现实只有更残酷

This book is about revelation of the dark side of the human nature, about how reason succumbs to savageness and how a civilised society dismantles into pieces of brutality. The chiefdom consisting school boys in the novel is an allegory of human society in general. But the difference between the novel and the real life is that, in the former, the salvation lies in the rescue by an adult marine officer whereas in the adults' world, people can only count on themselves, if rescue exists at all.