Most survival stories frame the hero’s attributes that enable survival—endurance, courage, and a will to live—as praiseworthy, and early on, this is true in Pincher Martin. Golding initially embraces survival narrative conventions, as Martin goes to great physical and psychological lengths to find food, water, and shelter in one of the planet’s most forbidding environments while subduing or compartmentalizing the extraordinary pain he suffers. Dating back to the title character of Robinson Crusoe, audiences have elevated the protagonists of survival narratives as paragons of strength and virtue.

Therefore, Pincher Martin unsettles readers by slowly revealing that the man whose survival they’ve admired and rooted for in the early chapters is guilty of moral and criminal offenses, some merely dishonorable and others unspeakable. An adulterer, rapist, and aspiring murderer, his misanthropy leaves no room for remorse. In addition, Golding implies that Martin’s toxic soul may even be an advantage in his efforts to survive on the rock.

Because bodily appetites almost entirely drive Martin’s behavior, he attacks the critical task of securing food and water with special zeal. In the book’s most comical moment, he thinks of himself as an operatic hero as he takes on the mission to empty his bowels, imagining the bombast of Tchaikovsky and Wagner playing while he fashions a makeshift enema.