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lord of the flies: simon as a christ figure Essay

Decent Essays

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 first things that Simon does that depicts a Christ-like action, is found in chapter 3 when he helps the littluns get fruit, “Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach” (Golding 56). During his lifetime, Jesus often aided the hungry, one example being when he turned 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish into enough food for thousands of people. Later in the chapter Simon finds himself in the wilderness. While there, Simon was calm and enjoyed the solitude of …show more content…

Many of the prophecies revealed by Jesus were also disregarded and not accepted by everyone. This depicts that both Simon and Jesus were misunderstood by the people around them.

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.

The deaths of Simon and Jesus also had many things in common. Both were killed by members of their community, and were persecuted for the sins and evil of others. The events that directly followed the deaths of Simon and Jesus are very much similar also. According to the Bible, when Jesus was being persecuted “there was darkness over the whole land” (Mark 15:33) and once he died the earth shook. When Simon died “the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall” (Golding 153).

One of the last parallels between Simon and Jesus is shown after Simon’s death. While his body laid on the beach “the strange

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