William Golding

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Class Consciousness ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Narrative Art ◽  
College And University ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Lord Of The Flies ◽  
Human Conflict

Sir William Gerard Golding (1911–1993), the writer of Lord of the Flies (LOTF), occupies a pivotal position within the post–World War II canon of writers. Though Golding does not seem to belong to any particular “school” or movement of fiction writers who wrote at the height of Cold War and its aftermath per se, he is a staple in high school, college, and university curricula all over the globe. His magnum opus, Lord of the Flies (1954), transformed him into a writer who commands worldwide attention. In the book he attacked the belief in any stable notions of civilization, society, and culture, and was keen to show the innate depravity of the human spirit. His trilogy To the Ends of the Earth, which comprises Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989), further explores his themes of the civilizing process and class consciousness, while the travelogue An Egyptian Journal (1985) shows his fascination for the ancient land and his journey there after he won the Nobel Prize in 1983. His famous quote about humanity, “Man produces evil as a bee produces honey,” speaks of his disbelief in the progress and the health of modern civilization and any stable notions of human progress. His Nobel Prize citation stated it was given “for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in a world of today,” thus summarizing his lifelong mission as a writer. Golding’s themes are class consciousness, human society (particularly what happens to it in isolation), modern and postmodern trauma with respect to human dreams and aspirations, and, lastly, the entire notion of “civilization” itself. His fiction has been analyzed with recourse to anthropology, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, narratology, trauma studies, and queer scholarship. Critical commentary on Golding continues to grow, especially around LOTF, due to its continued relevance owing to themes of violence, totalitarianism, queer studies, and its apocalyptic vision. It should be stressed, however, that compared to LOTF, his only play, The Brass Butterfly (1958), his Poems (1934) and his other nonfiction, such as A Moving Target (1982) and The Hot Gates (1965), the three short narratives in The Scorpion God (1971), and even his posthumous The Double Tongue (1995), have received scant attention. Though the themes of the essential drama of human conflict played against the backdrop of morality, human choice, and postmodern trauma that remain foundational to human existence might be applied to any 20thcentury writer, they are particularly germane to Golding’s works.

White, Patrick (1912–1990)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorian Stuber
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
World War ◽  
Royal Air Force ◽  
Army Officer ◽  
Patrick White

Born in London to parents from established Australian families, Patrick White became one of Australia’s most influential writers, his career culminating in his receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. After a sickly Australian childhood, he was sent to England in his early teens to attend boarding school, where he felt ostracized due to his colonial upbringing and his nascent homosexuality. After two years as a stockman on a ranch in Australia, White returned to England to attend Cambridge from 1932 to 1935, where he published his first works. He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. While stationed in Egypt, White met a Greek army officer named Manoly Lascaris, who became his lifelong companion.

Music and Movement

2018 ◽  
pp. 40-61
Author(s):  
Jay Schulkin
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Social Contact ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Aesthetic Sense ◽  
Sense Of Time ◽  
The Brain

Music and movement go together in every human society: “music to my feet,” as it were. The human condition, particularly human emotional expression, is linked to music. Indeed, movement and a sense of time are intimately connected, and the brain is prepared to detect movement, both familiar and unfamiliar. Our sense of self is tied to movement. Aesthetic sense is a feature of the way we come prepared to interpret the world. Such aesthetics are historically variable and rich when the ecological conditions are suitable. Aesthetic judgment reflects our cognitive flexibility, and our extension and use of specific cognitive mechanisms to widen domains of human expression. Music evolved in the context of social contact and meaning. Music continues to allow us to reach out to others and expand our human experience toward and with others. This process began with sounds and expanded into song and instrumental music.

