This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. ( July 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) However, the criticism of Jocelin is obliterated by Jocelin's subjectivity, his joy at having held in his hand the model of the spire that is to be built. "He looked down, loving them in his joy." And he refuses to accept explicitly that they are talking about him. He says: "Who is this poor fellow? You should pray for him rather …" He refuses to accept delivery of the insult he has overheard – and so we cannot be completely sure what he knows and what he doesn't know. The Spire confines us to Jocelin's consciousness – not absolutely, but for most of the novel's length. A conflict with the sacristan, father Anselm, the confessor of Jocelyn, who does not want to oversee the construction, is immediately outlined. Under the pressure of Jocelyn, he still goes to the cathedral, but Jocelyn feels that their long-standing friendship has come to an end. He understands that this is the price of a spire, but he is ready to make sacrifices. The Spire (1995)". BFI. Archived from the original on 11 August 2023 . Retrieved 25 September 2020. Jocelin may have been named after Josceline de Bohon, Bishop of Salisbury from 1142 to 1184, who is buried in Salisbury Cathedral.

Obviously a crudely simplistic 'Freudian' reading might see the spire as a symbol of both his writing – he aspired to create something of greatness, against some hostility, but worried that it was built on shaky foundations; and it is also a phallic symbol of course – again on shaky foundations." As the spire of the cathedral rises, the state of Jocelin, its Dean, declines - a sort of inverse Dorian Grey. Jocelin is the spire, absorbed by it into its stone and timber. As the spire is supported by four pillars of stone, so Jocelin is supported by the Master Builder, the Verger and their wives. Jocelin finds more of himself in each higher level, as the pillars and his supports deteriorate below him. He is insane. And his insanity is contagious. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.” Isaiah 6:2 The spire is also Goody Pangall, object of Jocelin's displaced sexual energy. But while the feared fertility sprouts in Goody, the spire remains pure and virginal."This conversation undermines the abbot's strength, and he wants to leave, but along the way he witnesses how one of the artisans teases Pangall, hinting at his male impotence. Losing consciousness, Jocelyn sees Goody Pangall with red hair scattered across her chest ... The Spire was envisioned by Golding as a historical novel with a moral struggle at its core, which was originally intended to have two settings: both the Middle Ages and modern day. [4] Whilst teaching at Bishop Wordsworth's School, Golding regularly looked out of his classroom window at Salisbury Cathedral and wondered how he would possibly construct its spire [5] But the book's composition and eventual realisation of The Spire was not an easy process for Golding. According to his daughter, Judy Carver, Golding 'struggled like anything to write The Spire' and said that the novel 'went through many drafts'; this was perhaps owing to the fact that he had stopped teaching which, in turn, gave him more time to write. [6] A vision is a dangerous thing. Combined with religious faith, a vision can be lethal. And not just for the visionary; a religious visionary with authority is a civil menace. The visionary must repress everything not relevant to achieving his vision - family, friends, workmates, intimacy and contentment of any kind, and, especially, the idea of reality. The visionary causes organisational chaos and political discord, and is proud of it. The visionary knows only work, effort to achieve. Like the spire, he is otherwise empty, and acutely vulnerable to the world’s ‘weather.’ Vision demands the ultimate sacrifice of oneself as a prayer.

