A. Hemon’s Islands is the narrative of a young boys initiation into the adult world. The boy travels to a place he has never been before, far away from all the comforts of his childhood home. The island is full of secrets about the ‘adult world’ and the terrible things that can happen within it. While away, he learns shocking lessons about the world in which he lives, mainly from his Uncle Julius, who …showed first 75 words of 1491 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1491 total…mad with hunger.” (142) The cat will not come to the boy when he calls to her, and looks at him with “irreversible hatred.” Catherine Henderson The boy can never go back to the pureness of being a child again. The irreversible hatred the cat has, is as irreversible as Uncle Julius’s stories and the boys ‘initiation’ into the adult world. Nothing can change what the boy experienced while away on the island of Mljet.