Abstract:

William Golding is a famous twentieth-century British writer, whose works, especially the novels, are great achievements in literature. Lord of the Flies is his most famous novel, which also helped him to win the 1983 Nobel Prize of literature. Golding is good at writing novels with sharp view and known for deep insight of human nature. His works have a wide range of subjects, but the theme of darkness is throughout his works. Golding experienced and witnessed the Second World War, which brought people huge suffering. When Lord of the Flies came out, it caused a great literary sensation, having broken the boundaries between real sense and myth, reality and illusion. The novel describes a group of boys who were evacuated to a desert island and tried to build the orderly rule under the threat of the global nuclear war. But without the restraints of civilization, they returned to the savage and brutal life. The author intends to discuss the inherent human nature in terms of the theme of the darkness. This is indeed a poignant sarcasm to the theory of child innocence and the novel discloses the potential brutish nature and blood lust of humans. The boys’ experiences on the island destroyed all the hypotheses of child innocence. At the end of the story, none of the children is innocent. Lord of the Flies tells a story of dark side of human heart which indicates a strong and powerful sarcasm to child innocence and human kindness and condemns all of us. In the author’s opinion, although there is a bright side in human heart, the dark side is more powerful. The brutish nature of humans will break through the limits of civilization and lead to disaster with the changes of conditions. This article tries to present and analyse the modern meaning of the novel from the perspective of prototype criticism. Finally it gives an understanding of man’s potential evil. Golding established his status in the contemporary literary world by his Lord of the Flies, and in 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Keywords: human nature; civilization; evil; darkness

摘  要：

威廉·戈尔丁是20世纪英国著名作家,他一生著述颇丰,尤其在小说创作上更是取得了不斐的文学成就,《蝇王》是其最富盛名的小说作品,同时也帮助他荣获了1983年诺贝尔文学奖。戈尔丁的作品以其犀利的文笔以及对人性的深刻洞察而著称。他的作品题材广泛,人性的黑暗这一主题贯穿他的作品的始终。戈尔丁经历了第二次世界大战,目睹了战争给人类带来的深重灾难及人所能做出的种种残忍行径。《蝇王》一问世, 就引起了世界文坛的轰动, 它打破了实感与幻觉、神话与现实的界限。这部小说描述了一群在全球核战争中被疏散到荒岛上的男孩企图自创有序的统治,但因缺乏文明的限制而恢复到野蛮和兽性的故事。这的的确确是对儿童纯真论的辛辣讽刺,也深刻揭露了人性中潜在的兽性与嗜血性。孩子们在岛上的经历使得一切关于孩童纯真的假想遭到破灭。故事结束时,没有一个孩子是纯真无邪的。《蝇王》阐述了一个人心趋向黑暗的故事,所讲述的故事更是对儿童纯真、人性善良最强、最有力的讽刺,也是对我们所有人的谴责。在作者看来,当然人心的光明也还是有的,但在相对比下,人心的黑暗更强大。只要条件发生了变化,人的兽性就会突破文明的制约从而酿成灾难。作者戈尔丁借此探讨了人性固有的黑暗这一主题。本文试图从原型的角度，探讨该小说中人性黑暗邪恶这个主题，揭示了小说的现代寓意，分析解读小说家如何得出了人性本恶的结论。戈尔丁不仅以《蝇王》奠定了他在英国当代文坛上的地位,并于1983年获得诺贝尔文学奖。

关键词:人性；文明；恶；黑暗