William Goldings novel Pincher Martin considered to be one of his best novels which deal with the theme of death and the struggle for survival, as analogous to Ambrose Bierces short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge in which the character stru

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                            Pincher Martin a struggle for survival

Introduction

William Golding’s novel Pincher Martin considered to be one of his best novels which deal with the theme of death and the struggle for survival, as analogous to Ambrose Bierce’s short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge in which the character struggles for survival and thus fail. Throughout Golding’s novel, the image projected is that of a man that has been thrown out from a torpedoed ship struggling for survivor, laying over a rock in the North Atlantic. This man seems to be an unpleasant person who spends 7 days remembering his actions. As told in the first lines of the novel “He was struggling in every direction, he was the centre of the writhing and kicking knot of his own body. There was no up or down, no light and no air. He felt his mouth open of itself and the shrieked word burst out. “Help!”.”  At first the reader seems to sympathize with this man, who remains unknown until now. As the novel progresses it seems as if he wins his struggle for life. But so far as the second page he dies. Throughout the novel Pincher Martin, is a man driven by his ego struggling desperately to avoid from dying. Similarly to the narration and structure of Bierce’s short story, Martin as Payton Farquhar dies and fails in his attempt to evade the death which has occurred since the very beginning. In this essay I will attempt to describe the way in which Martin struggles for survival without success, being thus the main theme of the novel. I will also discuss the importance of form which helps in conveying the structure of the novel.

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William Golding’s novel is a complex work of art, and emerges as one of his most significant expressions denoting his capacity to combine content and form. Pincher Martin conveys a simple story of a drowning man and his struggle for survival. As mentioned before the reader becomes sympathetic with the main character because of his will to live and the drama he goes through. Martin, the naval officer is thrown into the North Atlantic when suffering an attack from a submarine. Once he is lying on the ocean, he begins his struggle for survival and finds a rock in which ...

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