Walkabout

This is the second time we've seen an episode open on with a shot of the Opening Eye. This time we see the eye of John Locke, the cheerful bald guy who used to work in an office, confined to a wheelchair, and dreaming of high adventure. Locke has a huge gash above and below his eye, and that's probably the his least remarkable feature. The Opening Eye is a reminder for us to keep our eyes open, to pay attention.

This is the first flashback that occurs on the Island.

The moment is twinned later in the episode. The exact same camera angle is used, from the bottom of Locke's foot.

At least we now know why this guy has been a bit cheerier than the rest of the Lostaways! I love it when a mystery is solved.

Names

We learn some more names for our supporting characters. The pregnant woman is named Claire, we learn, as she discusses the funeral arrangements with Jack. We find out that the name of Walt's father is Michael when he "arranges" for the Korean woman Sun to take care of his boy while he goes on a boar hunt. We also find out why Michael didn't know whether his son knew Spanish or not from his conversation with Kate:

Kate: Your son, how's he handling all of this?
Michael: A hell of a lot better than I am.
Kate: You must be proud. He's a brave kid.
Michael: Yeah. I can't take credit for that. I wasn't part of his life. ?Til his mother passed away, 2 weeks ago.
Kate: I'm sorry. I didn't know.
Michael: That's okay. They were living in Sydney the past couple of years. I flew out last week, to, you know, go get him. What were you doing in Australia?
Locke: Shhh.

Locke shushes the question which asks about Kate's past, which Kate no doubt wants not to share again.

The black woman is named Rose. She believes that her husband Bernard survived despite being in the tail section of the doomed plane. She and Jack sit on the beach together, quiet, while she fingers her husband's ring. She has it because Bernard's fingers get bloated on airplanes. Rose is not easy to get a bead on, though. She's still in shock, but she knows it and recognizes that shock in others. And while she thinks that Jack became a doctor because he's got "a good soul, patient, caring," Jack rebuts that he's just following the family business model.

Most importantly, it is confirmed that our clue from Tabula Rasa has panned out. Our cheerful bald friend, Mr. Locke, is indeed named John. We hear it first while he plays Axis and Allies on his lunch break with one of his buddies, and again during his phone conversation with Helen. So, let's find out a little bit more of this eponymous source.

John Locke, 1632 - 1704.

John Locke was born to Puritan parents in Wrington, England, and received an excellent education at Westminster School in London. Locke was a King's Scholar, a very privileged position that gained him admission to Oxford. Locke studied with such famous scientists as Newton and Boyle, and determined to become a doctor. By 1666, Locke had teamed up with Dr. David Thomas to run a laboratory, probably a pharmacy.

Through Thomas, Locke met Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, one of the richest men in England and later the Earl of Shaftesbury, and became his personal physician. Lord Ashley also helped secure a government job for Locke, and for the next ten years or so Locke lived at Exeter House, Lord Ashley's estate. Locke eventually went back to Oxford and received a Bachelor of Medicine and a license to practice.

Lord Ashley, John Locke, and many others eventually went into exile for their support of rebels taking down the monarchy. While in Holland, Locke finished his most important work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In 1688, Locke returned home to England after the Glorious Revolution overthrew the monarchy and the balance of power shifted to Parliament. Afterwards, he took residence with Sir Francis and Lady Masham in Essex. Lady Masham was a love interest of Locke's, but she married while Locke was in exile. Locke retired from government service in 1700, and passed away in October, 1704.

Locke's Works

In concluding his Essay, Locke deals with the nature of reason, the relation of reason to faith. Locke defines reason as, "the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions or truths, which the mind arrives at by deduction made from such ideas, as it has got by the use of its natural faculties... by the use of sensation or reflection." On the other hand, faith is assent to any proposition "...upon the credit of the proposer, as coming from God, in some extraordinary way of communication." To Locke, we should only have Faith in that which is disclosed by revelation and which cannot be discovered by reason.

