Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0126/01261.txt

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$Pretitle{}
$Title{Works of William Golding
Summary Of The Inheritors}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Golding, William}
$Affiliation{Department Of English, Bard College}
$Subject{new
lok
fa
mal
neanderthals
old
tribe
river
woman
group
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{}
$Log{See Lok Digs a Hole*0126101.scf
}
Title:       Works of William Golding
Book:        Inheritors, the
Author:      Golding, William
Critic:      Dewsnap, Terence
Affiliation: Department Of English, Bard College

Summary Of The Inheritors

Chapters 1 and 2

     A group of eight primitive people are migrating to the mountains to their
summer camping grounds. Later we learn that they are the last of a Neanderthal
tribe decimated by forest fire. Coming to a river, they discover that the log
on which they crossed in past years is missing. They seem terrified of the
water. After their aging leader, Mal, advises them to lay a birch log on the
water, they all manage to cross, except for the old man, who falls from the
log and has to be dragged from the water by Ha, the second in command.

     When they come to the camping grounds, on a hill by a waterfall, they
see, on the mountain above, ice formations resembling the form of a woman,
and they all begin to cry, "Oa, Oa," the name of a goddess. Reaching their
cave, they listen while the mortally ill Mal assigns the duties of gathering
wood and hunting.

Comment:

     Neanderthal man is an early species of man, parts of whose skeleton were
found in western Europe in the Neanderthal, a valley of the Rhine River. An
extinct species, Homo neanderthalensis is said to have preceded the human
species, Homo sapiens. As a foreword to the novel Golding includes a quotation
from H. G. Wells' Outline of History, describing the Neanderthal man as
gorilla-like, with "an extreme hairiness, and ugliness, or a repulsive
strangeness in his appearance over and above his low forehead, his beetle
brows, his ape neck, and his inferior stature. . . ." Golding's Neanderthal is
a primitive creature, capable of only the most rudimentary thought, who
operates in imitation of remembered pictures rather than according to logic.
For example, Mal remembers from long ago the floating of a log on water, and
so is able to suggest such a maneuver to the group. The tools that the tribe
possesses are not thought of as instruments suited to purpose, but are
remembered in connection with previous use. In other words, the Neanderthal
uses a sharp stone not to create something new, but simply to imitate the
action of someone else, perhaps his father. The characters say, instead of "I
think," that "I have a picture." This is to indicate a primitive mentality
that deals in sensations, feelings, and visual memories rather than in
rational ideas of cause and effect.

     But in spite of its primitiveness, this group shares many characteristics
with modern society. The parallels in Lord of the Flies between the primitive
existence of the boys on the island and the actions of civilized man are
repeated here. The group of cave dwellers is an organized society, with a
leader, and with carefully designated roles for hunters and wood gatherers.
The care of children is divided among the group. And while the primary end of
the society is its own perpetuation, its members, like people today, respond
to the beauty of their surroundings, especially old familiar associations of
sight and smell. Members are bound by ties of loyalty and feeling, such as the
tenderness expressed for children and for the aged. The tribe has a religion
that goes beyond the personification of water and fire to the worship of a
personal deity, Oa, who "brought forth the earth from her belly." And there is
a religious legend, resembling the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, of
the time "when it was summer all year round and the flowers and fruit hung on
the same branch." All of these elements make the primitive group sympathetic
and understandable to the modern reader.

Character Analyses:

     In general, the characters have the intellectual development of children
not more than two years old. Golding gives them extremely simple names to
signify that their language is undeveloped.

     Mal - the dying leader whose mind is stocked with a lifetime of memories
of the activities of the tribe as well as a genealogy of its leaders back as
far as Oa.

     The Old Woman - presumably the wife of Mal, although family relationships
are loosely defined in this primitive group. A wise and dignified woman, she
tends the sick and is the first to arise in the morning to build a fire.

     Ha - responsible and heroic, it is Ha who manages to drag the birch log
across the river.

     Nil - a nursing mother, probably Ha's mate.

     Lok - an attractive but silly young man. Golding, although he uses
the omniscient author point of view, tends to rely on Lok's outlook. Lok
becomes the protagonist.

     Fa - a mate of Lok's, although she carries and cares for Nil's baby.

     Liku - a young girl who carries with her a doll-like replica of the
goddess Oa and who rides on the shoulders of Lok, whose affection for her
rivals his love for Fa.

     The New One - Nil's baby boy.

