9 – William Golding, Gaia, and the Crisis Ecology of Lord of the Flies
A case study in the aesthetic genealogy of the now widely debated Gaia hypothesis, this article charts out a critical position for the environmental humanities within such a paradigm. Beginning with a historical assessment of William Golding’s major role in the development of a Gaian aesthetics, I then turn to his 1954 novel Lord of the Flies to explore its articulation between literature, ecology, and politics. Revealing the critical potential of Simon’s character, I develop a new way of approaching Golding’s canonical work by emphasizing its evental and experimental nature. Although Simon’s character has been approached as the tragic victim of an irredeemable human nature, I use a Deleuzian approach that grants him an immanent position and offers perspectives for the contemporary critical moment, at a time when critique is attacked on every front.