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William Golding’s Darkness Visible takes its title from Paradise Lost, from the line, “No light, but rather darkness visible,” which fittingly encapsulates the novel’s themes of suffering, duality, and madness. At its center is Matty, a man whose life is shaped by a moment of extreme violence. Horribly disfigured from a bomb explosion during the London Blitz, Matty becomes a ward of the state and is placed in a boarding school where he is ostracized by both children and adults. His grotesque appearance and strange, withdrawn nature make him an object of revulsion, yet as he grows older, people come to view him as a kind of saint, a vessel of something beyond human comprehension. His faith and cryptic visions give him an aura of mysticism, though whether he is divinely touched or deeply disturbed remains ambiguous.

The second part of the novel shifts to a different kind of psychological fragmentation, focusing on twins Toni and Sophy from the perspective of Sophy. Unlike Matty, whose disfigurement is external, Sophy’s turmoil is internal. She is schizoid, split not only between herself and her sister but also between different aspects of her identity and relationships with others. The bond between the twins is intense and destructive, reflecting the novel’s preoccupation with duality and the fractured self. Their lives take on a sinister quality, steeped in manipulation and cruelty, contrasting sharply with the perception of Matty as a holy figure.

The recurring theme uniting these two narratives is madness. Matty is divided between his two faces—one physically deformed, the other the unseen self struggling to reconcile suffering with spiritual purpose. He moves through life as an outcast yet is strangely revered, embodying a paradox of ugliness and holiness. Sophy, on the other hand, experiences a different fracture, one that manifests in psychological instability. The novel suggests that both characters exist in a world where darkness is more real than light, where identity is uncertain, and where the boundaries between sanity and madness are porous. The question of what constitutes good and evil, sanity and insanity, is left unresolved, making Darkness Visible a haunting exploration of the human condition.