Simon As A Christ Figure Analysis

A Christ figure represents the attributes of Christ in the way they live. Foster expands on this idea by arguing a list of characteristics regarding Jesus. As readers, he claims, “while we may not be all that versed in types and archetypes from the Bible, we generally recognize, whatever our religious affiliation, some of the features that make Christ who he is” (Foster 125). If Christ’s attributes reflect themselves in a character, readers can use their knowledge to assume the character is a Christ figure. Likewise, Kingsolver uses Nathan Price as an examples of a Christ figure. Nathan comes to the Congo to redeem an unworthy people, has disciples (his family), and wanders the

Children are savages by nature, when no adults are around. One kid on the island truly doesn’t have any savage in him. Simon is a Christ-like figure, that continuously stays true to himself and his morals. Simon will not let anyone or anything get in the way of this.

In William Golding’s novel, The Lord of the Flies, a large group of privileged English schoolboys are stranded on an island in the Pacific with no adults after the plane they were on crash-landed. The boys are brought together by the Conch that is blown by Ralph in the beginning of the book. The conch is symbolic of order and authority in the book. The boys go under a transformation of these privileged schoolboys to a group of rag tag savages trying to kill each other for power throughout the course of this book. This essay will be outlining the transition from good boys that listen to authority, into boys that rely on their id of savagery, and the descent to evil, destruction and panic through the journey and

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.

Simon verses the Lord Of The Flies Couple kids end up on an island, what could possible go wrong? Well as mature as these boys might seem its not all fun and games when these boys do not have contact to the outside world for over a month or two. Each day the boys encounter a new conflict and the conflicts get scarier and more treacherous then the last day. “l’ll go if you like. I don’t mind, honestly’”

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

Unlike most the other boys Simon retains civil. Simon displays his maturity through the sacrifices he makes Golding writes, “Someone's got to go across the island and tell Piggy we'll be back after dark." Bill spoke, unbelieving. "Through the forest by himself? Now?" "We can't spare more than one." Simon pushed his way to Ralph's elbow." "I'll go if you like. I don't mind, honestly” (Golding 117). Furthermore, Simon’s death displays the groups true maturity Golding writes, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!” (Golding 152). This scene depicts the group killing Simon out of fear, this displays the island reveals their low maturity because they ignore reason and act in fear. Clearly the Goldings novel displays the island reveals maturity through

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of young British boys are left stranded on an island after a fatal plane crash in the midst of a World War. With no communication to the outer world and no presence or influence of adults on the island, Ralph, Jack Merridew, and Piggy are forced to take initiative if the group of hopeless boys want to survive. The group of boys experience a drastic change throughout their time on the island, a change that no one would ever expect to occur to a young group of primed British boys. The leader of the stranded choirists on the island, Jack Merridew, shows such a change that he soon persuades other boys to follow his savage actions as the novel progresses. Though the changes to Jack’s mental and physical characteristics advance slowly at first, the final personality of Jack is instantly taken over at the climax of the novel to a dehumanized savage. Jack’s innocence is corrupted by his inability to withstand a society without rules proving man's good essential nature is altered by the evil within society.

One’s behaviour can have an substantial impact on a society's outcome. There is a common notion that humans are nurtured to be peaceful and civil. However this belief is contradicted by the action of the boys, in William Golding’s, “Lord of the Flies”. A group of schoolboys are abruptly thrown out of their controlled and civil circumstances into an inhabited tropical island in the middle of the Pacific. The novel is Golding’s attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature, by using symbolism to delineate this theme. Golding’s extensive use of symbolism, such as the conch, the signal fire and the painted faces helps demonstrates the defects of society. These symbols are used by Golding to illuminate the subsequent effects on the boys’ behaviour, which undoubtedly illustrates the defects of human nature on society.

Jack and Simon don’t often cross paths, yet major events come into play when they do. From the first chapter of the book, Simon and Jack are presented as coming from the same school and even the same group of choir boys. The characters are even presented during a disagreement, in which Simon pleads with Jack to let the choir boys sit in the shade, before fainting himself. Jack then proceeds to complain about Simon’s dramatics: “‘He’s always throwing a faint’” (20). In actuality, Simon is the most caring of the boys, fetching fruit for the little ones, helping out with the huts, and encouraging Ralph when he’s unsure about his leadership skills. However, Simon also stands out with his solitary nature and philosophical ideas, causing some resentment between him and Jack. This most possibly began during the discussion of a beast, when Simon tries to explain to everyone that there is a beast that resides within them, but is unable to express these thoughts. Jack, however, has enough of these confusing ideas and believes that Simon has proven himself unworthy of presenting any more opinions: "’what good did Simon do speaking...some people knew they've got to keep quiet and leave deciding to the rest of us’" (102). It isn’t until Jack’s tribe establishes that it can be seen how truly different

Chapter 14 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor discusses how to identify and the significance of Christ figures in literature. According to the book, Christ Figures are prevalent in literature for various reasons including putting emphasis on the sacrifice of the character or deepening the plot with the parallel to Christ. This works because Christ is an important feature in our culture. I believe that literature from dominantly Christian areas will contain many figures resembling Christ simply because the religion is ingrained in the culture. Foster lists many of the qualities that help to indicate the presence of a Christ figure. Some of these include wounds on hand and feet, and struggle in the wilderness, a sacrificing character,

On contrary from all the other boys on the island Simon, a Christ like figure in the

Throughout William Golding’s book, Lord of the Flies, there lies an interesting battle between being civilized and adhering to one’s primal instincts. This is clearly illustrated through two distinct characters: Ralph and Jack. While the two of them clash, they are still strangely able to get along at times. By illustrating this relationship, Golding is able to present both an intriguing duality and represent the two characters as the "Id" and the "Ego”.

In viewing the aspects of the island society, the author William Golding's Lord of the Flies as a symbolic microcosm of society. He chooses to set the children alone in an unsupervised world, leaving them to learn ‘ the ways of the world’ in a natural setting first hand. Many different perspectives can also be considered. Golding's island of marooned youngsters becomes a microcosm. The island represents the individual human and the various characters represent the elements of the human psyche.