Pincher Martin by William Golding

First published: 1956

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: World War II

Locale: Mid-Atlantic Ocean

Principal characters

• Christopher Martin, British navy crewman
• Nathaniel, his shipmate and friend
• Mary, Nathaniel’s fiancé
• Mr. Campbell and Mr. Davidson, searchers in the rescue

The Story:

Christopher Martin is a crew member of the English destroyer The Wildebeest, which was just sunk by a German torpedo in the Mid-Atlantic. Martin does not make it into the safety boats that others manage to get aboard. He has his lifebelt on, however, and after the ship sinks, he works to inflate the belt. He succeeds in this, and then, in his own imagination, he manages to kick off his seaboots. Martin begins his struggle to survive in the Mid-Atlantic.

Martin is trying to keep mind and body together. At times, he transcends his physical situation and sees himself as pure mind. He has an enormous will to survive, and it is this struggle of will that readers encounter in the novel; Martin insists, “I will not die!”

After believing himself to have successfully removed his seaboots, Martin begins the impossible task of orienting himself in a reality in which the horizon is the same, no matter which way he looks. The first order of business is to get through the night. Without the aid of a compass, Martin has to wait until dawn to get a sense of where he is. He focuses on a “bright patch” against the sky; he decides that he is not far from the coast of North Africa.

The physical suffering that Martin endures is detailed in the opening seventy-five pages of the novel. Not only does Martin have to survive the blistering rays of the sun glinting off the ocean, but he also has to fight fatigue and the harsh effects of the saltwater. During this time, Martin’s mind flashes back to his memories of his friend and shipmate, Nathaniel. Nathaniel had seemed the least likely to survive, but, in Martin’s imagination, Nathaniel had made it into a lifeboat. Martin, who had been in the crow’s nest when the destroyer was hit, had called for Nathaniel’s help but received no immediate response. Martin now spends much of his psychic energy worrying that he did not give the correct call regarding the ship’s position and the position of the destroyer that had launched the fatal torpedo. He finally decides that he made the right call, and those thoughts no longer torment him.

Miraculously, Martin is washed up on a large cluster of rocks that surface seemingly out of nowhere. On this rocky surface, Martin clings to life, fighting off not only despair and fatigue but also the life-threatening presence of the limpets that feed off the waters surrounding the rock. For some time, Martin fights his way through the limpets; he finally gains supremacy—tentatively—of the rocky surface.

As Martin gets more desperate, he realizes that he must fight not only the elements but also the threat of madness. Physical survival is difficult, but Martin finds fresh rainwater in small pools across the rock, and he protects himself from the tempests and the scorch of the sun by wedging himself into a crevice. Crablike, he retreats to this crevice when danger gets intolerable.

At one point, Martin questions his sanity when he sees a red lobster feeding from the rock just below the water’s surface. He questions his sanity at this point because lobsters are not red when they are alive; they only turn that color as they are being boiled to death.

Martin begins to see pictures, and as Martin’s chances for survival become less and less, the pictures get brighter and more real. These pictures include scenes in which he tries to seduce Mary, the woman whom Nathaniel had intended to marry. Martin recalls Mary struggling to remove herself from his presence. She fights him off by pushing down her skirt and telling him that she wants nothing to do with him. Martin recalls the shock and the sense of betrayal that he felt when Nathaniel told him that he wanted to wed Mary.

Many times during his ordeal, Martin wishes that he had saved his seaboots because the cold and the harshness of the ocean are causing him great pain. At the same time, it is getting difficult to concentrate on his survival and do what he can to aid in a rescue. At one point, Martin imagines that he has affixed a piece of tinfoil to the highest part of the rock. He hopes that this piece of foil will give off reflections that rescue ships in the area will pick up.

Throughout his ordeal on the rock, Martin’s mind wanders to memories of his friends and of women he tried to love. The pictures of these memories alternately cause him anguish and hope. He repeats to himself that his mind and his body have not yet completely separated, and his ability to recall the pictures is proof that he is still alive. Finally, however, the elements are too much for Martin to withstand. At this point, the novel shifts to the perspective of Mr. Campbell and Mr. Davidson, who are searchers in the rescue effort. As they pull Martin’s lifeless body out of the water, Mr. Davidson curses the lifebelt, for it gives hope in hopeless circumstances. Mr. Campbell wonders if Martin had suffered a great deal. Mr. Davidson tells him not to worry; after all, Martin is still wearing his seaboots—he had not even had time to kick them off.

Bibliography

Babb, Howard S. The Novels of William Golding. Athens: Ohio State University Press, 1970. In his chapter on Pincher Martin, Babb sees the novel as Golding’s most “problematic.” Babb focuses on the difficulty of reading the novel and character Christopher Martin’s extreme rationality.

Dick, Bernard F. William Golding. Boston: Twayne, 1987. In the Twayne series tradition, this book serves as an excellent starting point. Contains a chronology and, in the section on Pincher Martin, focuses upon the existential aspects of the novel.

Kinkead-Weekes, Martin, and Ian Gregor. William Golding: A Critical Study. 3d rev. ed. London: Faber, 2002. An updated edition of one of the standard critical accounts of Golding that features a biographical sketch by Golding’s daughter, Judy Carver. In the section on Pincher Martin, Kinkead-Weekes and Gregor struggle with the question of realism that the novel poses.

McCarron, Kevin. William Golding. 2d rev. ed. Tavistock, England: Northcote House/British Council, 2006. An introductory overview of Golding’s life and works. Includes a bibliography and an index. Good as an updated resource.

Tiger, Virginia. William Golding: The Unmoved Target. New York: Marion Boyars, 2003. An examination of Golding’s novels in which Tiger draws upon her conversations and correspondence with the author to describe how these books explore themes of human destiny and vision. Devotes a chapter to an analysis of Pincher Martin.