Every night, Ralph's sleep patterns must have been getting
worse due to a desire to escape.
"Ralph settled himself for his nightly game of
supposing."
"Nightly"
suggests frequency here, and "supposing" suggests purpose: to
escape.
He begun again to dream about the ponies and the
cottage where he and his folks would live. In this cottage lifestyle, he would find
comfort, something far removed from his current life. He would experience the challenge
of the ponies, riding and caring for them. He mentions Dartmoor and Devon, obvious
locations that he has fond recollections of or at least he longs to go
there.
This section is so significant because he is longing
for anything that is the opposite of the current savage
experience.
"His mind skated to a consideration of a tamed
town where savagery could not set foot. What could be safer than the bus center with its
lamps and wheels?"
This dream
gives him the opportunity to escape for just moments, but the greater impact is the fact
that Ralph can't escape physically at all. He is tied into this savagery whether he
wants to be or not and the impact of evil is going to keep infiltrating the boys unless
relief arrives. He allows his mind to travel because it is the only part of him that
can, but that is not good because when his mind is "away" from his body, he cannot
defend himself from the savagery around him.
He continues
in and out of this dream as his body wakes him because it twitches and spasms while he
dreams. This suggests either a vivid dreamer or a tortured sleeper or both. Ralph so
longs for civilization that his dream cites the excitement of riding on a bus of all
things.
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