Author(s)

Zifan Wang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of Foreign Languages, Beijing Forestry University, Haidian District, Beijing, China

Corresponding Author

Zifan Wang

ABSTRACT

It is widely accepted that Lord of the Flies exposes the evil nature of mankind. However, from the perspective of deconstructivism and the idea of "différance" proposed by Derrida, this paper explores the theme of this novel again by analyzing time, space, absence of woman, characterization and imagery. This paper finds that time is temporalized and space is distanced, which reflect the timelessness and regionlessness of the text. The absence of woman is actually the biological and logical absence of origins. The uncertain nature of human beings is directly manifested in the characterization of the novel. Characters are multifaceted with darkness in kind Ralph and light in evil Jack. What's more, the indeterminate imagery of fire which is a representation of both resurrection and destruction, and the conch which represents both democracy and autocracy also add the uncertainty of the text. And all these reveal the uncertainty of human nature vividly.

KEYWORDS

"différance", deconstructivism, uncertainty, human nature

CITE THIS PAPER

Zifan Wang, The Uncertainty of Human Nature in Lord of the Flies from the Perspective of Deconstructivism. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2023) Vol. 6: 17-24. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2023.060204.

REFERENCES

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