Essay, Research Paper: Simon

Simon: the great philosopher of the island, is the only one of the boys to see the truth about the beast and the island. He understands that the beast is not a real thing but it is the object of the boys fear and hate, and he is the first to see that the behavior of the boys is self destructive "`They talk and scream. The littleuns even some of the others. As if -' As if it wasn't a good island.' Astonished at the interruption, they looked up at Simon's serious face" (52). The observation Simon made exemplifies his receptiveness and his deep thought. . Driven to find truth and goodness Simon is the only boy who could be called wholly good, "Here the littluns who had run after him caught up with him. They talked, cried out unintelligibly, lugged him towards the trees. . . . Simon found for them the fruit they could no reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands"(56) In this simple act of kindness which most of the other boys would have not done Simon shows his good nature and his benevolence. Simon like Jesus in that they both fed the masses, tried to contemplate what evil was, and died as a martyr. Simon's death, the ultimate irony, showed his goodness.
" crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beast struggled foreword and broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after him . . . Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moor were pulling, and the film of the water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned, The Giant wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea." (154)

Simon's death showed two things, that he never had a savage hidden deep inside him, even when being beaten to death Simon never fought back. Goldings descriptions of the nature around Simon even in his death were always peaceful and beautiful, similar to the described surroundings of Jesus. By the end of the book Simon has failed and the irony of the situation was great, because he was not able to express what he was able to see before he died. Taking the meaning out of his life, Simon's knowledge that the beast that they thought was real was only a rotting pilot attached to a parachute (which was a beast created by other mens fear and hate), the beast on the Island was not real. The beast on the Island was the fear and hate of the boys, and this knowledge is what he understood that no other could see until it was too late ," Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness, Inspiration came to him: `What's the dirtiest thing there is? As an answer Jack dropped into the uncomprehending silence that fallowed it one crude expressive syllable. Release was immense."(85) This is the closest he ever gets to showing what he was able to understand, the dirtiest thing was man's own soul, but they weren't willing to listen. The realization of man's nature dose not come about to the other boys until far it too late "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's hear, and the fall through to air of the true, wise friend called Piggy." (202) The darkness in man's heart was trapped inside one small fragile boy that had been quieted by society,