William Golding's Free Fall as an existentialist novel

William Golding's Free Fall illustrates its pivotal character Sammy's self-quest symbolically as the search for self of twentieth century man. By means of Sammy, Golding wants to create an awareness in people who want to understand the world they are living in and what makes them human beings, by bringing such questions to the fore: What has happened to humanity? What has brought them to that point? Is it a fall? If it is a fall, then is it free or not? What is the role of man or God in it? Is he guilty? Is he good or evil or both of them? Is he free in his choices? If he is free, then to what extent is he free? All of these questions which create the modern man of the twentieth century, who searches his subjective meaning and the role of his free will on his choices, in a godless universe after the World Wars are the critical point of Free Fall and of this study. The aim of this thesis is to shed light on the predicament of the modern man by analyzing William Golding's Free Fall as an existentialist novel to show to what extent the novel character is free in his choices. Keywords: William Golding, Free Fall, Existentialism, predicament, free will, responsibility, absurd.