The Spire
E509854
The Spire is a novel by William Golding that explores obsession, faith, and human folly through the story of a dean determined to build an immense cathedral spire against all practical and moral constraints.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Spire canonical | 6 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5310533 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Spire Context triple: [William Golding, notableWork, The Spire]
-
A.
The Warden
The Warden is an 1855 novel by Anthony Trollope that inaugurates his Chronicles of Barsetshire series, focusing on church politics, moral conflict, and social reform in a fictional English cathedral town.
-
B.
Der Turm
Der Turm is a late Expressionist drama by Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal that reimagines Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" in a dark, politically charged setting.
-
C.
Tower of Glass
Tower of Glass is a 1970 science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg that explores themes of artificial intelligence, class hierarchy, and the ethics of creating sentient beings.
-
D.
The Black Windmill
The Black Windmill is a 1974 British spy thriller film directed by Don Siegel and starring Michael Caine as an MI6 agent whose son is kidnapped by arms dealers.
-
E.
The Ruins
The Ruins is a 2008 horror film, based on Scott Smith’s novel, about a group of tourists trapped at an isolated Mayan ruin menaced by a malevolent, sentient vine.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Spire Target entity description: The Spire is a novel by William Golding that explores obsession, faith, and human folly through the story of a dean determined to build an immense cathedral spire against all practical and moral constraints.
-
A.
The Warden
The Warden is an 1855 novel by Anthony Trollope that inaugurates his Chronicles of Barsetshire series, focusing on church politics, moral conflict, and social reform in a fictional English cathedral town.
-
B.
Der Turm
Der Turm is a late Expressionist drama by Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal that reimagines Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" in a dark, politically charged setting.
-
C.
Tower of Glass
Tower of Glass is a 1970 science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg that explores themes of artificial intelligence, class hierarchy, and the ethics of creating sentient beings.
-
D.
The Black Windmill
The Black Windmill is a 1974 British spy thriller film directed by Don Siegel and starring Michael Caine as an MI6 agent whose son is kidnapped by arms dealers.
-
E.
The Ruins
The Ruins is a 2008 horror film, based on Scott Smith’s novel, about a group of tourists trapped at an isolated Mayan ruin menaced by a malevolent, sentient vine.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | novel ⓘ |
| adaptation | radio drama adaptation ⓘ |
| author | William Golding ⓘ |
| centralConflict | construction of an immense spire on inadequate foundations ⓘ |
| conflictType |
man vs nature
ⓘ
man vs self ⓘ man vs society ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| explores |
moral compromise
ⓘ
psychological disintegration ⓘ tension between vision and practicality ⓘ |
| genre |
literary fiction
ⓘ
psychological novel ⓘ religious fiction ⓘ |
| hasCharacter |
Father Adam
ⓘ
Goody Pangall ⓘ Pangall ⓘ Roger Mason ⓘ |
| hasMotiveForce | Jocelin’s belief in divine command ⓘ |
| hasSymbol | cathedral spire ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | post-war British literature ⓘ |
| literaryReputation | major work in Golding’s oeuvre ⓘ |
| literaryStyle |
allegorical
ⓘ
symbolic ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
Dean Jocelin
ⓘ
linked to:
Bishop Jocelin of Wells
|
| narrativePerspective | third-person limited ⓘ |
| notableFor |
compressed time frame
ⓘ
focus on a single dominating project ⓘ intense interior monologue ⓘ |
| protagonistOccupation | dean of a cathedral ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1964 ⓘ |
| publisher | Faber and Faber ⓘ |
| setting | medieval cathedral ⓘ |
| settingPeriod | Middle Ages ⓘ |
| structure | four-part novel ⓘ |
| symbolism |
danger of unchecked ambition
ⓘ
spiritual aspiration ⓘ |
| theme |
conflict between faith and reason
ⓘ
faith ⓘ hubris ⓘ human folly ⓘ moral responsibility ⓘ obsession ⓘ |
| tone |
claustrophobic
ⓘ
intense ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Spire Description of subject: The Spire is a novel by William Golding that explores obsession, faith, and human folly through the story of a dean determined to build an immense cathedral spire against all practical and moral constraints.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.