Lord of the Flies: The Epilogue
By April J. Halloway
Written on April 16, 2004Jack was put into a mental hospital after the island. After several months in a special institution, he became 'sane'….at least as sane as anyone could be after what took place on the island. To his dieing day he remembered and regretted his actions there, having nightmares nearly every night, though they diminished after he met the woman of his dreams, married, and had two children. Their names were Jonathan and Mary.
Roger was also put into a mental hospital. He spent many years there, being slightly older than Jack and more set in his ways. Unfortunately, after convincing the doctors that he was 'cured', he took his own life at age 17, shooting himself in the head with his father's pistol. There is a granite tombstone in a small cemetery outside his hometown, kept up over the years by his family.
Ralph went on and tried to live a normal life. He went to school, and hung out with friends. He went to college, earning a degree in psychology; he became a child psychologist. Like Jack, he had many nightmares. He also married and had two children: Tom and Simon. (let's just pretend Piggy's real name was Tom…)
Samneric, like Ralph, went to school and did things normal kids would do. They both became athletes, Sam a star baseball player, and Eric a track runner. They tried to forget the island, but neither of them could. Nonetheless, they both married as Ralph and Jack did, Sam having two twin girls named Rose and June, and Eric having a little boy he named Ralph. To this day they keep in touch with Ralph, whom their children call Uncle Ralphy.
The youngest of the littluns eventually forgot about the island and all that happened there. Most of them couldn't, though they managed to push it to the back of their minds. The oldest ones kept in touch with Ralph and Samneric, leading, for the most part, normal lives.
Each of the boys who were at the island held something, deep inside, that would push them towards the right path. Jack had been the most bloodthirsty back then, but learned from that experience that only with carefully set rules and boundaries can a civilization survive. Roger had learned the same, though he didn't believe that a real civilization could exist in real peace, and, not wishing to see the world destroyed in the same way the island had been, he took himself out of it. Ralph had like knowledge, and wanted to help children who were in need of rescuing from inner turmoil, hoping to succeed in helping them grasp values that would help civilization itself. Sam and Eric also knew it, keeping it inside themselves and teaching it to their children. The littluns had something of that manner in their minds, though some didn't recognize it, and it kept them from going astray.
Hopefully William Golding's tale will teach others the same, and maybe eventually we'll have a peaceful and truly civilized world.