Golding respects the way medieval individuals actually might have thought, felt, or spoken in their world --not in ours. He 'keeps faith' with them; even though this renders them awkward and unfamiliar to our eyes and ears. It is difficult material; but Golding conquered it in the writing and you must conquer it in the reading. That is the arrangement here. You keep up with him, rather than him pandering to you. It's refreshing in that respect. Harford, Tim (8 December 2017). "The Brexit monomania built on blind faith". Financial Times . Retrieved 25 September 2020. The concept of a cathedral spire piercing the sky as a spiritual as well an architectural statement is a metaphor of longstanding. I thought of the line from Robert Browning's poem, "A man's reach should extend his grasp, or what is a heaven for?" With William Golding's The Spire, there seems irretrievable space between the reach & the grasp, an obsessive descent rather than an uplifted "prayer in stone". That said, the telling of this tale is at times magical but almost always frustratingly dark & cheerless. I grasp why a few reviewers found the novel disappointing & even confounding to read but there is also ample reward for the reader's perseverance with this & other Golding novels. Golding knew exactly what he was doing. Later, he describes Jocelin's fractured memories in terms of narrative: "they were like sentences from a story, which though they left great gaps, still told enough." Clearly self-referential. True, we are afforded glimpses, dispatches, from the outside world. Two young deacons are overheard by Jocelin, denigrating someone unspecified: "Say what you like; he's proud." Second deacon: "And ignorant." First deacon: "Do you know what? He thinks he is a saint! A man like that!" And in spite of all the troubles and hindrances the construction of the spire continues… But the process of building is taking its toll corrupting minds and souls… And immense fear grows around…Mark well: this style did not prevent Golding from winning numerous international literary prizes. Golding enjoys one of the finest reputations in English letters. Besides his audacious ideas, (their variety, their execution) his prose is considered one of his many strengths even taken at blank, face- value. This 'forceful' and torrential style of text has won him many fans. Lots of readers enjoy his narrative voice, no matter what type-of-scene Golding happens to be describing. But will everyone appreciate it? No. Roger Mason, a medieval Master Mason is, in direct contrast to Jocelin, physically powerful and a rationalist. He is associated with the imagery of a bull and a stallion. Roger contends with Jocelin, arguing that the cathedral foundations are insufficient to support the spire. He is forced to continue with the project because Jocelin makes it impossible for him to work elsewhere. After the death of Goody, Roger becomes an alcoholic. In a moment of clarity, Jocelin visits Roger and we eventually learn of his suicide attempt. On the surface, the plot looks very simple. Nepotism plays a main role in placing a less qualified person as a Dean of a Cathedral. The Dean considers it as his Call. Later as a Dean he has a vision and wants to transform the vision into a reality by building a spire to the cathedral. This is an impossible undertaking for the Cathedral is on a marshy land and does not have the foundation necessary to hold a spire of 400 feet. Everyone is against. The Deans considers it his Call and goes ahead. This foolish attempt is always referred to as Dean's Folly.

Father Adam is dubbed by Jocelin as " Father Anonymous", indicating Jocelin's feelings of superiority. Until the end of the novel, when Father Adam becomes Jocelin's caretaker, he is largely a minor character who is surprised by how Jocelin was never taught to pray, doing his best to help him to heaven. What is the dumb sculptor doing in the novel? He represents the muted objective narrative voice. Which we hear only as William James's description of consciousness: "one great blooming buzzing confusion".A most remarkable book, as unforeseeable as one foresaw, an entire original... remote from the mainstream, potent, severe, even forbidding." – Frank Kermode, New York Review of Books, 30 April 1964. Golding taught for years (1945-61) at Bishop Wordsworth’s School, in the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral, and the tale of the building of the spire, strange and dream-like though it is in the telling, has historical roots. I was surprised to learn that some of the most dramatic and alarming elements in the fictional cathedral’s physical geography, such as the shallowness and marshiness of its foundations—brilliantly exploited by Golding at a literal and metaphorical level—are factually true of Salisbury Cathedral. The lunatic venture of piling up the second-highest spire in Europe on such a precarious base was one that Salisbury’s anonymous masons did actually undertake, in the early fourteenth century. The swaying, creaking, leaning pillar-crushing monstrosity that Golding portrays as the result of his fictional Dean Jocelin’s madness is the serenely beautiful landmark we know from Constable’s paintings. Christopher Wren, brought in for restoration in the 1680s, found the spire leaning almost 30 inches from the vertical and slowly crushing the ancient pillars on which it stood. Oddly perhaps, there is little sense of ongoing religious services within the church amidst scaffolding, dust & building materials during the endeavor to raise the spire; in fact the cathedral seems spiritually bereft as construction proceeds. Jocelin continues to see the cathedral as "a diagram in prayer & our spire will be a diagram of the highest prayer of all." Meanwhile, Roger Mason, the master builder has become a kind of prisoner of Jocelin, proceeding against his better judgment & envisions the 4 columns opening apart & "everything--wood, stone, iron, glass & men on the scaffolds sliding down into the church, like the fall of a mountain." With it all, he views the spire as a "dunces cap." The master builder pointedly asks Jocelin: "Are you the devil?" Ustayı delirtiyor. Usta ne kadar bırakıp gitmek istese de manyak rahip izin vermiyor. Adamın başka işler bulup gitmesini engelliyor. Kimse ustaya iş vermiyor ve dolayısıyla usta da bırakıp gidemiyor. Gizemli bir teyzesi var rahibin, ondan da para geliyor. Böylece kule inşaatı aylarca devam ediyor. Zavallı ustacık çaresizce bilimsel açıklamalar yapıyor. (Mukavemet analizi, zemin etüdü falan işte...) Ama yok. Manyak rahip o dili konuşmuyor ki. O tanrıdan alıyor emirleri. Senin fizik kurallarını koyan adamla konuşuyor rahip. Sen kimsin fakir usta!