In Lord of the Flies, in what ways have the boys experienced the darkness of a man's heart? How do you think their lives will be forever...

Thomas Wolfe's famous novel, You Can't Go Home
Again, best expresses the experience of the boys on the
island:

The
phrase had many implication for him.  You can't go back to your family, back home to our
childhood, back home to romantic love,...back home to a young man's dreams of glory and
of fame, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to
atheticism, to one's youthful
ideas....

As he has "a
fleeting picuture of the strange glamour that had once invested the beaches," Ralph
knows that he cannot go back to innocence, for he has seen "evil that men do"
[Julius Caesar].  Two boys are dead; others such as Roger are given
over to their base nature of sadism; several have been reduced to squealing, masked,
blood-thirsty savages.  With the death of Simon and Piggy are the deaths of rationality
and kindness. Ralph will always be wary of any one with whom he has a relationship,
knowing that their is something lurking within the
person.

Truly, the boys cannot "go home again."  They are
forever changed, for they have witnessed the inner darkness of man.  Knowing it, they
will always be watchful, fearing its reoccurrence.