On The Man-to-man Relationship-A Sociological Study Of Rites Of Passage

William Golding, a prolific English novelist, often intends to arouse the reader's awareness of the darkness of human nature in his novels. He is well known for one of his novels, Lord of the Flies, which wins him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983. He is skillful in establishing prototypical societies in his novels where he thinks the real human nature will be exposed in particular conditions.In the novel Rites of Passage, he establishes an isolated society for the characters as in his renowned novel Lord of the Flies. In the prototypical society, the characters re-establish the social relationships among themselves including friendship, conflicts, love and hatred. The thesis, centering on the death of the protagonist, studies the social relationships in the novel from a sociological point of view. When the Others are absorbed in the relationship network, the One, the protagonist, is excluded from the small society. The thesis analyzes the behaviors of the people in the ship and reveals the evil nature of the human being.The social relationship plays an important part in human's life, so does the personality of the individual. The historical and psychological aspects of one person have great influence on his/her behavior. It is necessary to understand what kind of person he/she is in studying his/her relationships with others about.The author, engaged in revealing the darkness of human nature, aims to warn the readers of avoiding the tragedies in his novels. Therefore, much attention in this thesis is paid to the social relationship and the analysis of personalities of the characters in the hope of finding out the reasons for possible tragedies.