The Use Of Artistic License In The Clan Of The Cave Bear By Jean Auel And The Inheritors By William Golding

Jean Auel drew upon an extensive foundation of ecological, archaeological, and anthropological data for her novel The Clan of the Cave Bear, leading it to be a compelling story of survival and hope. On the other hand, William Golding was not as inclined to do the same for his novel The Inheritors. Despite this, Auel and Golding each used artistic license throughout their respective novels to convey a different message about modern humans. Auel used this through the character of Ayla and a certain event that transpired towards the end of the novel to express a major point relating to the future of human life. Golding decided to use his artistic license to make the Cro-Magnons a savage and ruthless group of people, as a way of conveying his opinion on the natural and unalterable state of man.

Auel decided to make the Neandertal group we follow a deeply rooted patriarchy, which is evidenced by the fact that the roles of men and women are both predetermined in their biology. When a Neandertal is born, they naturally possess a specific set of knowledge unique to their gender, such as skills in stone tool making, food preparation and for some high-status female bloodlines, medicine. Auel decided to have all clan members immune to the trait of learning and retaining new information, therefore making gender roles a rigid and permanent aspect of the clan (it is interesting to note that strict gender divisions were not necessary for the Neandertals in The Inheritors). Furthermore, the fact the Auel made Ayla an anatomically modern human instead of a Neandertal is a huge detail to take into account, since she was not born with those educational limitations the Neandertals are all characterized by. Therefore, Ayla had the capability of teaching herself how to hunt, as well as making stone tools and continuing Iza’s legacy as a medicine woman. Her ability to learn both women’s and men’s work was not only essential to her own survival throughout the novel, but Auel makes it apparent that it is a large part of the continuance and evolution of humankind for many years to come.

After reading her novel, a clear message Auel makes is that Ayla is the embodiment of the hopeful future. At one point towards the end of the novel, there was a ritual where Creb and a few other shamans connected their minds and ate the brain of a young man who was killed by a cave bear, as a way to inherit his traits of courage and bravery. This is a clear example of Auel switching between fact and fiction to further support the message she wants to convey. While there definitely is evidence that rituals were performed among these groups, Auel clearly though of a fictional one that would fit in with the plot of her novel. After Ayla mistakenly witnessed this bizarre cannibalistic affair, she had a vision of the extinction of the Neandertals and the future of her own Cro-Magnon species. A striking quote can be found on page 389, “She found her own way back to herself, and then a little beyond. She had a fleeting glimpse of the cave again, followed by a confusing kaleidoscope of landscapes, laid out not with the randomness of nature, but in regular patterns. Boxlike structures reared up from the earth and long ribbons of stone spread out, along which strange animals crawled at great speeds; huge birds flew without flapping their wings. ” Ayla’s vision of a modern world filled with buildings, roads, cars and airplanes makes it clear that we are her descendants. Despite the fact that the novel ends with Ayla being alone after she is banished from the clan, the audience is confident that she is fit to survive and will do just that. This further supports the message of how The Clan of the Cave Bear is not only a tale about Ayla’s coming of age, but also about humanity’s. It is not only Ayla who is surviving and carrying on; she also represents modern humans thriving for years to come.

These aspects are different from Golding’s motives in The Inheritors, as Golding’s major theme was that human beings are born with a natural capacity and tendency for evil. In his story, Golding uses artistic license to also have the anatomically modern humans be the species who inherit the Earth, but this is due to the fact that they killed off all the Neandertals. This contrasts from The Clan of the Cave Bear, since there were many Neandertals present in that world, but we started off with just the last eight in The Inheritors. Golding decided to emphasize that the strong survive, and the world is not a place for the meek. He makes a comparison between the primitive man who he views as innocent and naive, and the new man who is more aggressive and complicated. Golding labeled the characters with short straightforward names such as Lok, Fa, and Ha to stress the simplicity of the society. When the new tribe of more advanced humans discover the Neandertals, they immediately consider them to be “devils of the forest” and try to kill them. However, the Neandertals are too naive to realize the motives of the new people, and they are merely confused when they realize their members disappearing. In the end, the majority of the world’s Neandertals die (except for one on board the ship at the end), and the Cro-Magnons are the inheritors of the earth.

The murders of the primitive men in The Inheritors symbolize the end of an era. A time of innocence ended at the hands of a devious, evil people. The Cro-Magnons assumed that the Neandertals were evil without first carefully observing them to discover what their true nature was. In reality, they were a gentle species who cared for each other and were one with nature; they even chose to only eat animals that were killed by other animals. The first reaction of the new people was to kill the outcasts just because they were different. This can be compared to the story of Jesus Christ, who walked the Earth as a different type of man. His unique holiness was a threat to the Pharisees, so they had him killed without first observing what his true nature was. Golding was aware of this when he wrote The Inheritors and he included the comparison to not only point out human’s lack of ability to accept others, but to also trace this flaw back to their roots. Another example of how Golding decided to portray modern humans as being evil can be seen when you compare the leadership of Mal to that of Marlan, who is the aggressive Cro-Magnon leader. At one point in the story, Marlan has Tuami paint a deer while the rest of the humans begin chanting for a ritual. Someone was then chosen to have his finger cut off by Tuami, as a sacrifice to the animal. Others decide to shoot a deer, as an act of power they think was gifted to them. This shows that even in this group’s religious rituals, there is a sense of bloodshed and fear, which can be attributed to the Cro-Magnons’ innate violent tendencies.

The concluding scene in The Inheritors portrays the Cro-Magnons sailing aimlessly away on a vast lake. Golding provides a clear and somewhat somber representation of the directionless state of man. This is the symbol he chose to use to illustrate the hopelessness and emptiness of man's heart. The opposite is apparent in Auel’s novel, which ends on a more brighter note of Ayla moving on from the Neandertal clan to find her own people and continue both her own and the modern humans’ legacy. However, despite each author having a different perspective on the natural-born characteristics of humans, both use artistic license when it comes to either character traits or specific events in their stories, in order to convey their respective messages about mankind.