“You can never go home again“ Lord of the flies (0)

Kristel Sepp TIK IB
09.10.09
“You can never go home again “
“ Lord of the flies “
The quote “You can never go home again“ is related to “Lord of the flies“ in both literal and metaphorical sense . Luckily most of the boys could go home in a literal sense but unfortunately some of them were dead by the time rescuers came to save them. When boys were left on the island alone the savages inside them started to appear and there were few quite good reasons for that. The experience on the island changed all of them and when they were finally rescued everyone went home as sort of different persons.
In the beginning when boys had just discovered that they are alone in this paradise island they were all innocent and longed for rescue but towards the end they gradually turned into savages who painted their faces, hunted and were willing to kill each other . For example in the third chapter all boys are still civilised and enjoy the beauty of the island when Simon finds this magical open place in the jungle that represents the innocence that still exists on the island. Then in chapter eight when Simon visits this jungle glade again he finds a sow’s head on the stake there. The fact how this setting changed during five chapters is described in a quote from chapter eight „The other time the air had seemed to vibrate with heat; but now it threatened.“ Simon’s secret place had turned from unearthy paradise into something terrifying and that also symbolised how the boys had become savages already . Without noticing the natural cruelty inside them developed , savagery instincts emerged and most of them stopped caring about civilisation.
The reason why the characters in the novel turned from decent British boys into small savages is hidden in human nature . All the boys were used to have grown -ups around and then they were suddenly thrown into a situation where there were non. At first they were thrilled with happiness but like usually when children are left alone in the dark they start to fear and that happened to these boys also. First ones who began to feel terror and saw nightmares were the little ones but gradually all the boys felt fear. When they were all scared of the beast , the survival instinct started to play a role in boys life and that was probably one of the reasons why boys turned into savages . The other cause would be the fact that there is an evil side in every person . Golding presented the conflict between good and bad as the conflict between Ralph and Jack, where first one was the representative of civilisation and order , and other one represented the desire of power and savagery. The author showed quite effectively that savagery is more fundamental to human nature than instinct of civilisation by this that eventually Jack was the one who won all the boys over to his side and made his own tribe , but Ralph was left all alone with no companions. Ralph remained firm to his beliefs throughout the book but still some signs of savagery emerged in him for example when he had to run for his life from Jack’s tribe who wanted to kill him. The novel demonstrated savagery as a part of human nature and that was the main reason why evilness occured in almost every boy on the island.
Unfortunately Simon and Piggy did not even have the chance to go home again because they were killed by the savages. Both of them remained almost totally innocent during the novel and did not change so much and therefore if anyone had had the right to go home again then they would have had it undoubtably. It was sort of ironical that all the evil boys were able to go home and Piggy and Simon were not, but maybe author wanted to show how unfair life is and that is why good guys died, and other ones, in whom the survival instinct appeared more intensively, stayed alive .
Although most of the boys were saved, they had changed so much that they actually returned to their homes as almost different persons, because turning into savages on the island left a mark on each of them. The quote in the end of chapter twelve „Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart , and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy“ gave reader the sense of the burden that Ralph had to bear after the experience on the island and how much it had affected him. This quote also reminded that all of the boys would remember the killing of Piggy and Simon and that will probably be like a blood on their hands forever . It is evidently accurate to say that when boys first arrived to the island they were still kids , but when they left the island they all had lost their innocence and become almost grown-up. Therefore as the boys were finally rescued they could go home in a literal sense but all of them knew that nothing would ever be the same again.
Well-behaved British boys gradually became savages on the island because it was natural that in each of them occured survival instinct when they were afraid . Golding also demonstrated in the novel that savagery in human nature is more fundamental then instinct of civilisation and that is why Jack got all the power to himself in the end and Ralph was left all alone. Author showed how kids lost their innocence during the book and became much more mature and grown-up, so when they got the opportunity to go home again, they really were not the same kids as they were in the beginning.