Stop Calling Me That! : A Reader-Response Analysis of Bullying in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, in Accordance with Theory of the Carnivalesque

Sammanfattning: In school bullying is a well-known problem and unfortunately it is not uncommon that adults do not see all the signs of a bullying situation. Bullying can be hard to detect and several factors are possible foundation pillars for a hierarchical subjugation of another individual. This essay analyses how the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding conveys bullying, when it is explored through a reader-response lens together with Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque. The carnival setting involves rituals and jokes, which the narrative in the novel uses regularly. Hierarchies should be omitted from the carnivalesque though, and this essay argues that the narrative in Lord of the Flies violates the non-hierarchical concept of the carnivalesque, in order to emphasise intentional malign bullying. The study concretise how this is shown in the novel, and concludes that Lord of the Flies can be helpful in school to raise awareness of the intricate problem of bullying.