There is no direct evidence that Heinlein intended Tunnel as a riposte toįlies: but many readers have assumed there to be a connection, and in any event the two works present a useful contrast in assessing human nature. Although there are important differences in the fact situations of these novels, their basic scenario is very similar, but they represent almost opposite treatments of human nature. In 1955, Robert Heinlein published his “juvenile” novel, Ralph, now alone, is hunted across the island by Jack and his tribe, and the story ends as Ralph prepares to make a last stand on the beach: he is saved in the final instant by a naval officer who has just debarked from a rescue ship. Ralph’s followers start to defect to Jack’s tribe: in one ugly confrontation, Ralph’s second-in-command, Piggy, is brutally killed. The confrontation between Ralph and Jack becomes ever more bellicose. One of the older boys, Ralph, assumes leadership of the group.Īt first, Ralph and the other boys maintain an approximation of civilization, but then-both through sheer boredom and resentment of the drudgery-one of the other boys, Jack, splits off and starts a rival group: a “tribe” of hunters with painted faces. When the story opens, they are just regrouping from their arrival, in the realization that there are no adults and that they are on their own. In Golding’s novel, a group of English schoolboys (ages twelve and under) have been evacuated under the threat of attack and subsequently stranded on a deserted tropical island. This novel, a minatory tale of children abandoned to their own devices in a post-apocalyptic world, is also a philosophical meditation on human nature. In 1954, British author William Golding published a short novel, Lord of the Flies. Indefinitely, he and the others endeavor to create a viable

Has gone wrong and they may be cast away on the planet Schools) on an unknown alien planet for what is ostensibly a Off (along with a number of his classmates and students from other SYNOPSIS: Rod Walker, a high-school student, is dropped

Heinlein tunnel in the sky