Jewish Women's Studies

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tal Ilan
Keyword(s):  
Women's Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The West ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Second Wave Feminism ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Similar Development

Women's studies, as a discipline within Jewish studies, is relatively new. It appeared in the 1970s, in the wake of a similar development within other fields of academia particularly in the United States — a move that was later to be designated ‘second-wave feminism’. The question of women's status within Judaism, as within any human society is not new. In Jewish sources, it is as old as the story of creation in the first chapters of Genesis, with the description of woman's secondary creation and her implication in the original sin and fall from grace. The human condition has always been one in which women are subordinated to men, and most written cultures have produced documents justifying this condition. Only over the last 200 years has this truism come under criticism, particularly in the cultures of the West, with the advent of ideas about humanism, equality, and democracy.

scholarly journals William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: A Reconsideration

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-136
Author(s):  
Mariwan Hasan ◽  
Diman Sharif
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
The Novel ◽  
William Golding ◽  
Imaginative Literature ◽  
Lord Of The Flies ◽  
In The Beginning

This paper reconsiders William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Allegorical writings can illustrate ethical, social or psychological and moral issues using the manipulation of images that have stipulated meanings other than their meanings as imitations of the actual world. Allegory has been used widely throughout history in all forms of art, and comprehensible for the reader, conveys hidden meanings through symbolic figures. Lord of the Flies had been written in relation to historical circumstances of the twentieth-century and to the personal experience of William Golding. Also, it has provided a critical analysis of the novel that treated the prominent perspective and elements in it. The novel is a parallel of life in the late twentieth century, while it looks like society a stage of enhancement in technology whereas, human morality is not completely mature yet. “Lord of the Flies is an allegorical microcosm of the world. The destruction of World War II because of the dictators who initiated this war has a profound impact on William Golding himself”. In the beginning, the paper gives an introduction to Golding’s point of view on humanity with the title of how to draw attention to me through allegory and fable, two forms of imaginative literature that encouraged the reader and listener to look for hidden meanings. Then it deals with William Golding’s Lord of the Flies from the cultural approaches of that time, who is one of the most prominent literary men of postmodernism that was famous for utilizing symbolism within the novel; “he used different kinds of symbols, characters, objects, animals, colors and setting to convey his message about his main theme”, in the last section we analyzed the postmodern features in Lord of the Flies and how they are used to depict Golding’s view. The way Golding uses allegory strengthens the symbolism of his novel. Finally, it tackles the educational value through his experiences in teaching along with critical analysis of Golding’s technique.

scholarly journals Narratives of Epidemics: Topsy-turvy Conditions of Humans and Quest for Existence

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdel-Fattah M. Adel ◽  
◽  
Mashhoor Abdu Al-Moghales ◽  
Suhail Ahmad ◽  
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Human History ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Plot Structure

Corpus of literature is replete with works that feature pandemics as central themes. As a response to diseases outbreaks, fiction writers portray the human condition and the shifts in human behaviour at these crucial junctures of human history. Plot structure and characterization accounts for the void –both within and without—: prevailing chaos, crumbling social structures, undermining of religious values, and Government’s apathy. Based on such themes, this paper examines, from Deterministic and Existentialistic perspectives, three representative fictions written in the 21st century: Reina James’s This Time of Dying (2006) on the deadly influenza of 1918, Amir Taj Elsir’s Ebola ’76 (2012) on the outbreak of Ebola in 1976, and Karen Maitland’s The Plague Charmer (2016) on the plague of 1361. The findings include: (a) the novels predict the contemporary society with their resonance of apocalyptic images and preventive measures, (b) they manifest ontological shifts as the orthodox worldviews are jolted, and (c) fictional and personal narratives are not less important than historical records on health in quest for existence.

Cybersecurity and Cyberwar

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter W. Singer ◽  
Allan Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Computer Systems ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Nuclear Facilities ◽  
Security Technology ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
American Military ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Human Conflict

Dependence on computers has had a transformative effect on human society. Cybernetics is now woven into the core functions of virtually every basic institution, including our oldest ones. War is one such institution, and the digital revolution’s impact on it has been profound. The American military, which has no peer, is almost completely reliant on high-tech computer systems. Given the Internet’s potential for full-spectrum surveillance and information disruption, the marshaling of computer networks represents the next stage of cyberwar. Indeed, it is upon us already. The recent Stuxnet episode, in which Israel fed a malignant computer virus into Iran’s nuclear facilities, is one such example. Penetration into US government computer systems by Chinese hackers-presumably sponsored by the Chinese government-is another. Together, they point to a new era in the evolution of human conflict. In Cybersecurity: What Everyone Needs to Know, noted experts Peter W. Singer and Allan Friedman lay out how the revolution in military cybernetics occurred and explain where it is headed. They begin with an explanation of what cyberspace is before moving on to discussions of how it can be exploited and why it is so hard to defend. Throughout, they discuss the latest developments in military and security technology. Singer and Friedman close with a discussion of how people and governments can protect themselves. In sum, Cybersecurity is the definitive account on the subject for the educated layman who wants to know more about the nature of war, conflict, and security in the twenty first century.

