Essay, Research Paper: Lord Of The Flies

REINCARNATION, RESURRECTION AND CHRIST IMAGERY



Golding creates the effect of reincarnation, resurrection and Christ imagery in this passage by the death of a character, Simon, and the resulting response of nature to this death. In this passage there are a lot of symbols of reincarnation, resurrection and Christ imagery. The word imagery in this passage and in the entire novel, Lord Of The Flies, presents the character, Simon, as a Christ figure that is going through a reincarnation and resurrection process. Simon's corpse is lying along the shore edge and the water is taking him away. The body appears almost alive after death, almost breathing in this magical god like light. The body is moving from dark to light and by that we can see the reincarnation and resurrection suggestion. There are several examples to support these themes in the passage. Most of the passage is talking about the lifting and carrying away of the corpse, a lifting and rising of the dead body by the waves and the water drifting towards the open sea. The reincarnation process is also shown in a few sections of the passage. For example, when the waves moved the character's body and it seems like life has returned to the corpse (line 10). Also the Christ figure is reflected to us through this passage with the "coat of pearls" and the stoppage of the world because of his death.
The use of light and dark, of color, of brightness and nature contributes to create a feeling of infinity in the passage. The infinity of a prophet or Messiah. For example "...moonbeam bodied creatures with fiery eyes." (line 2), "...moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge." (line 6) and finally a last example "...Simon's coarse hair with brightness." (line 7). Christ imagery is very present here, shown by the dead body, the "end of the world" because the character has died. That reminds us of Christ, because when he died the Christian world began to live, through his disciples and believers. This example shows us with a metaphor that are being used, as the character's "disciples" to help him resurrected to heaven, and learned his knowledge. Another Christ like image is the "coat of pearls", which leads us to think of Joseph in the old testament, an earlier Messiah, who was also a Christ like figure. He covered himself with a coat of many colors, just like the coat of pearls around the pebbles. Simon was beside those stones that were covered with the pearls and that is why it reminds us of Joseph.
The resurrection process, which is the act in which not only the spirit and the soul move on to heaven but where the actual dead body of the person is taken up to heaven, is brought to us through this passage. The way this imagery works is located in lines 6-7: "...the water rose..."; later in the passage it says: "...the great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted... Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea." The effect of this is the sense of eternity. The open sea represents heaven, the character is lifted bye the forces of the universe, in this case it is the waves, and is taken to heaven, the open sea.
A reincarnation theme also occurs in this passage. At the beginning of it talks a lot about darkness and events that are happening in it "...shoreward edge of the shallows..." (line 1). This statement gives us a strong feeling of darkness. A continuation of this example of the dark theme is "...the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam bodied creatures...". At the end of this passage there are examples of brightness and light themes, for example in lines 15-16 it says: "...softly surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures...". Those examples show us the movement from dark to light, the dark symbolizing death and the light and brightness representing life. Thus the character in this passage died at the beginning of the passage and at the end he is (so called) alive. That shows us the reincarnation concept in the passage carried by Golding's imagery.
Many events in the passage represent literary figures and themes such as reincarnation and resurrection. The passage creates an environment and mythical feelings. The fiery eyes creates a reality filled with the steam, fog, the crashing waves and the air bubbles which allow for allusions for reincarnation, resurrection and prophetic images, and also produce upon the reader a clear feeling of a dream, which seems like reality.