The Border of the Text in the Autonomous Novels by William Golding

Abstract

The article sums up the results of a research into the textual structure of the novels “Pincher Martin” and “Free Fall” by W. Golding. The two novels are considered within the paradigm of autonomous literary forms strongly dependent on the priority of the personalised elements of the genre both in the actual contents of the text and in the method of its architectural organisation. The writings by W. Golding are included in this model line due to the autobiographic narration of the hero’s story which distances the text from the social context and entails its centralised consolidation in the autonomous domain of the narrator. Since the protagonist is positioned as the sovereign subject of all representations, the fixed border of his isolated territory causes the query about the adequacy of the picture of world constituted by subjective vision and understanding of objects. The following analysis of the narrative discourse leads to the conclusion that the approach to the problem opens up the way of the hero’s life experience, where the key solution is to be found through the innate ability of a person to realise his/ her own existence as part of total being and human reality. Refs 17.