Critical Essay on Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies – Critical Essay
‘Lord of the Flies’ is a Thought-provoking novel written by William Golding. The novel is set on a deserted exotic island and tells the story of a group of young boys being stranded on a deserted island. At the first ‘assembly’, Ralph is voted by the other boys to be ‘chief’. Ralph’s main concern is to keep a fire going so that the boys have a better chance of being rescued. However, Jack is more interested in hunting and getting meat for the boys to eat. This difference of opinions in the group leads to the boys turning into savages. The main characters in the novel are Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon, Roger and Samneric. In this essay I am going to analyse Simon’s symbolic function in the novel.
When we first meet Simon in the novel, he is described to us as,
“A skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and coarse.”
This description makes us think of Simon as a small, young boy who likes to hide away from big crowds and keeps himself to himself. We also see that he can’t cope well in crowds when he speaks at assemblies as he goes very quiet and shy and seems intimidated by the bigger boys. Simon is quite intelligent and comes up with several sensible/suitable ideas. However, he is also self-concious, insecure and he can’t voice his own opinion. On the other hand, we do see that he is thought of as a strong figure in the group when Piggy says,
“you say shut up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon---”
This shows us that Simon is thought of as important as Jack and Maurice. Out of the three boys, Ralph represents the orderly forces of civilisation and Jack represents the primal, instinctual urges that react against such order, whereas Simon represents a third quality – a kind of goodness that is natural or innate rather than taught by human society.
Simon is different, he is an outsider. So, he has time to observe people and explore how they do things. He
‘Lord of the Flies’ is a Thought-provoking novel written by William Golding. The novel is set on a deserted exotic island and tells the story of a group of young boys being stranded on a deserted island. At the first ‘assembly’, Ralph is voted by the other boys to be ‘chief’. Ralph’s main concern is to keep a fire going so that the boys have a better chance of being rescued. However, Jack is more interested in hunting and getting meat for the boys to eat. This difference of opinions in the group leads to the boys turning into savages. The main characters in the novel are Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Simon, Roger and Samneric. In this essay I am going to analyse Simon’s symbolic function in the novel.
When we first meet Simon in the novel, he is described to us as,
“A skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and coarse.”
This description makes us think of Simon as a small, young boy who likes to hide away from big crowds and keeps himself to himself. We also see that he can’t cope well in crowds when he speaks at assemblies as he goes very quiet and shy and seems intimidated by the bigger boys. Simon is quite intelligent and comes up with several sensible/suitable ideas. However, he is also self-concious, insecure and he can’t voice his own opinion. On the other hand, we do see that he is thought of as a strong figure in the group when Piggy says,
“you say shut up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon---”
This shows us that Simon is thought of as important as Jack and Maurice. Out of the three boys, Ralph represents the orderly forces of civilisation and Jack represents the primal, instinctual urges that react against such order, whereas Simon represents a third quality – a kind of goodness that is natural or innate rather than taught by human society.
Simon is different, he is an outsider. So, he has time to observe people and explore how they do things. He