Simon as Christ in Lord of the Flies Essay

As Simon wanders back to a beautiful meadow that he had traveled to before, he finds that it has changed. Instead of the peaceful meadow that Simon had discovered previously, the bloody head of a sow impaled by Jack and his follows taints the meadow. They had done this as an offering to the beast, hoping that the beast would be satisfied with the sow’s head and would give up hunting for the

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.

In different stories people may be represented as a figure of Christ. They may do things similar to what Jesus or God would do constantly. In the book, Lord of the Flies, there is a person who is represented as a Christ-figure. The person who fills this role is Simon. Simon is represented in Lord of the Flies as a Christ-figure because his death is similar to Jesus’ and communion, has imagery of being sent to heaven, and he is kind to everyone.

Simon, one of the major characters in the story, is set as the allusion of Jesus. Christ always had an affinity with children; in Ch. 4, he shows his way with the ‘littluns’ by picking fruit for them. This shows his goodness by nature. Also, like Christ, he saw the atavistic problem of the hunters and tried to bring them back to good. As in the bible, Simon, like Christ, dies

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

Jesus is a holy man. He doesn’t hesitate to help others, even if it makes him unpopular. Simon displays this quality by helping and standing up for Piggy, a boy few respect. Jesus is a carpenter. By helping Ralph build shelters, Simon is also serving as a carpenter. Jesus, in addition, develops a friendship with children like Simon who helps the children collect fruit from trees which they cannot reach. “...Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands.” (56) Both Simon and Jesus possess a gift for prophecy. Both realize that they would be killed for the lives of others. Jesus is tempted by the devil for forty days to disobey God. Likewise, Simon is tempted by the Lord of the Flies. “The Lord of the Flies tells Simon, ‘You’d better run on and play with the others. They think you’re batty.’”(143) Jesus and Simon encounter numerous of the same experiences and display the same virtues.

Simon was the only person in the book who interacted with the so-called beast. He saw that the physical form of the beast as the Lord of the Flies, a sow's head on a stick. Fear would have been struck through Simon as he heard the pig say: "There isn't anyone to help you only me. I'm the beast." Simon tried to run back to the camp but he came at the wrong time and was mistaken as the beast and was brutally

Simon is shown by Golding as a martyr who died for the truth. He gave

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.

group, did not allow Piggy to eat as he did not hunt with them. We

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

The belief of a ‘Beast’ is Man Vs Supernatural conflict. Which means a character is fighting a God or animal.This is an important conflict because the Beast is what drives the hunters and Jack’s tribe to kill people and leave gruesome gifts.They savagely killed a pig and put his head on a stick for the Beast and Jack said “This head is for the beast. It’s a gift”(Golding 137).The quote shows that Jack believes the beasts as a god like creature. Also when Simon was coming back from the woods during the night. The tribe thought the beasts was coming out of the woods so they “leapt on the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws”(Golding 153). This shows that just because the belief of a Beast the tribe has gone insane and have murdered Simon with their hands.

Simon is symbolized as things such as depression and loneliness which is very important, in the book because there is one point where someone says to the boys on the beach, which means that he thought about it while the others did not think about it. He thought about the problem and the things that the boys did, he becomes the beast himself. The story states, ”maybe we are the beast” (Golding).

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