While Simon is sitting in his hidden spot, he comes face to face with evil itself and realizes that he was right all along. Simon decided to visit his isolated place once again. When he got there, he noticed that the air was hotter than usual and he was very thirsty, but something compelled Simon to stay: “That other time the air had seemed to vibrate with heat; but now it threatened… Presently he was thirsty, and then very thirsty. He continued to sit” (Golding 146). This relates to how Jesus sat in the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples. He knew his fate, but instead of running, he stayed even though he knew he was going to be taken and sentenced to death. While Simon waits, a few of the other boys hunt and kill a pig and plant it’s
The forest where Simon wanders upon in earlier in the novel symbolizes this loss of innocence. At first, it is a place of natural beauty and peace, but when Simon returns, he discovers the bloody sow’s head upon a stake in the middle of the forest. This use of imagery depicting ruin is seen in the passage. “Simon found he was looking into a vast mouth. There was blackness within, a blackness that spread” (pg. 144). The bloody offering to the beast has disrupted the paradise that existed before; a clear
As Simon wanders back to a beautiful meadow that he had traveled to before, he finds that it has changed. Instead of the peaceful meadow that Simon had discovered previously, the bloody head of a sow impaled by Jack and his follows taints the meadow. They had done this as an offering to the beast, hoping that the beast would be satisfied with the sow’s head and would give up hunting for the
Simon’s encounter with the Lord of the Flies in chapter nine can be seen as a parallel to Jesus’ confrontation with Satan in the desert. Simon and Jesus were both challenged by evil but overcame it. Although, the Lord of the Flies would reveal to Simon that it is the evil within the boys, “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?” (Golding 143). From this, he reaches an epiphany and later leaves to tell the other boys. While returning to tell the boys, Simon is hit in the side by a spear. Jesus was also stabbed in the side before his crucifixion.
In this book, Simon’s death was meant to be represented as Jesus’ death and communion. This is shown by, Simon was betrayed and killed by his friends. This is just like how Jesus was betrayed and killed by his followers. Also Simon was killed like a crucifixion shown by, ¨At once the crowd surged after
Simon is the one boy who never participates in destructive behaviors and always contributes to the well being of the boys. He continues to work even after everyone stops, gives Piggy food when no one else will, and speaks his mind about the beast. He is also the only one to realize that the true beast is inside the boys. Simon’s moral compass, much like the superego, allows him to see the evil of mankind. Simon is whole-heartedly good. The superego attempts to lead a person to the morally right pathway, much like Simon aims to show Ralph how he can do what’s best for the tribe. The primitive nature of the others overpowers Simon’s internal good nature. Even after his death, Simon’s moral nature lives on through the boys similar to how the superego can continue to shine after a person follows the desires of the id.
Simon, one of the major characters in the story, is set as the allusion of Jesus. Christ always had an affinity with children; in Ch. 4, he shows his way with the ‘littluns’ by picking fruit for them. This shows his goodness by nature. Also, like Christ, he saw the atavistic problem of the hunters and tried to bring them back to good. As in the bible, Simon, like Christ, dies
Simon shows his individuality and cravings for tranquility and cognizance also through his participation with others. One instance when he truly displays this is when he was picking fruit from the “littluns”. The “littluns” and “lugged them towards the trees” and “Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach” (Golding,56). He feeds them alone and “when he had satisfied them”he “turned away from them and went where the just perceptible path led him” (Golding,56). This shows how through his clarity with nature and himself, he helps others and continues to portray that he prefers to think, act, and help others by himself. He also shows his individualism when he reacted to the death of the pig. With the chaos going around him, Simon isolates himself and “lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut, then sheltered them with his hands” next to the pile of guts Jack and Roger left after penetrating the pig’s head with a stick (Golding,138). He ignores everything around him and tries his best to hide away from the monstrous actions the other boys are committing. This also supports the idea that he favors time alone in his own thoughts in peace rather than facing his fear. In
Jesus is a holy man. He doesn’t hesitate to help others, even if it makes him unpopular. Simon displays this quality by helping and standing up for Piggy, a boy few respect. Jesus is a carpenter. By helping Ralph build shelters, Simon is also serving as a carpenter. Jesus, in addition, develops a friendship with children like Simon who helps the children collect fruit from trees which they cannot reach. “...Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands.” (56) Both Simon and Jesus possess a gift for prophecy. Both realize that they would be killed for the lives of others. Jesus is tempted by the devil for forty days to disobey God. Likewise, Simon is tempted by the Lord of the Flies. “The Lord of the Flies tells Simon, ‘You’d better run on and play with the others. They think you’re batty.’”(143) Jesus and Simon encounter numerous of the same experiences and display the same virtues.