Chapters 3 and 4

     Fa, Lok, and Liku, searching for food, come upon a carcass of a doe
surrounded by hyenas. They fight off the beasts with sticks and stones. When
they return to the camp there is joy and feasting. But soon Nil, who has been
gathering wood with Ha, returns and reveals that Ha is lost. When she last saw
him, he seemed to be smiling at someone on the cliff overlooking the river.
Later, when she came to the river, she found the scent of another man. Nil and
Fa run to the river howling after the lost Ha.

     With Mal ill, the old woman takes charge, sending Lok to search for Ha.
At the edge of the river Lok calls out, and a strange cry rises from an island
in the river, and a human form appears. Later, he meets Fa and accompanies her
to the ice women (the icy forms on the mountain) to make a prayer offering in
a cave that echoes the sound of her voice. When they return, Mal is dying,
and requests to be laid in the ground. As they dig, they scatter the bones of
previous generations. Mal dies, and they lay him in the hole, pour water on
his face and place a haunch of meat beside him before covering him with dirt.

[See Lok Digs a Hole: Lok digs a hole for Mal to be buried in.]

Comment:

     This remnant of prehistoric civilization is endangered from within and
without. Mal, in his feebleness, has brought the group, too early, to their
summer home, so that they must bear the cold of a winter climate. And now,
with his death, the group is without a leader. Ha, who should take his place,
is missing. We later learn that the Neanderthals are being preyed upon by a
tribe of Homo sapiens, the progenitors of modern man. The result is that the
tribe is in danger of falling into confusion. Lok, the only man left, is
silly and immature, and, though a strong and able hunter, he cannot
distinguish between the "pictures" in his memory and actual events, so that
he is incapable of assuming the responsibilities of leadership. Thus the old
woman must provide direction for the group.

     It is interesting to note that this tribe, a naturally joyous people
given to games and laughter, has a healthy attitude to death. The old man,
Mal, realizing that his time has come, calmly asks to be laid in the
traditional burial place. The others view the fact with quiet sadness. There
is a modest eulogy in the old woman's statement: "When Mal was strong he
found much food." There is the beginning of a simple ritual in her burial of
the food and water with the words, "Eat, Mal, when you are hungry," and
"Drink when you are thirsty."

Chapters 5 and 6

     Lok, again out hunting for Ha, sees a fire on the island and shouts
across, but the new people run for cover. Then he hears, nearby, the sound of
laughter, and the shrieks of Like as she is carried across the river. As Lok
runs up and down screaming for Liku, a strange face (different from Lok's
because it has forehead and chin) appears on the island shore. The man shoots
a poison arrow, which Lok, never having seen bow or arrow before, mistakes
for a token of friendship.

     Crawling out on a branch over the water, Lok looks down and sees the body
of the old woman. Returning, he finds the camp deserted. Fa comes out of
hiding to tell him that men came and killed Nil and the old woman, and took
Liku and the new one. They see two men come across the river in a log-the
first canoe they have ever seen. They find logs themselves and make their way
to the island, to the camp of the new people where a man wearing a stag's head
is dancing. When Lok shouts for Liku, the new people pursue them and they
withdraw into the undergrowth.

Comment:

     The Neanderthals, a naturally friendly people, are quickly taught to
associate danger with the new people, a crueler, more ruthless tribe who use
sophisticated equipment-daggers, poison arrows, and canoes, completely beyond
the comprehension of the simple Fa and Lok. It is ironic that, although the
new people are more intelligent than the Neanderthals, their religion is more
debasing than that of the simpler tribe. The new people bow their heads
before their antlerheaded witch doctor. They have lost the simplicity of the
religion of the Neanderthals as displayed in the burial rites for Mal. It is
ironic, too, that the new people should practice such meaningless cruelty as
the persecution of the Neanderthals. It is partly a result of their fear of
the unknown. But, more than this, it is a sport to them to kill these novel
looking freaks. The new people, though they possess reason, behave with less
dignity than the Neanderthals. Because Golding gives us the feelings,
struggles, and tragedies of the Neanderthals so immediately, causing us to
identify with them, we view the human species, and perhaps ourselves, with
chilling objectivity. Parallels might be drawn between the behavior of the
new people to the Neanderthals and exploitations by sophisticated modern
man-perhaps the reader of this novel-of less educated and more vulnerable
segments of society

Chapters 7 and 8

     Fa and Lok watch from hiding as the new people cross to their side of the
river and carry out a religious ceremony, placing clay and pelts on the ground
in the shape of a stag, and then, after the appearance of the dancing stag,
performing a mutilation ritual in which one of the men, Tuami, chops off a
finger of another, Pine-Tree. Later, they see the new one in a canoe nursing
at the breast of a fat woman. And on the island, they see Liku held on a leash
by a young girl, Tanakil. Still later, an animal skin full of strong spirits
is produced, and the new people proceed to get drunk. When it becomes dark,
the leader of the new people, Marlan, secretly eats a piece of meat, is
discovered by his irate people, and is saved only when the fat woman appears
again with the animal skin of liquor.

