Black Lightning in Pincher Martin
... Nat is aware of Martin’s great potential to reach heaven. Martin, however, is committed to the world he lives in and is uninterested and unprepared for heaven. He desires to adhere to a world where he can continue his lifestyle of killing and eating. Martin fights to survive so he can go back to the world and continue denying God. Nat tries to teach Martin to live selflessly. He tells him that those who do not acknowledge mortality will be reduced to nothingness, or “black lightning”. His advice only serves to increase Martin’s fear of dying. On the rock he cries: “I’m damned if I’ll die!” (Golding 72). While he is going through physical and spiritual anguish, he keeps hearing Nat’s words in his mind. The words force him to recognize that it is impossible to get to heaven by the path he has chosen. The intention of Nat’s “black lightning” is to rescue the sinner from his evil ways and lead him back onto the path to salvation. Unfortunately, it seems that nothing is enough to save Martin from himself. His immense desire for self-gratification causes him to be disloyal to those around him. At first it seems that the creation of a rock saves Martin from ruin. Because he defined himself through “eating” other people, his solitude means that he is “in danger of losing definition” (Golding 132). Martin finally determines that he has gone mad. Although he knows the truth, that he is dead, he blocks out this information. “The center told itself to pretend and keep on pretending” (Golding 183). He is no longer struggling for bodily survival. Martin is now fighting for his enduring identity against what might destroy it, the “black lightning”. Martin’s spiritual conceit is demonstrated by his refusal to accept bodily extinction. Though he has died, he does not accept his death. Instead he creates an imaginary world of survival. He plays the role of God and creates his own world. His spiritual conceit drives him to proclaim war against God, and make himself God. Martin is unable to acknowledge the real God because that would indicate that he was not the center of everything. Although he is a sinful man, God shows Martin that He would extend his mercy to him. Martin still will not identify himself as a sinner and God as a savior. Martin blames God for his sins. He claims that his evil actions are the results of the malice that God rooted in him: “You gave me the power to choose and all my life you led me carefully to this suffering… All my life, whatever I had done I should have found myself in the end on that same bridge, at that same time, giving that same order… why should you torture me? If I ate them, who gave me a mouth?” After this allegation the figure of God tu...