‘Lord of the Flies’ is a Thought-provoking novel written by William Golding. The novel is set on a deserted exotic island and tells the story of a group of young boys being stranded on a deserted island.
At the first ‘assembly’, Ralph is voted by the other boys to be ‘chief’. Ralph’s main concern is to keep a fire going so that the boys have a better chance of being rescued. However, Jack is more interested in hunting and getting meat for the boys to eat. This difference of opinions in the group leads to the boys turning into savages. The main characters in the novel are Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon, Roger and Samneric.
In this essay I am going to analyse Simon’s symbolic function in the novel.When we first meet Simon in the novel, he is described to us as,“A skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and coarse.”This description makes us think of Simon as a small, young boy who likes to hide away from big crowds and keeps himself to himself. We also see that he can’t cope well in crowds when he speaks at assemblies as he goes very quiet and shy and seems intimidated by the bigger boys. Simon is quite intelligent and comes up with several sensible/suitable ideas.
However, he is also self-concious, insecure and he can’t voice his own opinion. On the other hand, we do see that he is thought of as a strong figure in the group when Piggy says,“you say shut up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon”This shows us that Simon is thought of as important as Jack and Maurice. Out of the three boys, Ralph represents the orderly forces of civilisation and Jack represents the primal, instinctual urges that react against such order, whereas Simon represents a third quality – a kind of goodness that is natural or innate rather than taught by human society.Simon is different, he is an outsider. So, he has time to observe people and explore how they do things. He also has time to appreciate nature.
Golding makes Simon’s character a boy of peace by making him choose to help people rather than play or hunt. He seems to exist outside the conflict between Ralph and Jack, between civilisation and savagery. We see Simon’s kind and generous nature through his actions throughout the novel. He helps Ralph build the huts when the other boys would rather play, indicating his helpfulness, discipline and dedication to the common good.
We are told that Simon helps the littluns,“Then amid the roar of bees in the afternoon sunlight, Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach”Simon helps the littluns reach a high branch of fruit, indicating his kindness and sympathy – a sharp contrast to many of the older boys, who would rather torment the littluns than help them. To the littluns, Simon plays an important role in their survival, as the littluns trust Simon and aren’t scared of him, and they can go to him for advice and help.The first half of the novel supports the symbolic reading of Simon as purely good and prophet like. This is shown by Simon’s reaction to the beast in chapter 6,“Simon, walking in front of Ralph, felt a flicker of incredulity – a beast with claws that scratched, that sat on a mountain-top, that left no tracks and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric. However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick.”This shows that Simon has doubts about the beast and even when he brings himself to believing in the beast, he imagines a heroic but sick figure, showing he can only see the good in people, making him prophet like.
This point is reinforced later,“ “All the same. You’ll get back all right. I think so, anyway.” Some of the strain had gone from Ralph’s body.
He glanced at the sea and then smiled bitterly at Simon. “Got a ship in your pocket?”Simon grinned and shook his head. “How do you know then?” When Simon was still silent Ralph said curtly, “You’re batty.” Simon shook his head violently till the coarse black hair flew backwards and forwards across his face. “No, I’m not. I just think you’ll get back all right.
”The beast tries to stop Simon from telling the group there is no beast. The beast is moulding the boys into savages and he doesn’t want this to end. The beast threatens Simon and says the other boys will kill him because he is within them. It’s as if the beast knows what is going to happen.
The beast then says to Simon,“I’m part of you… I’m the reason why it’s no go.”This means the beast is controlling Simon and telling him that he is going to die because he knows that the beast is really only a ‘pig’s head on a stick’.Simon’s murder occurs when he crawls out of the bushes and the group mistakes him for the beast. At this point in the novel, all of the characters except from Simon have turned into savages, even Ralph, Piggy and Samneric. The boys behave like wild animals, stabbing Simon and even biting him.
They are addicted to the power violence gives. Simon’s murder lets the beast remain in control, therefore the boys remain savages. If Simon had lived long enough to tell everyone that what they thought was the beast was actually just a dead body attached to a parachute, then the boys would stop being savages hunting a beast, and they would return to acting like normal school boys. When Simon dies, Golding covers him in phosphorescent creatures. This is as though nature is taking him.
Simon has respected the nature on the island and now nature is taking care of him. Like a Saint, he gets a proper burial. This gives us a further insight into the symbolic nature of Simon: he’s good to nature, because he’s good natured.Simon’s death is a catalyst in the novel for the destruction of civilisation and the rise of savagery.
To show the savagery of Jack’s group, when killing Simon, the next morning nobody seemed to care. Ralph begins to doubt himself and loses power, giving Jack more power. From this point, everything for Ralph goes downhill. The next day Piggy shows no remorse when discussing Simon’s murder with Ralph,“It was an accident… he asked for it.
”This affects our judgement of Piggy because we start to realise, he too is turning into a savage.The novel, ‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding would not have been the same without Simon. Simon is the link between the reader and the pack of boys. He has the same thoughts as the reader and he brings sanity to the story.
Simon represents good, and the pack represents bad/evil in the world. Golding does this to show that there is more bad/evil in the world than good. When Simon dies our link to the boys is lost, we are now just watching the boys and have no understanding of what’s going on. Simon would have explained their actions.
Golding’s overall message is that man cannot carry on living normally without human society. We see this as the other boys seem to inherit their ideas of goodness and morality from the external forces of civilisation, so that the longer they are away from human society, the more their morality sense corrodes.
