Simon Flashcards
-Simon is considered very odd by the other boys.
-They describe him as ‘batty’, ‘funny’ and ‘queer’ because they don’t really understand him.
-Simon constantly supports Ralph and helps him to build shelters and do the right thing.
-He even tells Ralph to ‘Go on being chief’ when Ralph begins to question his suitability.
-Simon goes off into the jungle to be on his own.
-He is the only boy to seek out solitude on the island, so this action separates him from the other characters.
-‘He turned his back on this and walked into the forest with an air of purpose’.
-Simon is the only one of the boys who really understands what is happening on the island.
-There is no physical beast, but that all the boys have ‘beasts’ within them.
-It is their own actions which are causing them to descend further into evil and darkness. ‘Maybe it’s only us’.
-Whilst Simon seems mentally intellectually strong, his body is weak.
-He was ‘always throwing a faint’.
-Symbolically, Simon is often compared with a Christian prophet or saint.
-He is the one who confronts the Lord of the Flies (a product of Jack’s evil nature) and the one who tries to bring the truth back to the other boys, but it is murdered in the process. ‘The beast was harmless and horrible and the news must reach the others as soon as possible’.
-The Lord of the Flies itself warned Simon that he would be killed if he revealed the truth, but he chose to risk it anyway because he saw it as a moral duty to tell the truth.
-Simon’s death is caused by the evil nature he was attempting to warn the boys about.
-After he dies, he is described as: ‘The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculpted marble’.
-This could link him to a religious figure who is immortalized as a statue after death.
-Simon is one of the first boys to be killed at the hands of the others.
-His death shows the first big slide into savagery. He was innocent, only trying to warn the boys about danger and was killed in cold blood.
-His death illustrates just how far the boys have sunk into evil. They don’t even recognise him as a human but kill him in the middle of their crazed chanting and dancing.
-Simon is strange and vulnerable.
-He is innately good and moralistic.
-He is the only boy who wants to spend time on his own.
-He hallucinates that the Lord of the Flies is talking to him.
-He discovers the parachutist at the top of the mountain.
-He is killed by the other boys, who think he is a wild pig.