Comment:

     The more highly developed society of the new people, with its hectic
activities a source of wonder to the naive Lok and Fa, is a more corrupt
society. They walk upright and have the appearance of dignity, but they
mutilate themselves as part of their religious worship, they decorate
their skin with slivers of bone, and they fight among themselves. Instead of
providing the strong and vigorous direction that Mal did, their leader is a
greedy, selfish cheat who encourages his people to indulge in drunken orgies.
As readers, we can share the wonder of Lok and Fa as they contemplate the
spectacle of man's inhumanity to man. We can go further and read into this
situation a cause. Although the levels of society on the island are similar to
those of the Neanderthals, with an old man in charge, with a strong
middle-aged man second in command, and with several tribesmen of minor
importance, cooperation and direction are lacking in the larger tribe. The
eyes of the observer behold not the fellowship and unity of the Neanderthal
tribe but a turmoil of intigue and violence.

Character Analyses:

     More highly developed than the Neanderthals, these inhabitants of the
forest and waterways have more complicated names and more sophisticated
customs.

     Marlan - a crafty old leader whose selfishness prompts the revolt of his
people.

     Tuami - calm and efficient as he cuts off the finger of a fellow
tribesman. He gives the impression of great strength and dignity.

     Pine-Tree, Chestnut-Head, Bush, Tuft- fierce warriors.

     Vivani - the fat woman who is married to Marlan.

     Twal - a middle-aged woman with a crumpled face, the mother of Tanakil
and probably Tuami's wife.

     Tanakil - Twal's young daughter. Though she is Liku's master, she seems
to have an affection for her.

Chapters 9 and 10

     That night, while the new people are drinking, and while Marlan, the
leader, sleeps, his wife and Tuami make love. Lok and Fa look on in horror at
the savage biting and clawing of the lovers. When the camp is quiet, Lok and
Fa steal in, only to be discovered and pursued. After eluding the new people,
Lok discovers the trail of Fa, which leads to the edge of a swamp where he
sees blood on the ground. The new people, meanwhile, have started to break
camp and to roll their canoes along the rail on logs. Lok watches them, then
he sees Fa emerging from hiding in the swamp. Together they go to the empty
camp, eat meat that the new people left as a sacrifice, and drink from a stone
flask until they are so drunk that they begin to parody the actions of the new
people.

Comment:

     The attempt by Fa and Lok to rescue the children is perhaps impractical
and illogical in the face of superior powers. The reason why they risk their
lives is the affection that they feel for the children. Such affection is a
contrast to the wolf-like self-indulgence of the new people. Tuami and Vivani
reveal the twisted love of the new people that satisfies itself in inflicting
and receiving pain.

     In Chapter 9, Fa is the leader. Possessing a more practical intelligence,
she takes it upon herself to organize their raid on the new people. But when
she is lost, Lok comes into his own. Forced to be independent, he imitates
Mal, and with this acceptance of responsibility comes a new breakthrough in
intelligence. He becomes able to think like a man. He discovers the meaning of
"Like." The new people, he realizes, are fierce like wolves, sweet like honey,
wild like alcoholic beverages, powerful like the waterfall, and knowledgeable
like gods. Perceiving these various characteristics of the new people in terms
of simile, he creates a definition of man that would apply today to that
complex animal who combines elements of beauty and destructiveness.

     But, though Lok has learned a lot, not all his new knowledge is good. He
has learned of the violent impulses in himself freed under the influence of
liquor. At one point, he even suggests that Fa cut off his finger so that he
will be like the new people. Such tendencies to self-destruction seem to be
the price of the new understanding.

Chapters 11 and 12

     Fa and Lok awake the next morning with nausea and headache. They decide
to attempt, again, the recovery of the children, while the new people are
preoccupied with the portage of their canoes up the mountain and past the
waterfall. Fa plans to let herself be seen on the mountain above the new
people, to draw them after her while Lok steals the new one and Liku. Unable
to find Liku, Lok picks up Tanakil, then runs free while Fa is chased onto a
tree trunk floating in the river, which carries her to her death over the
fall. Much later in the day, Lok is alone, running on the cliff above the
river. Finally he drops down to the earth, apparently awaiting death.

