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The Inheritors (William Golding)
Encyclopedia
The Inheritors is the 1955
second novel by the British author William Golding
, best known for Lord of the Flies
. It was his personal favourite of all his novels and concerns the extinction of the last remaining tribe of Neanderthal
s at the hands of the more sophisticated (and malevolent) Homo sapiens.
One of the band, Lok, is a point of view character. He is the one we follow as one by one the adults of the band die or are killed, then the young are stolen by the "new people," a group of early modern humans. Lok and Fa, the remaining adults, are fascinated and repelled by the new people. They observe their actions and rituals with amazement, only slowly understanding that harm is meant by the sticks of the new people
The humans are portrayed as strange, godlike beings as the neanderthals witness their mastery of fire, Upper Palaeolithic weaponry and sailing.
All save the last chapters of the novel are written from the Neanderthals' stark, simple stylistics (linguistics)
perspective. Their observations of early human behaviour serve as a filter for Golding's exercise in paleoanthropology
, in which modern readers will recognize precursors of later human societal constructs, e.g., religion, culture, sacrifice and war.
The penultimate chapter employs an omniscient viewpoint, observing Lok. For the first time, the novel describes the people the reader has been inhabiting through the first-person perspective. Lok, totally alone, gives up in despair.
In the final chapter, we move to the point of view of the new race, more or less modern humans fleeing in their boats, revealing that they are terribly afraid of the Neanderthals whom they believe to be devils of the forest. This last chapter, the only one written from the humans' point of view, reinforces the inheritance of the world by the new species.
One interesting anomaly is that the fleeing humans carry with them an infant neanderthal, of whom they are simultaneously afraid and enamoured.
1955 in literature
The year 1955 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*28 May - Philip Larkin makes a train journey from Hull to London which inspires his poem The Whitsun Weddings....
second novel by the British author William Golding
William Golding
Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies...
, best known for Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding about a group of British boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results...
. It was his personal favourite of all his novels and concerns the extinction of the last remaining tribe of Neanderthal
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
s at the hands of the more sophisticated (and malevolent) Homo sapiens.
Plot introduction
This novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the life of a band of Neanderthals. It is written in such a way that the reader might assume the group to be modern Homo sapiens as they gesture and speak simply among themselves, and bury their dead with heartfelt, solemn rituals. They also have powerful sense impressions and feelings, and appear sometimes to share thoughts in a near-telepathic way. As the novel progresses it becomes more and more apparent that they live very simply, using their considerable mental abilities to connect to one another without extensive vocabulary or the kinds of memories that create culture. They have wide knowledge of food sources, mostly roots and vegetables. They chase hyaenas from a larger beast's kill and eat meat, but they don't kill mammals themselves. They have a spiritual system centring on a female principle of bringing forth, but their lives are lived so much in the present that the reader realizes they are very different from us, living in something like an eternal present, or at least a present broken and shaped by seasons.One of the band, Lok, is a point of view character. He is the one we follow as one by one the adults of the band die or are killed, then the young are stolen by the "new people," a group of early modern humans. Lok and Fa, the remaining adults, are fascinated and repelled by the new people. They observe their actions and rituals with amazement, only slowly understanding that harm is meant by the sticks of the new people
The humans are portrayed as strange, godlike beings as the neanderthals witness their mastery of fire, Upper Palaeolithic weaponry and sailing.
All save the last chapters of the novel are written from the Neanderthals' stark, simple stylistics (linguistics)
Stylistics (linguistics)
Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own...
perspective. Their observations of early human behaviour serve as a filter for Golding's exercise in paleoanthropology
Paleoanthropology
Paleoanthropology, which combines the disciplines of paleontology and physical anthropology, is the study of ancient humans as found in fossil hominid evidence such as petrifacted bones and footprints.-19th century:...
, in which modern readers will recognize precursors of later human societal constructs, e.g., religion, culture, sacrifice and war.
The penultimate chapter employs an omniscient viewpoint, observing Lok. For the first time, the novel describes the people the reader has been inhabiting through the first-person perspective. Lok, totally alone, gives up in despair.
In the final chapter, we move to the point of view of the new race, more or less modern humans fleeing in their boats, revealing that they are terribly afraid of the Neanderthals whom they believe to be devils of the forest. This last chapter, the only one written from the humans' point of view, reinforces the inheritance of the world by the new species.
One interesting anomaly is that the fleeing humans carry with them an infant neanderthal, of whom they are simultaneously afraid and enamoured.
See also
- Neanderthal interaction with Cro-Magnons
- Dance of the TigerDance of the TigerDance of the Tiger is a short novel, published in English in 1980, by palaeontologist Björn Kurtén that deals with the interaction between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons...
, a novel depicting Neandertal and Cro-Magnon interaction, by paleontologist Björn KurténBjörn KurténBjörn Olof Lennartson Kurtén was a distinguished vertebrate paleontologist. He belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. He was a professor in paleontology at the University of Helsinki from 1972 up to his death in 1988...