Essay on Jack and Simon in Chapter Three of the Lord of the Flies

The character of Simon in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies has often been viewed as the Christ figure of the novel. If you were to examine the actions of both Simon and Jesus, you would find a number of incidents that parallel each other.

Jack and his chosen group of hunters all follow Jack and fail to follow Ralph’s command to keep civilization under control. Simon and his natural behaviors contrast with Jack as he sees the positive interests and goodness in civilization. Simon’s actions reveal his shy, yet kind, and non confrontational attitude which makes the importance of his character hard to notice. Simon is the mediator on the island, as he will never decline a request from the little children for food, an order from Ralph to help build shelters, and tries to keep the peace between the hunters and the civilized boys. Simon can be seen as the most compassionate character on the island as displayed in this quote: “Simon sitting between the twins and Piggy, wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who grabbed it. The twins giggled and Simon lowered his face in shame” (Golding 74). Jack, on the other hand, is most malicious towards Piggy as he eventually becomes consumed by evil and and will attempt to destroy all points of civilization and innocence left on the island. Innocence is bestowed upon nearly all the boys trying to keep civilization alive on the island and is despised by Jack and his highly influenced choir boys turned hunters.

In his first novel, William Golding used a group of boys stranded on a tropical island to illustrate the malicious nature of mankind. Lord of the Flies dealt with changes that the boys underwent as they gradually adapted to the isolated freedom from society. Three main characters depicted different effects on certain individuals under those circumstances. Jack Merridew began as the arrogant and self-righteous leader of a choir. The freedom of the island allowed him to further develop the darker side of his personality as the Chief of a savage tribe. Ralph started as a self-assured boy whose confidence in himself came from the acceptance of his peers. He had a fair nature as he was willing to listen to Piggy. He became increasingly

Simon is a character who is a major significance in Lord of the Flies. Simon is one of the boys stranded on the island after his plane crashed. Additionally, Simon is a member of the choir. As part of the choir, he is under the leadership of Jack. Simon is described as “...a skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and coarse.” (24) He is also prone to fainting. For instance, shortly after the plane crashes, Simon faints in front of all of the other boys. Simon is an important character in the novel.

     In the book Lord of the Flies the charecter, Simon, is portrayed as a Christ-figure. He is shown to have all the qualities Christ has: intelligence, determination, and resiliance. Simon also is portrayed like Christ physically, he is skinny and not a strong person. Simon was very calm, kind, and he enjoyed being alone when ever he could.

William Goldings "Lord of the flies", portrays a group of boys who find themselves stranded on a desert island in a deep battle between civilisation and primitive savagery. One of the boys portrayed, Simon, a boy who is kind and physically fragile expresses a deeper knowledge of the problems on the island that the other boys are unaware of. There are many differing viewpoints on his role in the novel. One of these is that he is a biblical parallel; Simon portrays a saintly figure, and shows many of the qualities demonstrated by Jesus Christ. He demonstrates a strong connection with nature throughout, and also is shown to be a character of strong goodwill and kindness.

She is described in a manner worse than the condition of Zeena; an empty shell of a young girl who has succumbed to the miserable emptiness of Starkfield. Comparably, in Lord of the Flies Simon wanders off to his secluded hideaway in the dense foliage of the forest as Jack and Ralph dispute over where their efforts should be directed. Throughout the novel, Simon is characterized as a boy who is greatly misunderstood by the other boys, but who acts with the purity and peaceable values of a biblical figure. It was, in fact, intended by the author for Simon to symbolize the good-natured and passive qualities of Jesus. As the frail boy escapes the tenuous relations of the boys, he stumbles along a faint path that leads him to his natural safe haven.

Even though Golding had an enormous amount of symbols throughout his novel, Simon is the first to recognize the complication posed by the beast and the “Lord of the Flies” that is, that the monster on the island is not a real, physical beast, but rather a savagery that lurks within each and every human being. As a final point, the loss of social structure within civilization can lead to the demise of the boys on the island whether it's between Ralph vs Jack, the boys vs the island, or even Simon vs

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

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Simon’s murder represents a loss of innocence and goodness in the boys now that they have killed a human being in cold blood. A sudden onslaught of rain, shakes the boys out of their savage stupor along with the vivid description of, “On the mountaintop the parachute filled and moved; the figure slid, rose to its feet, spun, swayed down through a vastness of wet air, and trod with ungainly feet the tops of high trees; falling, still falling, it sank toward the beach and the boys rushed screaming into the darkness” (153). The diction of the parachute with words like, “filled”,“rose to its feet”, “trod”, and “falling” revives the dead parachutist into a sort of authority figure as it serves to remind the boys of the crime they just committed.

Simon is a very good person and it shows in his morals. When the littluns had gotten quite hungry Simon helped them out; “They talked, cried out, unintelligibly, lugged him toward the trees.[...]simon found for them fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from the foliage, passed them back down the endless out stretched arms. ”(56). This showed that even though the littluns were what I would assume as annoying by crying out and lugging him, Simon still grabbed them the fruit.

Simon is described to be, “A skinny, small boy, his chin pointed, and his eyes so bright they had deceived Ralph into thinking him delightfully gay and wicked" (Golding.57). Simon is also very helpful to the boys. The goodness of his heart is portrayed through his actions. He helps the littluns pick fruit from higher up in the trees, “Found for them the fruit they could not reach…. passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands” (57).

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Simon shares a surplus of qualities and elements with Christ. Essentially, Simon, like Jesus, is conscious of the opinions and emotions of other people. When Ralph becomes doubtful of their safe return home, Simon

My Chinese Literature teacher told me, “Everyone is special as they born in this world, but people may have similar personalities and thoughts when they are in a similar situation.” This kind of saying is just like the environments affect the similarities of human being. The novel, Lord of the Flies, author uses the innocent children to develop the theme of the evil and savage inside the human, and in the painting from Goya Francisco, Saturn Devouring His Son, expressed the inhumanity of the people obtain the power by hurting kinsfolk. Nevertheless, the main characters in the novel like Jack and Ralph have a variety of similarities with Saturn and his son, Jupiter in the painting. Furthermore, the author and painter also have something in common.