Women: From Absence To Presence-A Feminist Approach To William Golding's Lord Of The Flies And The Pyramid

William Golding, one of the important postwar English writers, is well-known for his concern for the evil human nature. Human nature motif in Golding's works is also critics'focus since the publication of Golding's first novel, but few critics have analyzed his works from the perspective of feminism. This thesis is designed to apply feminist theories as well as some relative theories of deconstruction, Freudian psychoanalysis and other schools of literary criticism, to the examination of William Golding's Lord of the Flies and The Pyramid in a broader critical view, probing into the hidden message conveyed by women's absence and presence in these two novels. The thesis firstly provides a literature review about William Golding's literary career and the previous critiques on his major works, and then lays emphasis on the detailed interpretation of Lord of the Flies and The Pyramid. In Lord of the Flies, the small male society on the island and phallocentrism it represents experienced a process from the establishment to the fall into crisis and to the ultimate disintegration due to the absence of women, exposing the necessity of the presence of women from the opposite side. The interpretation of The Pyramid relies on the analysis of the images of several chief female characters in it, crystallizing the discrepancies between William Golding's female protagonists and the women images created by traditional male authors and thus evincing Golding's distinctive attitudes towards women. In Lord of the Flies and The Pyramid, both women's absence and presence demonstrate the irreplaceable female value and power in the male-dominated culture. William Golding, as a male writer, is not a male chauvinist. Without any inclination to defile, repel or repress women, Golding understands them, sympathizes with them, and affirms them.