The Spire Summary
William Golding

The Spire Summary

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 their basest natures. In this novel, man is an example of the unity that can exist in paradox.

Because it acknowledges the simultaneous existence of good and evil in man, The Spire is Golding's most affirmative work.

Another important theme in this novel is...

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