The Myth of Prometheus in the Fiction of William Golding

Abstract

The following paper strives to clarify the impact that Greek mythology had on the fiction of William Golding, a Nobel Prize winning author and think- er. Throughout this paper, we shall adhere chiefly, though not restrictively, to his first novel and masterpiece Lord of the Flies, expounding the mytho- logical elements that Golding so masterfully ingrained into his writings so as to depict the fallen state of the ‘modern’ man. One of the most prominent myths we shall divert our attention to is the myth of Prometheus as well as its traces and allusions which can be unearthed in the novels Pincher Martin and The Double Tongue. Utilizing this myth, and many other myths and lin- guistic devices, Golding meticulously depicted man’s propensity towards evil. Golding had no illusions about man’s progression, and thus his novels focus their attention on the regression.