New sources of life: William Butler Yeats’s “The Gyres”, “Lapis Lazuli” and “Imitated From the Japanese”

Proglas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yarmila Daskalova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
William Butler Yeats ◽  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Royal Swedish Academy ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Lapis Lazuli ◽  
The Human Condition

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 by the Royal Swedish Academy “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation”1. The article focuses specifically on three poems from Yeats’s “modernist” period which he included in the cycle New Poems (1938): “The Gyres”, “Lapis Lazuli” and “Imitated from the Japanese”. These later writings emerge as a logical consequence of his previous engagement with philosophy and occultism, mythology and history, art and reality. Yeats’s strenuous efforts to forge mythopoeic stereotypes seem to transcend mere personal versions of myth in an attempt to discover deeper levels of meaning, and to complete the self-image he developed throughout his life. In his later works he managed to make meaningful pronouncements on key moral and philosophical issues relating to the human condition.

Jehovah's Witnesses, Pregnancy, and Blood Transfusions: A Paradigm for the Autonomy Rights of All Pregnant Women

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joelyn Knopf Levy
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Blood Products ◽  
World War ◽  
Jehovah’S Witnesses ◽  
Jehovah's Witnesses ◽  
Physical Constraints ◽  
The Sacrifice

The liberty of the woman is at stake in a sense unique to the human condition and so unique to the law. The mother who carries a child to full term is subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain that only she must bear. That these sacrifices have from the beginning of the human race been endured by woman with a pride that ennobles her in the eyes of others and gives to the infant a bond of love cannot alone be grounds for the State to insist that she make the sacrifice. Her suffering is too intimate and personal for the State to insist, without more, upon its own vision of the woman's role ….For years, Jehovah's Witnesses have posed a challenge to the medical profession. Bound by religious belief to refuse blood and blood products, they can frustrate physicians who, since World War II, have utilized transfusions when indicated in the course of treatment.

scholarly journals WAR, SOLDIER AND NATION IN 1950s JAPAN

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Wilson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
World War ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
Class B ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Military ◽  
Cultural Hero

AbstractThe 1950s in Japan are usually considered to be marked by pacifism or a “victim consciousness” related to World War II, together with a rejection of war and of the military. Yet attention to the popular press and other sources designed to reflect and appeal to a mass audience, rather than magazines carrying debates among intellectuals, shows that throughout the 1950s the recent war was a much more dynamic issue than typically has been recognized, and that former soldiers were far from universally reviled. Connections with the war, in turn, remained an integral part of the evolving sense of nation in Japan. This article examines the vitality of the war as a major and direct theme in political, social and cultural discourse in the 1950s, focusing on soldiers' involvement in politics, issues relating to Class B and C war criminals, films about the war, and the emergence of a new cultural hero in the form of Kaji, the soldier who is the central figure in the novel and film The Human Condition.

The Democratization of Higher Education in America

1962 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Trow
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Fold Increase ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
World War ◽  
College Age ◽  
College And University ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
The Difference

American higher education is currently undergoing an enormous and rapid expansion. Between 1939 and 1961 the number of students enrolled in colleges and universities and earning credits toward degrees rose from about 1.3 million to over 3.9 million (1). This three-fold increase has resulted almost completely from increasing rates of enrollment, since the population of college age—that is, the 18 to 21 year olds—was almost exactly as large in 1939 as in 1960 (2). The difference is that in 1939 college and university enrollments comprised about 14% of the 18–21 year old population, while by 1961 that figure was about 38%. This rate has been increasing at an average of 1% a year since the end of World War II.

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