A Study Of Ecological Antinomy In Lord Of The Flies

There exists an ecological antinomy in the theme of the novel Lord of the Flies written by Sir William Gerald Golding, who is a British novelist, poet, playwright, and Nobel Prize winner for Literature. After careful and detailed surveys of the previous commentaries about the masterpiece, it is known that eco-criticisms on this novel are not systematic and insufficient. This thesis tries to employ such a pair of ecological concepts Biophilia (that means human being's love for nature or living things or life) and Phobia (that means an anxiety confusion featured with exceeding and ridiculous scare of natural things or social situations) to investigate the novel for the first time. In Lord of the Flies, Golding expresses children's Biophilia and meanwhile Phobia, which can be judged as ecological antinomy. On the Biophilia, Golding in this novel portrays a paradise filled with harmonious terrestrial ecosystems and harmonious marine ecosystems which these children have intimacy to. As to the Phobia, this novel represents that these children are fearful or dreadful with the deterioration of natural ecosystem and with themselves. In this way, the thesis concludes that both Biophilia and Phobia co-exist in the novel and discloses an ecological unity of opposites in Golding's Lord of the Flies.Additionally, the ecological antinomy in Lord of the Flies is worthy of investigation in that it is helpful for readers to grasp the contents of his works and his unique ecological artistic characteristics. Moreover, it is worthy because one of the global focus nowadays is environmental protection and climate change that is one of the predicaments of human survival and development.