Simon Death Essay

“Tuesdays with Morrie” and “The Death of Ivan Ilych” both portray a character who is dealing with a serious terminal illness and advance knowledge of their deaths. One story is based on the realistic life of an American professor with the story’s characteristics tone from the 1990’s while the other is set during nineteenth century Russia. Even though Morrie Schwartz and Ivan Ilych both suffered from the illness, their dissimilar lifestyles and beliefs led to different perspective on facing death. One views the knowledge as a blessing and an opportunity to share his life experiences before making his final good-byes, the other agonizes in pain and begs for an

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.

One of the most basic human instincts, prevalent in everyone, is the act of self-preservation, which can lead to the dismissal of their morals in times of distress. In Lord of the Flies, the boys’ subconscious takes over, allowing a much more ‘savage’ side of them to hinder their decision making. This is exhibited when the boys accidentally become too rough with what they think is the beast attacking them, but actually happens to be Simon. The second their minds went into survival mode, they battered him until his death, not noticing it was their friend all along until the next morning. Their judgement was so clouded with the idea of protecting themselves, that they did not come to their senses while brutally attacking the poor boy, who was only trying to help. This act of violence is a direct example of doing something at their own self-convenience, regardless of the costs. Because

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.

Despite the obvious age gap of the main characters in both novels, authors Golding and Remarque alike manipulate the text into conveying the theme of the loss of humanity that derives from violence. In Lord of the Flies, it is apparent early on that primal instincts will emerge from the innocence of the boys, such as, "He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarl," (Golding Chapter 4). The split second snarl that escapes is a crystal-clear indicator for the future event depicting the death of a boy, Simon. "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!" (Golding Chapter 9). Albeit the dancing boys do not know it is a fellow child and not a savage beast, they do not halt the actions taken to harm Simon, which ultimately leads to his death.

Jack and his tribe are very persistent with killing the beast and they get their wish when “Jack leapt on to the sand. ‘Do our dance! Come on! Dance!’… a circling movement developed… The circle became a horseshoe… The beast stumbled into the horseshoe ‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’… Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill. ” (Golding 151-152). Jack and his tribe have begun their frenzied dance they see a figure stumbling out from the forest. However, instead of stopping to see what it was the boys immediately think it is the beast, so they let it into the circle and rip it apart with their teeth and “Claws”. One thing they do not know was that was Simon trying to notify them that the beast was a corpse near the top of the mountain. All Simon was trying to announce to everyone that no one has to be afraid as a way to help everyone on the island. Nevertheless, Jack helps the other boys tear Simon apart and does nothing else about it. Jack does not even care that he just killed a boy. In fact, he never talks about Simon for the rest of the

After reading Lord of the Flies many people think to themselves what is the “Beast”. Well if you take a few moments to think about what you have read you may think of a few things. Like perhaps, it was fear taking over their body and there wasn’t really anything there, or may think war. They knew that war was going on the violence was surrounding them and for there to be violence there has to be some kind of contact with someone or maybe even something. Another thing you might think of is they are most likely going insane on this island.

The appearance of Simon in the novel The Lord of the Flies is of great significance and is substantial for the development of the story because he made lots of points in the story. First of all, it is important to state that he sent simple, yet deep messages throughout the novel, with morals behind them. Religiously speaking, Simon can be identified as the Christ-figure in the story. Simon also had a very specific role in the novel in being the character in contact with nature. Simon's significance in the story is obvious, and one way to deduce this is by identifying his messages.

Keeping a person alive by excessive treatment might devastate the family and make the dying suffer tremendously in the end. “Advance medical technology that seems to one person a godsend, extending life, may seem to another a curse that only prolong dying. Dignity can be devalued amid technology focused solely on the biological organism.”

All the boys started attacking Simon singing their hysterical chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” and killed him because they mistaken him for the beast. The point is, the boys got too carried away with attacking simon and the violence got too out of hand.

To begin,Lord of the flies shows us that man is inherently evil because death is not given importance and is seen as normal.As a reader we do not know how familiar the boys were with death.The first major death in the novel was Simons death,which truly shows the evil feelings and actions of the boys.The boys were having a nightly crazy feast in the beach after succesfully hunting a pig.They were dancing around the fire with spears in hand like savages.Simon was just coming back to them after discovering the the beast they feared was just a dead pilot.As Simon is running down towards them in the dark to tell them his discovery they crazy boys believing it was the beast stabbed him to death.Moments later discovering that the dead body floating

The boys project their irrational fears as a derivative of their immaturity, in an attempt to identify a realized external enemy. Literary critic Lawrence S. Friedman explains, “Too immature to account for the enemy within, the boys project their irrational fears onto the outside world. The first of these projections takes the shape of a snakelike “beastie,” the product of a small boy’s nightmare.” (233) The boys’ irrational fear of the unknown, one of a small boy’s nightmare, only serves to exemplify their immaturity in handling situations like this. It is a stepping stone to events to come, prophesied by Simon. In addition, the character of Simon alludes to the fact that there evil ‘beast’ can really be traced to their internalized innate evilness. Simon argues, “maybe there is a beast… What I mean is… maybe it’s only us.” (Golding 89) While all of the boys attempt to explain the phenomena of the ‘beast,’ Simon is the one who realizes that the boys themselves are the evil ‘beast’ they perceive. There is no external force, the ‘beast’ only serves to be a placeholder for the boys’ true primal nature. However, it is Simon’s death, at the hand of the boys themselves, that only serves to prove that evil truly exists in all of these boys. Friedman suggests, “The ritual murder of Simon is as ironic as it is inevitable. Ironically, he is killed as the beast before he can explain that the beast does not exist. His horrid death refutes is aborted revelation: the beast exists, all right, not where we thought to find it, but within ourselves.” (236) His death is truly the tipping point, a point of no return for the boys. After his killing, Simon’s philosophy of inner evil is realized. It is clear that his own philosophy is what ultimately leads to Simon’s death, as unfortunate as it may be. It is reflected of the group’s fear of the unknown, and their

One of my favorite parts in Lord of the Flies was the ending when the naval officer criticized the boys for exhibiting savage behavior before turning and looking at his own warship. This was one of my favorite parts because while reading it, I thought of the irony of the naval officer’s criticism. The “civilized” naval officer was also part of a savage world which didn’t make him that different from the “savage” boys on the island. My other favorite part was when the frenzied boys mistook Simon for the beast and killed him. This was also one of my favorite parts because of what Simon’s death symbolized. I thought about how Simon’s death symbolized the loss of civilization on the island and was the catalyst which allowed Jack to take control over the island and let chaos and savagery reign.

As my eyes skimmed over the words printed on the pages of the oddly intriguing book, I experienced a slight sting of realisation within the depths of my soul. A pitiless dark cold. I had always been under the impression would be like this. My life would come to a halt, but nevertheless my consciousness would subsist in the void. Though it was quite unusual that afterlife would look so similar to my office.

     This book is trying to teach us, the readers, that there are five main stages that help us cope with a death of someone close or somebody that is going to die.