Golding and Camus

Abstract

This study docs not attempt to examine all the aspects in which these novelists arc comparable. The main purpose here is to elicit those tendencies found in both novelists which seem to he of major importance in the development of modern fiction. Both novelists present separately a view that is both highly individual and at the same time representative of many of the main preoccupations of contemporary fiction. In isolation their themes will be seem, to present a different approach and often a different conclusion, to similar problems. To some extent however, each, separately, pursuing his thought to its logical conclusion, reaches a certain impasse. Together, their contrasting and sometimes complementary views constitute some criticism of contemporary preoccupations and, in addition point the tray towards some possible direction and constructive development in a novel form which in both thought and structure is tending to become increasingly self-limiting. In Golding’s case particularly it seems of especial value in realising the importance of his themes to consider his novels as part of a much wider European background rather than of a specifically English one. Consequently this study will not attempt to be a comprehensive assessment of the work of either novelist, but rather to emphasise their affinities,considered in term of, first, the form itself of the modern novel, and secondly two of its most central themes I would like to thank Mrs. Murphy for her kind and generous help in the preparation of this study.