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Essay about Edgar Derby and Simon: Life, Beliefs, and Death

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The lives, deaths, situations, and beliefs of Edgar Derby, from the novel, Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut, and Simon, from the novel, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, are equally alike and unalike. Even though these characters are from different books, they represent the absurdity of death and the importance of speaking up for what you believe. Both of these characters live in hostile and confining environments, attempt to deliver a vital message, and are unfairly killed. Edgar Derby and Simon suffer dissimilar murderous, undeserved, and undignified deaths; however, the ideas and values that they stood for as well as the lives and experiences leading up to their sadistic deaths are similar in that they reveal the callousness …show more content…

Due to the weak mental and physical states of many of the prisoners of war, they are easily controlled and persuaded; however, Edgar Derby and the British prisoners attempt to remind the American prisoners of their values, morals, and hygiene. Like Edgar Derby and the other American prisoners of war, the boys in Lord of the Flies are stranded with no way to return to civilization. As the boys, specifically Piggy and Ralph, find out that they are stranded on the island with no adults, Piggy says, “They’re all dead… an’ this is an island. Nobody don’t know we’re here. Your dad don’t know, nobody don’t know” (Golding 14). The island holds the boys, including Simon, captive while the reef serves as a barrier between them and the “dark blue of the sea”, enabling savagery and allowing them to witness and even participate in murder (Golding 14). While the description of the world beyond the reef sounds pleasant, the world war that is taking place in the adult world encourages the boys to fight over leadership positions, behave primitively, and even murder each other. The island and the reef “set up the right conditions for an ‘experiment’. Here, in other words, representative humanity (or at least

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