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Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL) Vol.5.Issue 1. 2017 A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal (Jan-Mar) http://www.rjelal.com; Email:[email protected] RESEARCH ARTICLE THE INHERITOR: A STUDY OF MAN ON THE SLIPPERY SCALE OF EVOLUTION Dr MRIGENDRA NARAYAN SINGH Assistant Professor of English, Giridih College, Giridih, Jharkhand [email protected] ABSTRACT In The Inheritors Golding attempts to highlight that man, the chosen creature of God, is beyond the concept of evaluation. Evaluation always favours progress but this is not happening with man. As soon as he gets chance to use his free will, he takes very little time to slip back towards his primal stage of evaluation. For many years in his life, Golding had lived in that part of England, which was embedded, with the signs of the remotest times in human history. Living in such a place, it was not surprising, then, that Wells’ The Outline was an important book in Golding’s life. He was initiated to it by his father’s extreme rationalism. But then came the world war ll and the explosion of atom bomb exploded all the concept of The Outline. In The Inheritors, the Neanderthal cave men personify the sanctity and innocence of man’s heart. In the ‘advanced’ homo sapiens, who is surely the ancestor of modern man, Golding personifies vileness and dark fear. The frightened New men, our early parents, behave in very much the same way as the small children generally do. Golding points out that evolution has wrought no change in our primitive animal nature except for bringing about a few physiological changes. Most prominent among these changes is our ‘evolved’ brain, which is capable of taking decisions, and takes more wrong ones than right ones. We remain hunters and vain ritualists. We continue to perpetrate annihilation on our fellow beings. We are, thus, no better-off than we were. We have become only worst. The point of our rise has also been the point of our fall. ©KY PUBLICATIONS In The Inheritors Golding attempts to it by his father’s extreme rationalism. But then highlight that man, the chosen creature of God, is came the world war ll and the explosion of atom beyond the concept of evaluation. Evaluation bomb exploded all the concept of The Outline. After always favours progress but this is not happening the war, Wells story now seemed to be only “brash with man. As soon as he gets chance to use his free optimism”. Here are Golding’s words on it: will, he takes very little time to slip back towards his Yes, there’s the brash optimism that H.G. primal stage of evaluation. For many years in his Wells exhibits in The Outline of History... I life, Golding had lived in that part of England, which got this from my father... It seemed to me was embedded, with the signs of the remotest too neat and slick. And when I re-read it as times in human history. Living in such a place, it was an adult I came across his picture of not surprising, then, that Wells’ The Outline was an Neanderthal man, our immediate important book in Golding’s life. He was initiated to predecessors, as being the gross brutal 209 Dr MRIGENDRA NARAYAN SINGH Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL) Vol.5.Issue 1. 2017 A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal (Jan-Mar) http://www.rjelal.com; Email:[email protected] creatures who were possibly the basis of But the similarity ends here; from here the mythological bad man, whatever he Golding makes an about turn. Instead of copying may be, the ogre.”1 Wells blindly, Golding now starts reading between Dented with the blood-curdling the lines. Against Wells’ theory, Golding’s cave men experiences of the war and disillusioned about are of gentle disposition, extremely naive and human mental superiority by Nazi totalitarian rules innocent without the ability to decipher the evil in and concentration camps, the refinement and the hearts of the New men. They live in a close-knit advancement that the rest of the world believed in, group and share love and loyalty. They are not the had lost its meaning for Golding. He had seen how cannibals that Wells has hinted them to be. On the men had evolved into Hitlers and Stalins. Golding contrary, it is the New men who are shown to be makes a qualitative, rather than a quantitative child-snatchers and violators of sanctity. Unable to analysis of the evolutionary victory of the homo sustain themselves under new conditions created sapiens over the Neanderthalensis. And to indicate, for them by the New men, they fall victim to their as if, that he intended to blast the Wellsian view of own over-simplicity and inviolate pure nature. the evolution of man. He places at the beginning of Thus, by inverting the flattering Wellsian his novel, as epigraph, the very words of Wells picture of the descent of modern man, Golding aims describing the Neanderthal man as an ‘ogre’. As to cure the world of Ballantyne-like illusions. He John Peter said, “The very core of the book is ironic studies modern man and his future in terms of the for its purpose to play-off against our snug Neanderthal and his past. By tilting the scales in prejudices – like those of the epigraph – a favour of the Homo Neanderthalensis, Golding representation of their ground that is as humiliating points out subtly to the fact that the very homo as it is unexpected”.2 sapiens, whom we proudly call our ancestors, were According to Golding, we are all victims of corrupt and violent people. Howsoever advanced our self-created illusions. We conveniently pass the we may think ourselves to be, we still retain the buck onto the Neanderthalers when it comes to specks of crude primitive qualities. These surface owning up for the beastliness in us. Golding shows through the chinks of our civilized life in the form of in his second and most challenging novel that wars and genocides. They animate our dreams and howsoever we may progress on the scale of make our modern lives archetypal patterns of the evolution, we are essentially sick of blind conceit. life of pre-historic men. This can be seen in our We are just ‘advanced’ hunters, nothing more. We physiology, which carries the remains of our early may have inherited the earth from the form of life as the coccyx at the end of our vertebral Neanderthalers, but we are certainly not meek. column. We carry the flaws of our evolution as a Thus, Golding designs The Inheritors to counter the tree carries its rings. Frank Kermode rightly points commonly held illusion that Homo sapiens were the out the difference in attitude between Golding and improved version of Homo Neanderthalensis. H.G. Wells when he says: Golding’s Neanderthals are the true copy The difference between Golding and Wells of Wells’ beings in their physical appearances, of The Outline is simple: to Wells the expect that they are red, and not grey. Golding’s success of the high-foreheaded, weapon- Neanderthal is also hairy, crouched and ape-like bearing, carnivorous homo-sapiens was with no nose, forehead or chin. They are a group of progress, but to Golding it was the defeat eight people who are led by an Old Man. They, too, of innocence, the sin of Adam seen in do not kill animals for food and eat meat only as terms of a new kind of history.3 secondary predators. This may be due to an When the story begins, Golding places before us the absence of canines in their dentures. They bury final days in the life of a small group of their dead with reverence. Again, like Wells’ Neanderthalers. Golding calls this group “the primitives, they are afraid of water and use a log to people” instead of “Mouseterians” or “Homo cross a river. Neanderthalensis”. The term “the people”, as if, 210 Dr MRIGENDRA NARAYAN SINGH Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL) Vol.5.Issue 1. 2017 A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal (Jan-Mar) http://www.rjelal.com; Email:[email protected] almost immediately lends to the group a humane Golding shows here how the brain of the quality. The group consists of eight members – Neanderthal man, incapable of ‘thinking’, and three couples and two children. The first pair is that unacquainted with the evil and malice that man is of Mal, an old man who is also the head of the capable of, cannot conceived any mischief behind group, and the nameless Old Woman who carries the incident. The group of unsuspecting fire in a ball of clay. The second couple is that of Lok Neanderthalers get together to restore the birch- and his mate, Fa. Fa carries in her arms her baby log. But while crossing the stream an unfortunate which is simply called “the new one”. The last incident occurs. Mal, the old man, slip and falls into couple consists of the male, Ha, and his female, Nil. the water. Lastly, there is the little girl named Liku who always At last they are able to reach their camping carries her Oa doll. From the very beginning, it is ground at the base of the waterfall. The snows on made apparent to the reader that these are pre- the mountain have not thawed yet, and Mal realizes verbal people incapable of comprehending and that he has miscalculated the time of migration and analyzing things clearly.