ral •☆

simon's death is defo the most violent out of the four deaths in the book, it opens already with the boys chanting "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!", creating an already tribal and dangerous setting.

golding explicitly ensures for us to be aware of the boys losing individuality and becoming one in a group mob, where "out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind." this desire is clearly shown to be irrational yet primitive, a dangerous combination.

a littlun is the one who points towards simon, screaming "Him! Him!" whether or not the child is aware or not of simon's identity is left unacknowledged, but nevertheless the group appear to not be capable of identifying simon. this is common in mob mentality, where responsibility and autonomy are diminished.

"The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe." the fact that simon stumbles into this horsehoe highlights his unique nature towards the boys. despite recieving knowledge of the truth of the evil of all the boys, and foreshadowing towards his own death by the lord of the flies

he could have listened to the lord of the flies, and returned to the others, therefore avoiding his death. however, in his pursuit of knowledge (that would directly benefit the boys, no matter how distressing and risky it is - if there was hypothetically a beast he would've been putting himself in danger of being eaten by it!) he chooses to continue travelling to find the truth.

this creates direct parallels with jesus in gethesmane, where he expresses fear and intense emotional pain over the passion he will experience the next day (passion is another word for jesus' death).

interestingly, jesus' disciples fail him that night, as they fall asleep instead of keeping watch. simon is also failed by the other boys, in particular ralph, who he admired and looked up to deeply, by losing their civilised behaviour and murdering him.

simon nevertheless throws himself into the horseshoe, desperate to tell the boys about what it is that he has seen (the parachustist. "Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill."

simon is very clearly juxtaposed with the boys, who chant "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!". this creates heavy contrast between simon's knowledge of truth, and the boys' screaming about "the beast" - the boys believe in a lie, and they are about to kill the only source of the truth.

"The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face." this is the turning point in which simon's life draws closer to it's end. he is clearly terrified by the dropped spears and the screaming of the other boys, and the dehumanization of "it" and "the beast" highlight that the boys do not see simon, they see the beast.

simon being on his knees is a direct act of submission, reinforcing towards us that simon is not one of the stronger, more powerful and dominant boys (i.e jack) and that he is overwhelmed by the screaming.

"It was crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill." simon has little left, no strength in anything but his own words, and he tries to voice his newfound truth desperately to the other boys. however, he does not have the benefit of the humanity in their eyes to be capable of being listened to- remember, they believe he is the beast!

The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water." this is where simon's fate is finally fully sealed, as by breaking the ring, and falling, he almost mimics a cornered, terrified animal. this would likely have "activated" the boys' primitive instincts (as seen in the previous hunting).

"At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws." golding spares us the details of simon's reaction to this, but his lack of vocalization implies that the other boys' weight has flattened him into the sand so much that he cannot expand his diaphragm - essentially, he cannot breathe whatsoever. the boys use their bare hands, here described as "claws", (ironically showing here how the innate evil within humans is the "beast") to rip simon apart, they bite him, and scream as they do, but they do not speak any language - this intentionally highlights the lack of civility, all of the boys give themselves over to primitive savagery.

"Then the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall. The water bounded from the mountain-top, tore leaves and branches from the trees, poured like a cold shower over the struggling heap on the sand." the water here acts as a form of pseudo-baptism here, seen simultaneously with the natural imagery with the leaves and branches, and the fact that the boys are seen to come back to their senses as "Presently, the heap broke up and figures staggered away." the simile "like a shower" also shows a return to some essence of civilization, as well as the use of the noun "figures" highlights the loss of individuality.

however, it is too late, as "Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand." simon's still, lifeless corpse lays, and the boys still cannot reconcile the sight that they see "how small a beast it was" with the fact that this giant, terrifying being is anticlimatic, ironically because it is a little boy. his dark blood pooling into the light sand creates contrast, similarly to the expectation of a large beast versus the reality of the small, dead boy.

"Toward midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and trickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still." following the parachutes flying down from the sky (there wasn't really much to say about it so i sisnt quote it) and sending the boys screaming, here we see nature beginning to quieten after the violence of simon's death.

this almost mimics some sort of sacred gathering, as nature quietens down for simon's body to drift away. there is a lexical field of the natural world, this is juxtaposed when you compare it to the evil of the natural instinct of humans - the natural world is calm, serene and gentle whereas humans are violent and dangerous.

"The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch."  simon still being described as the beast before being washed away almost mimics a baptism, as at the end simon finally reaches a pseudo-salvation and he regains his name. simon being described as huddled indicates that his death was, to an extent, terrifying and painful for him, and he huddled up to try and get away from it all, and the stain spreading inch by inch suggests that blood is still pouring out of him even after his death.

the prose where simon is slowly taken away is almost universally described as some of the most beautiful prose ever written. this may be intentional to juxtapose the violence of the boys, because as i said earlier, it's meant to show that natural instincts of nature is gentle whereas natural instincts of humans are violent.

"The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed" simon's death becomes very mystical, there is a lot of imagery to do with water which could be in one sense to do with a pseudo baptism (but in the other sense it could be simon's tears of pain when being killed) "the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes" the small creatures appear to be personified, almost acting as pseudo angels arriving to the site of his body. this creates more religious imagery, cementing simon as a christ figure.

interestingly, none of the other boys ever return for simon's body, and it appears that these creatures take the matters into their own small, little hands, "Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body, and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge." simon's body being described as broken seems to create imagery of a funeral, as these luminescent creatures touch the dark red stains of his blood, unphased, not darting away from it, and begin to almost cradle his body.

"The water rose farther and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble." simon appears to undergo a sort of metamorphosis as he becomes almost one of these creatures, yet we see through the description of marble (which is often used for statues) that he is still man-made and still cannot quite be one of them.

yet marble is a beautiful and cold material, which (when used for statues) people would revere them. it appears that nature reveres simon, and through this pseudo baptism gives him back the dignity that he was not given by his peers in his death. (there is of course the other implication that marble is a cold material, essentially that simon's body is now stiff and cold from rigor mortis.)

"The strange attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapors, busied themselves round his head." the use of the word fiery and attendents with these creatures clustering around his head creates the image of a halo, revering simon as a saint, but more importantly, as a martyr, dying for what he believed in- the boy's goodness. we now understand how simon is very explicitly written to be a christ-like figure who sacrifices himself for the greater good of the boys on the island, with the imagery of a halo reinforcing this.

"The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water." immediately after this saint like imagery though, golding pivots to immediate realism which reminds us that we are talking about a corpse, not jc himself💀 (simon does not have the divinity or the ability to resurrect lol)

however, simon here is not described as the beast but as "the body". we are in time, seeing simon go through the process of the pseudo-salvation that I mentioned earlier, and he is beginning to become purified from the innate evil of humanity.

"Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling" here we are now given celestial imagery, and while this is to describe the tide coming in , this may also be a subtle implication that simon is going to heaven (as in the original manuscript there is a religious figure, and simon speaks with him).

"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." simon completes his transition from the beast to the body to simon, and finally in death reclaims his autonomy

however we are reminded that simon is a corpse, and what has been done is done. however simon is not alone! he is surrounded with creatures, and simon becomes a silver shape. the use of lunar imagery in this lexical field shows a sort of finality- night eventually becomes day and time has to move on.