Delusion and Artistic Creativity: Some Refiections on Reading William Golding's The Spire

What I am going to present has no pretensions to literary criticism, nor is. it an attempt to “psychoanalyze” a book. Nor, through the book, its author. What I want to offer are some reflections which were stimulated by reading William Golding's book on a theme which has always fascinated me—the origin and nature of artistic endeavor.

The Spire is the story of the endeavor of Jocelin, Dean of the Cathedral, to build a 400-foot spire, as he had heard had been achieved overseas in France. Against the opposition of his Chapter, and in spite of many arguments that such a spire cannot be built because the church has no foundations and the structure no strength, he is certain that he will translate his vision into reality. He had been vouchsafed a vision which convinced him that he was chosen by God for this task, a conviction which is also nourished by the fact that he has had a miraculously rapid promotion in the church up to his present position. He is supported in his endeavors by an angel who “warms his back.” Roger Mason is the only man capable of building such a spire, but he begins with doubt, and later becomes completely opposed to the plan. Jocelin must compel him to do the building.

Apart from Jocelin, there are four protagonists: Roger Mason; his wife, Rachel; Pangall, an old servant of the cathedral; and his beautiful young wife, Goody. Jocelin compares them to the four pillars of the cathedral: “My spire will stand on them as on the four pillars.” Pangall is old and crippled,

Goody young and beautiful, and Jocelin's favorite—his “golden child.” He had arranged her marriage to Pangall, but the marriage is sterile because, as becomes clear later, of Pangall's impotence. Roger Mason is the powerful builder, Rachel his earthy counterpart; but that marriage, too, is sterile, as Rachel later confesses to Jocelin, because she always laughs at the crucial moment.

When the novel opens, we are carried along by Jocelin's exultation: he is full of power and conviction a