The Spire | Social Concerns/Themes
Golding once declared himself "by nature an optimist, by observation and deduction a pessimist," and while much of his work concentrates on the blackness in man's soul, in The Spire he presents a more holistic view. In fact, The Spire affords Golding's clearest statement of the theme that man is a synthesis of good and evil. The impulses behind the building of the spire in the novel are both religious vision and personal pride; the drive to complete it is both admirable and repulsive; the finished edifice raises men's minds to God, but the human price paid reduces men to...
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