| William Golding (1911-1993) is an important British writer of the twentieth century, whose works won him a lot of prizes. He was rewarded the Booker Prize of Britain in 1980 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. His works are greatly favored by critics. Darkness Visible published in 1979 is Golding’s important novel after his 10-year silence and won The James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Although Golding has many works, most of domestic and foreign scholars still focus on Lord of the Flies. Compared to Lord of the Flies, Darkness Visible is also important and more complicated in form but receives less attention. Domestic and foreign researches about Darkness Visible mostly concentrate on symbolism, binary oppositions, writing skills or theme of good and evil or theology. So far no paper has systematically interpret existential and mental alienation in characters and their struggle for salvation in Darkness Visible.Darkness Visible reveals British people’s absurdity and alienation in the crime and terror after World War Ⅱ. Characters’alienation experience of existence and morbid psychology correspond to Fromm’s theory. Fromm thinks that alienation is a kind of morbid psychological experience and considers it as central category in contemporary social pathology. He believes that individuals’ sense of powerlessness will be aggravated in insane society. Lack of love and faith, man succumbs himself to the outside world and degenerates himself in order to survive, falling into pathological personality, which leads to self-alienation. People who are trapped in alienation have to struggle for salvation. The two protagonists Matty and Sophy get different destinies through different choices. For man’s alienation, different scholars give different solutions. Jean Paul Sartre insists that man in the absurd world and alienation has the freedom to make his own choice and has to be responsible for it; Erich Fromm believes that alienation can be eliminated by love and tolerance; Kierkegaard thinks that leap of faith and religion is the only way to be saved. Sophie makes meaningless and useless struggle in evil and finally sinks deeply into alienation. Matty chooses to achieve recuperation in nature, saving himself and others through love and religion.Based on the Fromm’ humanistic theory and existentialism of Sartre and Kierkegaard, this thesis analyzes people’s alienation and their struggle for salvation. Firstly, it analyzes the alienation between man and the outside world, which includes estrangement from nature and alienation from society. Nature is damaged by human under the war and industrialization, but revenges on human beings in return. The relationship between man and nature is not harmonious. The war not only causes damage to nature, but also has an indelible impact on the survival of people. The spread of mass media, prevalence of industrial civilization, development of production and consumption along with indifference of social institutions such as schools and prisons exacerbate people’s sense of alienation. Then it follows analysis of man’s alienation within and interpersonal alienation. Lacking of love and faith, people in general have an anxiety of self-identity, and fall into self-alienation with insane personalities. The relationships between family, friends, lovers and races are also deeply alienated. Filled with anger, apathy, loneliness and confusion, people in alienation need to be saved urgently. Lastly, the thesis demonstrates the two protagonists Matty and Sophy’s struggle for salvation in the novel. Sophy chooses to perform evil to get rid of the sense of loneliness, but fails to escape from alienation. She has to be responsible for the result. Matty chooses to heal himself in nature, saving others and achieve self-salvation through mature love and religion. Matty’s salvation indicates that people in modern society still have the possibility of escaping from alienation. As a result, the interpretation of alienation and salvation in this thesis has practical significance. |
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