The Inheritors is the 1955 second novel by the British author William Golding, best known for Lord of the Flies. It was his personal favorite of all his novels and concerns the extinction of the last remaining tribe of Neanderthals at the hands of the more sophisticated (and malevolent) newly-evolved Homo sapiens.
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 a...
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The Inheritors is the 1955 second novel by the British author William Golding, best known for Lord of the Flies. It was his personal favorite of all his novels and concerns the extinction of the last remaining tribe of Neanderthals at the hands of the more sophisticated (and malevolent) newly-evolved Homo sapiens.
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. However, as the novel progresses it becomes more and more apparent that they live primitive lives, with little intelligence and severely under-lexicalised vocabulary.
The plot centers on one neanderthal, Lok, who rises among his small band to prominence when the elder members are killed by a group of early modern humans. The humans are portrayed as strange, godlike beings as the neanderthals witness...
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