Locke makes the point that we can have knowledge of something from reason and faith. For example, God could reveal the propositions of Euclid's geometry, or they could be discovered by reason. In such cases there would be little use for faith. Traditional revelation can never produce as much certainty as the contemplation of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas. Similarly revelations about matters of fact do not produce as much certainty as having the experience one self. Revelation, he argues, cannot contradict what we know to be true. If it could, it would undermine the trustworthiness of all of our faculties. This would be a disastrous result. So, in respect to the crucial question of how we are to know whether a revelation is genuine, we are supposed to use reason and the canons of probability to judge.

Locke debunked theories of absolute monarchy, laying some of the groundwork for the overthrow of the monarchy in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke's account involves two important notions common in seventeenth and eighteenth century political philosophy -- natural rights theory and the social contract. Natural rights are those rights which we are supposed to have as human beings before ever government comes into being. We might suppose, that like other animals, we have a natural right to struggle for our survival. Locke will argue that we have a right to the means to survive.

When Locke comes to explain how government comes into being, he uses the idea that people agree that their condition in the state of nature is unsatisfactory, and so agree to transfer some of their rights to a central government, while retaining others. This is the theory of the social contract. There are many versions of natural rights theory and the social contract in seventeenth and eighteenth century European political philosophy, some conservative and some radical. Locke's version belongs on the radical side of the spectrum. These radical natural right theories influenced the ideologies of the American and French revolutions.

Leadership

The social contract is evident in Lost. The people on the beach find their "return to nature" unsatisfactory. But rather than explicitly agreeing to form a central government, they simply band together and try to do what they can to make their lives a little bit better. From the first episode on, we see a number of individuals stepping up to pull together the community of Lostaways. Hurley distributes the last of the airplane food. Locke leads the hunt, and brings home food to the camp. Sayid organizes groups of people to gather valuables from the fuselage, wood for the fire, and fresh water as best they can. He also led the group up the mountain in search of a good signal. Only Sawyer is seen to act in pure self-interest, without regard for others. Locke's namesake would find Sawyer appalling.

Still, everyone always comes back to Jack. Jack, who saved many lives those first few minutes, is ostensibly the leader of the group. He wasn't elected, and he didn't claim power on his own. Yet everyone comes to Jack, as if he were the shephard of the group. Although Sayid asks everyone to keep mum on the Frenchwoman's transmission, Jack is still informed through Kate. Sayid keeps Jack informed about the camp's reaction to the dying US Marshal, and Hurley is always around trying to help. Jack overrules Sayid about burning the fuselage and the bodies therein. It's Jack who's pegged to sit with Rose and lead her out of her depression over the loss of her husband.

Jack may be the leader, but his reach isn't all encompassing. When Claire asks him to help with a reading at the funeral, Jack is at a loss. He seems to have no idea as to what his role should be in this ritual. When the fuselage is finally burned, it isn't Jack up there reading the names of the dead, but Claire. Jack doesn't even participate, sitting off to the side in his own thoughts. Jack is no spiritual leader for this group.

The other side of leadership is also shown through Locke's story. He is constantly chafing at authority. His boss, Randy, is snide and condescending, using his petty power to make life hard for Locke. He tells Locke that he couldn't possibly go on this Walkabout, and threatens him for using the phone for personal matters. Locke can't even exercise authority on the phone with his "girlfriend" Helen, and he's paying for it as well. Finally, Locke is denied his experience in Australia from the tour guide. Throughout the episode, Locke's cry resonates: "Don't tell me what I can't do."


The Spiritual Journey

"Not that you would understand, but a Walkabout is a journey of spiritual renewal, where one derives strength from the earth. And becomes inseparable from it." The Walkabout is a spiritual journey, and yes, it's supposed to involve walking and hunting and gathering, insofar as Westerners have deduced from their limited exposure to the Rites of Passage of Australian Aborigines. Anyways, our central character this episode has indeed gone off on a Walkabout. John has become renewed on the Island, miraculously cured, and has survived no worse for wear after encountering the mysterious presence that killed the pilot. He is not the same man he was just days ago. He wanted a Walkabout, and he got one in spades.