In the beginning, Simon likes Ralph very much. He always accompanies and helps him with work for example watching the fire, building the shelters, carrying the messages and in many more ways. When Ralph, Simon, Jack, and Roger go to the mountaintop for pig hunting, Ralph remembers about his old life of warm food, proper grooming, and children’s books. As Simon watches him, he estimates that Ralph is thinking about his old life and rescue from this island just as everyone else. He sits beside him and tells him, “You’ll get back to where you came from … For a moment nothing more was said. And then they suddenly smiled at each other.” [Page: 121] His prophecy leaves a foreshadowing of the deaths of himself and everyone else’s except Ralph’s. He
A lack of religion will lead to a lack of morality. Christlike figures often appear selfless, enlightened, and are taunted by sin. Simon from Lord of the Flies exhibits kindness to the young children by getting them fruit, while most of the older children disregard the children, and leave them to their own activities. He challenges the older boys ways of thinking, as he often prefers to meditate alone in the jungle. He even outright opposes the group mentality, as he says, “I don’t believe in the beast” (105). When Simon is confronted by the lord of the flies (a thinly-veiled reference to satan), it taunts him. The pig’s head symbolizes of the worst aspect of the group, and it tries to tempt and threaten Simon so that he becomes like the rest of the boys: unorganized, unfocused, and on their way to becoming savages. Eventually the other boys ritualistically murder Simon because they mistake him for the beast. Simon was the only one who knew that the beast was not real. He was enlightened and it isolated him from the rest of the boys. The parallels between Simon and Christ make Simon’s death more impactful, to emphasize the inevitability of downfall in groups who
Simon had a specific mission in the novel: the opportunity to talk to the beast and receive answers, very similar to revelations. His role was to help the boys notice what the Beast really was, and not
group, did not allow Piggy to eat as he did not hunt with them. We
Simon tries to state the truth: there is a beast, but that "it's only us" (page #). When he makes this revelation, he is ridiculed. This is an uncanny parallel to the misunderstanding that Christ had to deal with throughout his life. Later in the story, the savage hunters are chasing a pig. Once they kill the pig, they put its head on a stick and Simon experiences an epiphany in which the Beast tells Simon: "Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn't you? I'm part of all of you " (143). As Simon rushes to the campfire to tell the boys of his discovery, he is hit in the side with a spear, his prophecy rejected and the word he wished to spread ignored.
In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Simon represents the innate morality of humans, acting as a Christ-like figure, while Roger embodies the all present cruelty and inherent sadism of individuals. Throughout the novel, Simon remains unchanged in terms of morality, as others slowly turn to savagery and hunting, as can be seen when Jack’s group become, “demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green.” Instead Simon finds a quiet spot “in a little cabin screened off from the open space by a few leaves.” By “holding his breath, he [cocks] a critical ear at the sounds of the island,” using his secret cabin to meditate. Coupled with his deep connection to nature, Simon is revealed to be a Christ figure. When left alone with the
This shows that Simon has thought about it and is thinking about it more as he moves forward and ends up putting on the pig to show everyone how he feels but ends up getting killed. Simon shut people out because he was torn between doing the right thing and not doing the right thing. He understands that if he just goes away that he won’t have to be torn. Which shows that he would rather step back and think and look then to just jump to conclusions. Simon is mature for doing what he did. This is very important because it shows that people that you say you can trust you can’t and they stab you in the back. Simon is a very important person in the book and always will