Golding, William (Vol. 17) - Gladys Veidemanis

GLADYS VEIDEMANIS

How do you account for the enormous appeal of [Lord of the Flies], especially to adolescents and college-age students?… It enables meaningful questioning about the nature of man, the aims of society, the structure of the social order…. Golding … appeals to students as a spokesman of their generation and of the situation in which they find themselves…. The book helps to alleviate—vicariously—feelings of guilt and fear which students have individually felt unique to themselves…. Just as young people struggle to overcome feelings of fear of the unknown, of the future, and even of themselves, so they see the working out of these fears by the protagonists of the novel…. Since high school students are both older than the protagonists of the novel, yet younger than adults, they can entertain a degree of objectivity and even superiority to other readers in evaluating the view of man and society presented…. [Young] people appreciate...

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