Bernard S. Oldsey and Stanley Weintraub, in The Art of William Golding have posited two literary precedents for The Spire. T. S. Eliot's play The Rock (1934) and Henrik Ibsen's play The Master Builder (1892) both concern church-building. Both Eliot and Golding point out that the cost of creating the visible structure that reminds man of an invisible power can be extremely high. The Spire is similar to Ibsen's play in its exploration of physical and spiritual obsessions, and in its examination of the way characters see completion of the structure as expiation for the sins involved in building it.