Paper Details

Name: Rajeev Chandra Prasad Visala
Country: India

Year: 2024
Volume: Volume-11, Issue-1 (January-June)
Page Number: 12-17

ABSTRACT
William Golding's fiction deeply examines the fragility of human identity, depicting it as a
tenuous construct vulnerable to disintegration amid isolation, primal instincts, and existential
challenges. This paper analyses the motif of fractured identities in three seminal texts, Lord of
the Flies (1954), The Inheritors (1955), and Pincher Martin (1956), to illustrate how identity
crises lead to moral decay and societal disintegration. In Lord of the Flies, the boys' descent
into savagery exemplifies the dichotomy between civilised and primitive identities,
undermining ethical boundaries and promoting anarchic tribalism. The Inheritors juxtaposes
Neanderthal communal harmony with Homo sapiens' aggressive individualism, elucidating
identity as an evolutionary weakness that erodes moral empathy and social cohesion. Pincher
Martin explores psychological trauma, illustrating how the protagonist's hallucinatory selfreconstruction reveals the ego's deceptive essence, ultimately resulting in symbolic
annihilation. Utilising psychoanalytic, existential, and thematic critiques, this analysis
illustrates Golding's bleak yet penetrating perspective on identity as the cornerstone of moral
and social order. Ultimately, Golding asserts that without vigilant self-awareness, fragmented
identities inevitably dismantle the essence of humanity, presenting a cautionary allegory for
post-war existential anxiety.
Keywords: William Golding, fractured self, identity crisis, moral disintegration, social
unravelling, Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, Pincher Martin