Ethics In William Golding's Novels

This paper analyzes the ethical view in three novels written by the famous British writer William Golding,which include Lord of the Flies,The Inheritors and Darkness Visible.Based on a series of analyses,this paper detailed explores the necessary conditions for building the bottom-line ethics and the goals to be achieved from the aspects of humanity,civilization and religion.The paper can be divided into five chapters.In first chapter considers the situation for the outbreak of "human evil" according to the plots in Lord of the Flies,describing the mutual murders of children on a tropic island reverting to savagery,and.in Darkness Visible where modern social scene of 1970s?1980s in Britain and ethical chaotic phenomena through Matty and Sophy's struggling are displayed.This chapter has suggested adopting the moral sacrifice and construction of human dam to prevent the overflow of "human evil" from an ethical point of view.In second chapter,the ethical relationship between the nature and civilization,represented by the Neanderthals and new people in The Inheritors,is studied.Golding showed the fragility of civilized discourse,questioned the equivalence of nature and savage and also put forward an ethical thinking—how to maintain civilization in nature,or to get rid of the hypocrisy and rational self-deception brought by civilization.Region is mentioned in the third chapter because Christianity is not only a religious belief,but also a cultural carrier,an integral part of civilization and an ethical code for the West.In this chapter,key concepts of Christian ethics and the related reactions of characters described by Golding are explained.Further,it provokes us to think the history and reasons for abandoning God and the possibility of salvation.The last chapter firstly draws a bottom line of ethics that should be followed on the basis of above chapters' discussions and then analyzes the dilemma of the bottom-line ethics.At last,in-depth understanding of the bottom-line ethics is achieved from the perspectives of text and practice.