THE ESSENCE OF LITERATURE IS IN THE TENSION BETWEEN EMOTION AND INTELLECT
We often blame our mistakes on irrational decisions – things done in the heat of the moment. We say that ‘our emotion got the better of us’. But realistically we would be nothing without our emotion. Without emotion, life becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance. It is in the finite balance of emotion and reasoning that true life exists. The paradox is that one cannot function without both emotion and intellect, but they are constantly at war with each other. The essence of literature is in the tension between emotion and intellect, as it is for the decisions of life. But what happens when the balance is disrupted?
In William Golding’s novel ‘Lord of The Flies’ a group of young boys are stranded on an island, where they loose all sense rational and civilized behavior and give in to their animalistic urges. The tension between the boy’s primitive emotional state and their rational intellect drives forward the novel. The boys try to set up a civilization, rules and regulations to abide by, “We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.” But with nothing to enforce them, what was once a society begins to dissolve [QUOTE]. Golding implies in his novel that moral behaviour, in many cases, is something that civilization forces upon the individual rather than a natural expression of human individuality. This furthermore brings to question, is it the human’s superior knowledge that makes us more civilized, or is it only the society that we have made that stops us from returning to our primitive state. The essence of the novel is the battle between good and evil, between animals and civilised. Golding cleverly uses characters to personify the battle; Jack the ruthless hunter versus Ralph the democratic leader. Although, it appears to be a contest between two characters, it truly is a contest...