"Walkabout" has a few other meanings, too. It can refer to a person who has unexpectedly wandered off to an uncertain destination, or to an object that has gone missing. Both these meanings fit nicely with Lost. All the Losties are walkabout with respect to the outside world; they are missing, lost, and their destination is most uncertain.

"Walkabout" is also a book by James Vance Marshall. The story is about two young siblings, Mary and Peter, who are lost as a result of a plane crash in Australia. Having no food, they set out across the desert. They meet an Aborigine, but they fail completely to communicate. Still, they follow him from waterhole to waterhold; he helps them eat, and they develop a very limited rapport. Unfortunately, Peter has brought the flu with him, and the Aborigine gets very sick. He dies, and they bury him. They finish their trek across the land, eventually finding civilization. The book plays a bit with light and dark - the survivors are white, the aborigine is black, and there's much ado about the fact that the aborigine is naked.

Heart of Darkness

"Tell me something, how come every time there's a hike into the heart of darkness you sign up?" Jack's invocation of Joseph Conrad's canonical piece of literature cannot go untouched. The invocation is apt on many levels. On the surface, Jack is right: The jungle is unknown, "dark" to our Lostaways. Jack and Kate know especially that danger lurks there. There's also allusion to Locke. He's referred to as "Colonel" in his flashbacks, though he doesn't actually have military experience. In Francis Ford Coppola's version of the story, Apocalypse Now, the charismatic demigod Kurtz is actually a Colonel; he too is bald and enigmatic. Heart of Darkness is also apt in that it employs a frame narrative - a story in a story - much like the flashbacks in Lost. Both stories are highly symbolic, setting themes of lightness and darkness, civilization and the jungle, society and the individual in ambiguous conflict. Our characters have hints of darkness in their hearts, yet all seem capable of salvation even as they are removed from civilization to the wilderness.

The show also has a heart of darkness, with its morally ambiguous characters and tricksy writing. Kate engages in lies and omissions, trying desperately to leave her past behind. Even with the petty stuff, she's coy. She says she's a vegetarian, yet we saw her eating bacon and eggs back in Australia with Farmer Ray Mullen. The constant bickering between Shannon and her brother Boone suggests more than sibling rivalry. We see Shannon manipulate Charlie into getting her some fish; indeed, she's caught a fish of her very own. Jack is judgmental, Sawyer is selfish, and Hurley probably ate most of the food. Michael fails to relate with his son, Walt. These are engaging characters, with real faults and weaknesses.

We are left engaged with Lost's secrets and mysteries, even as they are slowly revealed. We learn a bit of Locke's strangeness, but now we have new questions: How did Locke end up in a wheelchair? How was he cured? What happened with him and the "monster"? Why is Kate on the run? And what exactly is up with the guy in a suit that Jack keeps seeing?

Sawyer has a much bigger light than Jack, but stays behind Jack as they shed light on the fuselage.

When the boars emerge from the fuselage, Jack yells "Run!"

Locke smiles curiously after he answers "boars" to the question of what just passed. This is the same smile we see at the end when the wheelchair burns.

Charlie is injured by the boars.

"They're gone... and we're not." Mirror.

Jack: "We don't have time to sort out everybody's god."
Charlie: "Really? Last I heard we were positively made of time."

Despite Jack's pessimism, he still has hope, hence burning the fuselage after sundown.

"You either have very good aim, or very bad aim."


From the Wiki:

In Greek mythology two boars are particularly well known. The Erymanthian Boar was hunted by Hercules as one of his Twelve Labours, and the Calydonian Boar was hunted in the Calydonian Hunt by dozens of other mythological heroes, including some of the Argonauts and the huntress Atalanta.

