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DYSTOPIAN EXISTENTIALISM AND ITS REFLECTION IN "LORD OF THE FLIES" BY WILLIAM GOLDING Rahmonkulova Z.
Rahmonkulova Zarnigor - Teacher, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY, ENGLISH LANGUAGES FACULTY 3, UZBEKISTAN STATE WORLD LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY, TASHKENT, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: our knowledge of dystopian existentialism is largely based on very limited data. Therefore, the aim of the article is to identify the features of dystopian existentialism in "Lord of the Flies". We consider that three elements of dystopian existentialism can be felt in the novel and in our article we prove that "Lord of the Flies" belongs to dystopian existentialistic type of novel.
Keywords: existential tendency, dystopian existentialism, innocence, evil, darkness, savagery, Nietzsche's philosophy.
In this article we want to give a new way of perception of existential tendency which in literature is rarely defined. While we are studying existential philosophy reflected in the novel "Lord of the Flies" by the English writer-William Golding, we reveal the new type of existentialism taking the information in the article entitled "Power and Authority: An Interpretation of Golding's "Lord of the Flies"" done by David Spitz [4]. We combine a literary trend-existentialism with the type of novel-dystopia and in this article we endeavor to discover the definition of dystopian existentialism and define its main concepts and features.
According to our understanding, dystopian existentialism is a type of existentialism that represents a human individual's existence in a ruined society and the necessity of his taking certain responsibilities in this society. According to dystopian existentialism, in each human being exists evil and this evil makes the society ruined. In the following lines you may inform about the novel "Lord of the Flies" and how these features of dystopian existentialism to be reflected in this novel of William Golding. The fame of William Golding rests on his early novel, "Lord of the Flies". It is a novel which takes place in the near-future: a future too near to be read about with anything but horrid fascination. As an incident in a world-wide war a company of boys-the oldest only in their early teens-are isolated on a tropical island and must make the best of their painful situation. They have brought with them imprecise insights of what Civilization-English civilization, in particular-was. At the outset of their stay, they set up a social organization, complete with a deliberative assembly and an assignment of the duties that will be necessary for survival: fruit-gathering, shelter construction, hunting of boar-meat, and -most important of all- the feeding of a fire that will send up a pillar of smoke and alert passing ships. Eventual rescue is at the outset the raison d'etre of all the boys' activity. But gradually the remnants of English civilization fall into disarray. Belief in rescue wanes, and the mass of the exiles falls into savagery and the life of primitive fear. They paint their bodies, propitiate a nameless numen that that haunts the island, and can hardly remember the civilization that, in the early stages of their stay, they aspired to return to. Indeed, just before the actual rescue at the end of the novel.
The island setting is physically Edenic [1]; it provides the boys with a favourable climate, an ample supply of food, and complete freedom, though there is little of the comfortable adaptation to an alien environment. As Golding's novel opens, twelve years old Ralph is jubilant at the thought of being marooned in a place where no grown-ups can limit his freedom. But man's freedom is always, and necessarily, limited, and these limitations are persistently suggested by Piggy, a near-sighted, chubby and asthmatic boy who attaches
himself to Ralph. Critics have frequently identified Piggy with the element of Reason in Golding's allegorical treatment of this theme of moral regression which is central to the novel. But, as Oldsey and Weintraub aptly point out [3], Piggy's association with reason is inconsistent, as are his alleged associations with moral conscience or with a Freudian superego. Piggy's verbal prodding begins early, "We ought to have a meeting", and grows more emphatic, we got to do something", as Ralph's sense of responsibility is slowly awakened. When Ralph finds a large conch shell in a tidewater pool, Piggy is jubilant; he perceives that it can be used to call the scattered boys together and to coordinate their individual wills toward a common effort which will increase their chances of rezone. Ralph is elected chief mainly because he is the first to call a setting by blowing the conch, which becomes a powerful symbol of traditional authority.
William Barrett, an interpreter of the "conspicuous group of intellectuals" mentioned by Kruteh, inadvertently furnishes a philosophical clue to the transformation of Jack's will as portrayed by Golding. In his "Irrational Man", Barrett reminds us of Nietzsche's deep-seated conviction that "the strongest and highest will to life does not lie in the puny struggle to exist, but in the Will to war, the Will to power" [2]. Jack's incipient will to power is apparent as he enthusiastically visualizes the military potential of various geographic features of the island and as he repeatedly attempts to wrest the leadership of the group away from Ralph. Ralph's will, on the other hand, is primarily focused on the maintenance of existence; the signal fire is important to him because it may bring rescue and a return to the safety of organized society.
References
1. Allen W. Contemporary novelists (second edition). - London and New York, 1976. p.p. 537-38.
2. Biles J. Literary Sources and William Golding. // South Atlantic Bulletin. May, 1972, Vol. 37, No. 2. p-30.
3. Orvis C. Burmaster. Concept of will in the novels of William Golding. - B.S. Montana State College, 1961.
4. Spitz D. Power and Authority: An Interpretation of Golding's "Lord of the Flies". // The Antioch Review. Spring, 1970, Vol. 30, No. 1.