One canoe is carrying what remains of the new people. They are glad to be free
of the "forest devils," the Neanderthals. Tanakil, seemingly mad, is calling
the name of Liku, who is presumably killed. The new one is in the canoe with
his mother, Vivani.

Comment:

     We are suprised, at the end of Chapter 11, to see Lok objectively
described as red-skinned, hairy, and beast-like, with arms that hang to the
ground. Then, in Chapter 12, we view the entire story from the point of view
of the new people, who look at the Neanderthals as devils, and have even left
behind in a cave an image of a Neanderthal, to ward off future attacks by evil
spirits. Each tribe misinterprets the other as divine and malevolent. And the
misunderstanding is greater on the part of the more highly developed society,
the more sophisticated and technologically superior Homo sapiens, who see the
simple, kindly Neanderthals as diabolical creatures. Technology does not,
apparently, bring wisdom.

     One man, Tuami, does achieve a self-realization that resembles the final
maturing of Lok's point of view. He sees how evil the world is, and, with the
experience of a guilty conscience, a sense of being "haunted, bedevilled,
full of strange irrational grief," he is able to read the symbolic meaning of
the journey. As the tribes of men move from beneath to above the falls, they
come, not to the paradisal summer land sought by the Neanderthals, nor to the
intellectual light that Tuami expects, but to a further chaos. The waterfall
is an ironic reminder of the fall of man. There is a sinister evil present in
man, sometimes associated with Adam and Eve's fall into Original Sin, that
impedes his upward progress. The title, The Inheritors, is appropriate because
it suggests the relationship that exists between the two tribes. The new
people inherit the earth from the Neanderthals to make of it what they will.
They have superior equipment. They have better minds. But intellect is no
guarantee of the defeat of the predatory instinct. This not only applies to
the early Homo sapiens inheriting characteristics from the Neanderthals, but
to modern man, too, who often seems to be going forward only to become lost
in the same chaos that threatens Tuami's group. Golding seems to be saying
that increased technology is useless without an improvement in moral
awareness. Further, the title provides an ironic commentary on the conditions
of the world. Christ promised in "The Sermon on the Mount" that the meek
should inherit the earth. The opposite, however, seems to be the case as the
meek Neanderthals are plowed under by their ruthless progeny. The meek, at the
end of the novel, are as good as extinct, with only one member of the species,
the new one, alive. Powerless ever to reproduce his kind, he has a merely
symbolic value as he stands for the guilt and the onus which man must bear for
his previous barbarities.

     Possibly, too, this is a story of a future age. Assume that the forest
fire that decimated the Neanderthals was an atomic war, and that the present
inhabitants of the world are humans retarded by the effects of radiation
poisoning. Here is the beginning of another world whose members are wandering
bands of primitive peoples learning all over again the rudimentary laws of
survival so that some time, aeons from now, they may once again achieve enough
sophistication in weapons to obliterate themselves.

Character Analyses

     Lok: Matures from a young and silly buffoon to a figure of tragic
dignity. He is kind and affectionate and has to be taught to fear and hate his
fellow man.

     Mal: The aged leader of the Neanderthals who is wise and crafty and
provident for the welfare of his people.

     Ha: Vigorous and heroic; he takes over the leadership of the tribe as Mal
becomes debilitated.

     The Old Woman: the wife of Mal, wise and dignified, she tends the sick
and provides leadership in the absence of Mal and Ha.

     Fa: Lok's mate, brave and stoical. She senses the responsibility that she
bears to her future progeny and so she is inclined to be more cautious than
Lok.

     Nil: Ha's mate.

     Liku: A young girl, a playmate of Lok's.

     The New One: Nil's baby boy, the hope of the future for the Neanderthals.

     Marlan: The old man who leads the tribe of Homo sapiens. He is crude,
selfish, and clever. He rules by fear.

     Tuami: Marlan's second in command. He is vicious and crafty. He steals
Marlan's wife. But there is an attractive calmness to Tuami. And he is the
only character to achieve a recognition of his guilt.

     Pine-Tree, Chestnut-Head, Bush, Tuft: Names given by Lok to some of
Marlan's warriors.

     Vivani: The luxuriant bride of Marlan, she pampers herself with splendid
furs. Having lost a baby of her own, she is able to nurse the new one.

     Twal: A middle-aged woman with a crumpled face, the mother of Tanakil and
probably the mate of Tuami.

     Tanakil - A young girl, a playmate of Liku when she is captured. She is
just beginning to learn to be cruel like the rest of the new people. Her
mother is Twal.