Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies Essay

Comp ar the slipway in which children be visualized in heat content piles The puzzle out of the Screw and William Goldings Lord of the Flies. How win over do you find each(prenominal) authors treatment of hellish in relation to his characters?Everyone likes to think of childhood as a symbol of a time of honor. People lam to look back on their childhood nostalgically, they recommend it as c atomic number 18free and often use the shape youth is wasted on the young these feelings view as stayed with us for centuries and be incredibly deep rooted. These feelings thitherfore, take a shit widespread outrage when demonic becomes appargonnt in children or is inflicted upon them, For fount the murder of James Bulger by ten year olds and in any case abuse and decadency of children. Children are thought of as vulnerable, when there picture is taken advantage of, especially by another(prenominal) child a heading is asked, is childhood innocence a myth?The Victorians were aware of the religious tenet of original sin, yet they were shocked that there was the vestige that the deuce young children in Henry Jamess The Turn of the Screw could be evil. Golding presents children with a strong propensity to evil and dis lodge. Goldings children are a mixture, from saintly Simon to barbaric Jack.The fact that the two writers have different aims to come of their stories should be taken into consideration. Golding has written a fable, whilst his characters are all boys, and are recognisably boys they all possess different characters that are intend to represent humanity. They are all individuals, Ralph, Piggy, Simon and Jack barely each one can be categorised. On the other hand James has written a ghost story, albeit of an unconventional kind.Also, the two children in The Turn of the Screw are never actually shown from a different point of view from that of the governess, we never escort Miles and Flora as wholly rounded individuals we take overt wear acc ess into their thoughts and feelings and therefore could visualise them wrongly. They could be the corrupted accomplices of Peter basketball team and flatten Jessel, as the governess believes, or they could be the sexually preoccupy fantasies in her head. In Goldings novel there is not a definite narrator. Golding allows us to whap what the boys are thinking and feeling this is particularly veritable of Ralph and Simon.When Miles and Flora are first introduced into the novel they are seen through the romantic and i circleising vision of the governess and therefore are portrayed to us as innocent and picturesque they have charm and perfect manners Yes, this is because the governess has a romantic imagination and is overwhelmed by her new responsibilities just it also could be because the childrens innocence portrayed in the first chapters of the novel makes their depravity later on on seem all the more dire to the reader as a contrast. When we first suffer Goldings boys e xcept they are portrayed to us far more realistically, Piggy is an excellent example of this as he is the first most win to earth character we meet, you immediately get an digit of porcine and the things he says are never questioned in the readers head to be unrealistic or phony about him. This is because his speech and manners arent perfect, which is what you would conceptualise in a child.For me both authors treatment of evil in relation to his characters are convince. James approaches the question of evil by being deliberately inexplicit. We are never actually informed as to what offensive activity Miles was expelled from school I said things- Miles. Also, in chapter sixer the governess feels a sudden sickness of disgust when she learns from Mrs. Grose that Quint was too free with Miles. Again we dont learn exactly what this means it could refer to many sort of sexual abuse.I think this is a convincing and effective way of putting across the evil in the book because the novel seems to gain in power precisely because James refuses to trance things out for the reader. The ghostly apparitions are given a genuinely chilly impact he behind changed his place, looking at me hard all the while, to the other corner of the platform through the governesss chemical reaction the reader is made vividly aware of an melodic phrase of evil.For Golding evil is first manifest in the stepwise breakdown of order amongst the boys they neglect things they agreed to do together, such as building shelters they pick on or shun those who are different, notably piggy and Simon. Roger begins to discover that he enjoys wielding power over others and yet inflicting pain the lure of hunting turns into blood proclivity the boys succumb to the fear of the Beast and superstition. Simon the visionary is the solo boy with the insight to see that evil is a part ofMelanie Parkeshuman nature. The Beast is not an immaterial creature to be feared, but it is inside each one of them . This evil is an enemy of reason and order and wishes to extinguish them. It results in murder, first of Simon, then of Piggy, and eventually the boys intend to hunt and kill Ralph. I also find the evil in children implication convincing in Goldings writing as it implies that evil comes from deep down and is present in everyone, even children. The build up to children murdering each other in this story is convincing and therefore the evil in them is convincing as nothing on the island apart from a unfounded corpse was there to trigger the evil that came from notwithstanding them.Overall the two writers manage to deal with evil in different but effectively, whilst both stories are of a different genre they both deal with the fact that evil may well be present in children. The children are portrayed otherwise because evil because apparent them in different ways, in Jamess novel through the ghosts and in Goldings novel through The Beast however in both books evil is seen as a for ce, which consumes and destroys. Miles is destroyed at the end of Jamess novel though in ambiguous circumstances. In Goldings novel, the entire island is turned from a nirvana into a raging inferno.