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“I should have thought,” said the officer as he visualized the search before him, “I should have thought that a pack of British boys–you’re all British, aren’t you–would have been able to put up a better show than that.”
The naval officer appears in the last few pages of the book when he lands on the deserted island and ultimately rescues the surviving boys, and Ralph from death at the hands of Jack's tribe. When the officer realizes the boys have descended into such blatant savagery, he expresses disappointment because he believes British boys, thought to be the height of civility, should have been able to “put up a better show than that,” which highlights his hypocrisy and ignorance; the fact is the boys are indeed a product of the society in which they were raised, and that society is, stripped of the mask of so-called civility, inherently barbaric.
Read an analysis of the naval officer.
Simon was dead―and Jack had.... The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too.
In the middle of his conversation with the naval officer, Ralph completely breaks down as he finally confronts the horror of everything that has happened on the island. He is crying not only out of grief for his friends Simon and Piggy, but also for the loss of innocence and the destruction of civilization itself. The other boys’ shared sobbing reflects their collective realization of what they've done, and what they’ve become.
Read an essay about the ending of the novel.
And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.
When Ralph sees the naval officer, his sudden realization that he is safe and will be returned to civilization plunges him into a reflective despair. The rescue is not a moment of unequivocal joy, for Ralph realizes that, although he is saved from death on the island, he will never be the same. He has lost his innocence and learned about the evil that lurks within all human beings. Here, Golding explicitly connects the sources of Ralph’s despair to two of the main themes of the novel: the end of innocence and the “darkness of man’s heart,” the presence of savage instincts lurking within all human beings, even at the so-called height of civilization.
