The Spire on his back whereas the latter is the will of God. His narcissism is belied by these failing structures he reinterprets to maintain his worldview. "The Spire" is subject to critical analysis by Steve Eddy in the York Notes Advanced series and reviews by Frank Kermode and David Skilton are included in "William Golding: Novels 1954–1967." Don Crompton, in "A View from the Spire: William Golding's Later Novels," analyses the novel and relates it to its pagan and mythical elements. More recently, Mark Kinkead-Weekes and Ian Gregor cover all of William Golding's novels in "William Golding: A Critical Study of
The Spire is used towards the end of the novel, where Jocelin lies dying. Jocelin declares "it's like the apple-tree!", making a reference to the Garden of Eden and Humanity's first sin of temptation but also perhaps the pagan ideas that have been constantly threaded into Jocelin's mind as he spends more and more time up in the Spire, raised above the ground (and further away from his church and his role as God's voice on earth). Jocelin's degrading spine can be seen as a micro-macro analogy to the unstable spire. He believes the former manifests as the presence of his angel