Simon Lord Of The Flies Character Analysis

Simon is easily the most important character in William Golding’s classic Lord of the Flies, a book where several schoolboys find themselves on an island after a plane evacuating them from war-ridden Britain. The book documents their attempts to create a civilized society to wait for rescue, and how the inherent savage instinct of humans ruined the peace and destroyed rhyme and reason. Simon is a gateway to the intentions of the novel for the readers. His character changes throughout the book, such as when he faints, when he tells Ralph to continue as the leader, and, arguably at the apex of the book, when he hallucinates the Lord of the Flies.

When the reader first reads about Simon, he’s just a young boy who has just “… flopped on his face in the sand.” (20) Jack indicates that this is a long term disorder when he says that Simon is “always throwing a faint.” (20) Later in the book, he also hallucinates, both traits being indicative of epilepsy. This is fairly important because it leads directly to the discovery of the true beast through a vision of the Lord of the Flies. Most of the others seem to think that he’s weak and frail for fainting, but mentally, he’s anything but; he finds the truth and would be the ultimate savior of the island’s humanity if it weren’t for his untimely death.

Later in the book,

Simon is seen watching the conflict between Ralph and Jack, and seeing the latter walk away ashamedly when none of the group wants to vote Ralph “out of office.” “Piggy’s right, Ralph. There’s you and Jack. Go on being chief.” (93) Simon convinces Ralph to stay chief, which shows the very important and decidedly rare quality of forethought. He influences Piggy into also thinking about the future, which causes him to realize that Jack’s leadership would lead to them “be[ing] [there] till they die.” (93) Ralph realizes that giving in to Jack as he was previously planning to would lead to savagery, death, and no hope of rescue. Ralph, Piggy, and the remaining young’uns now see Simon as a symbol of hope and logic.
Simon is a dreamer, who keeps to himself most of the time. He has his own clearing in the island’s forest in which he goes to in order to think by himself. He comes into the clearing, coincidentally after Jack and his growingly savage group of hunters slayed a mother pig and put its decapitated head on a stick there, and is shocked by the grotesque sight where he’d normally sit and think. He starts to hallucinate that the pig’s head is talking to him, and it becomes the Lord of the Flies. It scoffs at him and the rest of the boys for “thinking the Beast was something [they] could hunt and kill,” (143) and it begins to dawn on him. “You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?” (143) Simon’s enlightenment is there is no physical beast on the island and that they’re scared of nothing. He realizes that the real beast is the innate barbarism present in all of the boys. Scared of this revelation, he returns to the camp to tell the others, only to be murdered in an ironic, barbaric ritual which he accidentally stumbled into. Although the other characters don’t realize it, he proves his own point as Ralph despairs over the savagery overcoming him and leading him to help murder Simon.
Simon’s progression through the course of the novel reveals his journey through understanding the darker, violent, and hidden side of the human nature.

He comes to terms with this through his mental struggle with his Lord of the Flies, which is interestingly a direct translation of “Beezlebub,” another name for the devil. He sees the evil inside the children, and in his wariness to not overtaken by it, is killed by those who were not wary enough. Simon’s character development is compounded by the revealing of his implied epilepsy, his decidedly noble ability to express opinions through turmoil, and his hallucination and revelation with the Lord of the

Flies.