of calling a meeting where whoever holds the conch has the right to speak while others are to listen and therefore where everyone has an equal right of speaking his mind up. We may confidently conclude then that the conch is an instrument of democracy; and metaphorically it is Ralph who finds it and who can be regarded as the symbol and voice of democracy in the book. Ralph finds it but Piggy names it, and explains the way it can be used. It is Piggy –the Wisdom- who to the end accompanies and stays loyal to Ralph –the Democracy.
With its new residents having the social tendency to putting things within frames, to regulating with rules and laws, the island quickly transforms into a proper rule-regulated society with a chief who is elected to come to power. The boys elect Ralph as their chief, because he is strong and because he holds the conch –the tool of democracy. So the island begins to be ruled by Ralph in a fairly just manner, with his continual reminding that in order for them to be rescued (from that savagery) they need to have a fire –which in fact symbolizes civilization, and things are quite good at the beginning. However, as the story evolves, Golding gradually and implicitly asks the reader to question if things can go that well forever, to question whether human nature is intrinsically apt to social regulation or not..
All through the novel, Golding answers this question that it is definitely not. Human nature, he implies, has two faces, the real which is hidden and only shows up upon the first opportunity arises, and the artificial which is visible and is replaced immediately again upon it can find a way to do so. In his artificial or visible self, human is social, democratic, emphatic; in his real or hidden self he is savage, dictator and selfish. The greed for power shapes his real self. This hypothesis is embodied in the novel through oen of the little boys on the island, Henry, who “[becomes] absorbed beyond mere happiness as he [feels] himself exercising control over living things. He [talks] to them, urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints [become] bays in which they [are] trapped and [give] him the illusion of mastery” (69). It is indeed the illusion of mastery, as man childishly believes that he can whatsoever rule the universe when he himself is within that universe, revolving with it, and being nothing without it. Be it an illusion, it nevertheless prepares the opportunity for man to reveal his real self, as Jack, in Golding’s novel, makes use of this opportunity without delay.
However, it is not always that easy for man to get rid of his social shell to come up with the crude reality inside. Being childish and cowardly to scream this reality to the universe, he desperately seeks for a kind of layer –a protection, to be able to “face” the universe or society. Jack is a rebel on the island, he is courageous enough to contradict democracy in a struggle to free his real self, but cowardly enough not to face it in the outfit of the social world. He takes off his clothes, walking around like a savage with paints on his face, which makes him difficult to be recognized. This savage “outfit” and the paint that he wears on his face is his mask –as Golding writes, “the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness” (72).
In his novel, Golding portrays that without social norms to abide by and beliefs to stick to in order to separate what is wrong from what is right, man becomes savage-like, using savage more in the sense of driven by instincts and not mind, more than being civilized. All through the novel, the reader discovers -and to his/her horror, as well, that the further sense is driven from man, the wicked he becomes in a surprisingly quick pace, and the more he regards the sense as “the other” forgetting or ignoring his own otherness. Upon coming across such otherness other than their actual otherness, the boys could think nothing else but either to transform that unwanted otherness to their own or…to destroy that otherness, as it is coldly embodied in the motto of the savages which they shout aloud on their hunts: “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” On the island, the newly-transformed “savages” recognize that otherness more in Piggy –who symbolizes sense, and who can never be assimilated into their own savageness, and who can never be let to survive, either, since the savages with their newly-revealed selves cannot bear to face the social and mannerly self which reminds them the darkness of their souls. Therefore in order to forget that self and to exercise their savagery and the illusion of mastery forever, it will not be long before that the otherness in Piggy is destroyed:
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist (216).
This is the death of Piggy –the Wisdom, together with the death of the conch. Now without wisdom and the tool of democracy, how could Democracy on its own survive among anarchy? Sure of all, anarchy would wnat to destroy all which lies outside of their systemless system. The other boy that the savage group cannot assimilate other than Piggy is Ralph who –symbolizing democracy supported by Wisdom up to now, is also sensible enough not to hide behind the wild mask of anarchy, as he himself is well aware, “lying there in the darkness, he knew he was an outcast. ‘Cos I had some sense’”, says Ralph.
Confronting murder, blood, savagery under the loud shouts “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” of the children, the reader cannot help but feel the irritation and the desire not to believe upon witnessing such Wickedness in Innocence. And this is exactly what Golding wants us to feel, just like what he must have felt upon his witnessing the wicked face of the war. Golding painfully waking up from his dream of man’s perfectibility, weeps for the end of the innocence and the fall of Wisdom, just like Ralph at the very end of the novel, who "[weeps] for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend" (Golding, 242).
Then what happens at the end of the novel? To the readers’ comfort (Golding grants at least this single relief to his poor Readers, who have been shocked with murders and wickedness in the childrens’ world all through the novel) Ralph escapes form being murdered at the hands of the savages, and a ship, seeing the big fire on the island –as the island is set on fire out of savage frenzy to kill Ralph, arrives at the island to rescue the boys. Wit the adult world –the world of rules, norms- intersecting with their microcosm, we witness the shattering of the illusionary world into pieces, with the social selves again coming into light and the real selves delving into the depths of man’s soul, waiting for another oppurtuny to arise again. And what we have at the very end is all crying boys ,who just a short while ago were ready to coldbloodedly kill the beast, cut his throat and spill his blood.
However, now everything will be as smooth as it was before? The answer to this question should not be that difficult to give, according to Golding, as the officer at the end of the novel looks at “the trim cruiser in the distance” (243), probably being ready to set out to go for war (in this particular case WWII) and definitely not in the name of sense or civilization, but for..
***
Works Cited
Golding, William. LORD OF THE FLIES. Coward-McCann, Inc, New York, 1962.
Works Cited
Golding, William. LORD OF THE FLIES. Coward-McCann, Inc, New York, 1962.
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