In Celtic mythology the boar was sacred to the goddess Arduinna [1] [2], and boar hunting features in several stories of Celtic and Irish mythology. One such story is that of how Fionn mac Cumhaill ("Finn McCool") lured his rival Diarmuid Ua Duibhne to his death - gored by a wild boar.

The Norse gods Freyr and Freyja both had boars. Freyr's boar was named Gullinbursti ("Golden Mane"), who was manufactured by the Sons of Ivaldi as a gift to Freyr. The bristles in Gullinbursti's mane glowed in the dark to illuminate the way for his owner. Freya rode the boar Hildesvini (Battle Swine) when she was not using her cat-drawn chariot. According to the poem Hyndluljóe, Freyja concealed the identity of her protégé Ottar by turning him into a boar. In Norse Mythology, the boar was generally associated with fertility as well as a protective talisman in war, due to the animal's sometimes fierce nature.

In Persia (Iran) during Sassanid Empire, boars were respected as fierce and brave creatures and the adjective "Boraz (Goraz)" meaning Boar was sometimes added to a person's name to show his bravery and courage. The famous Sassanid spahbod, Shahrbaraz, who conquered Egypt and the Levant, had his name derived Shar + Baraz meaning "Boar of the Kingdom" 3 boars are seen on the Grimsby coat of arms.

Also, in Hindu mythology, the third avatar of the Lord Vishnu was Varaha, a boar.

In Chinese horoscope the boar (sometimes also translated as pig), is one of the twelve animals of the zodiac, based on the legends about its creation, either involving Buddha or the Jade Emperor.
The sound of the ticker on John's adding machine at the end of his flashback introducing Randy is one of the monster's noises.

Michael points to his right eye when he asks Sun to "keep an eye" on Walt.

Locke gestures to both eyes when trying to communicate silently with Michael and Kate during the boar hunt.

The twin shot of Locke on his back looking at his foot and checking to see if he can move it occurs at the half-way point of the episode. Actually, it occurs twice in the middle.

"Patience is the hallmark of a leader."

Randy is constantly prying into Locke's life - his status as Colonel, the Walkabout, Helen...

Hurley get fish for Charlie, who gets it for Shannon, who gets it to prove something to Boone. Hurley can fish, Charlie can't. Charlie is a liar.

Sayid thought he lost his envelope. We learn in a later episode that it has Nadia' pics in it.

Rose lets Jack off "the hook" of his promise to keep her company. Rose calls Jack "patient", echoing Locke's opinion of the qualities of good leaders.

Locke is on the other side of the looking glass, and his secrets are safe.

Sun indicates a complete understanding of what Walt says.

Walt is practically excited that Michael is hurt.

Claire talking about the dead, says they're not alone - and then a cut to Charlie, alone, doing drugs. We cut back and hear Claire mention someone's overdue library book, "Willy Wonka". That book features a character named Charlie.

Kate asks Charlie if he's seen Jack; remember how Charlie reacted to being asked about Jack during the Pilot episode?

Jack sits alone.

Locke lies about seeing the monster.

Flashback to Locke arguing with the Walkabout tour guide, who says that Lock misrepresented himself. Locke says he never lied. Tour guide says he lied by omission.

The moment with the foot happens again at the end. That's 4 shots of John's foot - 1 at the beginning, 2 in the middle, 1 at the end. The first time, focus starts on his face, then shifts to his foot. The two in the middle, focus goes from face to foot to face. In the final shot, focus goes from foot to face. In the middle is a flashback scene, the one where Locke is playing a game during a lunch break. In that scene he tells the story of Norman Croucher, he discusses the qualities of leadership, it's revealed that he has a "girlfriend" named Helen, and the meaning of a Walkabout is exposited.

There are two reflective surfaces in this episode - Locke's knives often reflect the light, but more importantly, his burning wheelchair reflects the bonfire of the fuselage.

Locke's opening eye is different from Jack's - Locke's has a gash running up and down just above and below his eyeball.

The mirroring in this episode is very faint.