Good question.
The littluns
are not major characters in the novel as a whole and do not have a massive part to play
in the development of the story. But Golding does very cleverly make their story clear
as a subplot to the main events with the older boys.
They
are often a barometer for how the boys as a whole are
feeling:
Have
you been awake at night?' Jack shook his head.'They talk and scream.
The littluns. Even some of the others. As if-''As if it wasn't a good
island.'
The terror of the
littluns is only heightened later at the meeting when first Ralph and then Jack entirely
fail to crush the silly rumours of the idea of a monster. Jack, in particular, has
absolutely no sympathy for them at all:
'So this is a meeting to find out what's what.
I'll tell you what's what. You littluns started all this with the fear talk. Beasts!
Where from? Of course we're frightened sometimes but we put up with being frightened...
Anyway, you don't hunt or build or help-you're a lot of cry-babies and
sissies.
Neither Ralph nor
Jack seems to know how to appeal to the littler boys, and it is only Piggy (who, of
course, takes responsibilty right at the start for getting all of their names down) and
Simon (I'll come back to him in a second) who know how to ease their fear and make them
feel better. This meeting, though, ends in the littluns screaming with
terror:
....the littluns were no longer silent. They were
reminded of their personal sorrows; and perhaps felt them¬selves to share in a sorrow
that was universal. They began to cry in sympathy, two of them almost as loud as
Percival.
At the end of the
chapter, too, Golding closes ominously on the wailing from the utterly terrified
Percival:
A
thin wail out of the darkness chilled them and set them grabbing for each other. Then
the wail rose, remote and unearthly, and turned to an inarticulate gibbering. Percival
Wemys Madison, of the Vicarage, Harcourt St. Anthony, lying in the long grass, was
living through circumstances in which the incantation of his address was powerless to
help him.
It is an incredibly
sympathetic picture: these are very small boys ("tiny tots", as they are seen at the end
by the Naval Officer) away from home, and entirely without comfort. And the blame for
that has to lie at the feet of the older boys - except perhaps Piggy and certainly
Simon.
Simon, in line with the Jesus-like role he plays in
the novel, helps out those less fortunate for him, at one point actually passing fruit
to the littluns, who by later in the novel appear to have been forgotten about
altogether:
Simon found for them the fruit they could not
reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the
endless, outstretched hands. When he had satisfied them he paused and looked round. The
littluns watched him inscrutably over double handfuls of ripe
fruit.
So if you're writing
this essay, focus on the early death of the birthmark boy and the rise of the littluns
terror. Say some positive things about Simon. But the truth of the matter is - and this
is a good point in itself - the bigger boys, by the end of the novel, hardly take the
littluns into account at all. We don't even hear how they are managing (or not) to
survive.
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