Lord of the Flies
Character Structure
Simon, being the most important character in the story, is much overlooked. That encourages us to investigate why he’s so overlooked and overshadowed by the other characters and if he has some sort of significance to what Golding is trying to prove with the story. Simon is a crucial part of this story, and is a literary device for a number of reasons.
Being a Jesus Figure (Simons Fainting Spells)
We presume that Simon is overlooked in this story because his personality causes everyone to look past him. He’s a very quiet boy who seems to draw back if he wants to voice his opinion against the other boys on the island who seem more dominant.
When Simon faints for the first time in the book, it is assumed that it just came normally, without significance. When we observe him talking to the pig’s head, he faints for a second time. This time, we presumed that he had hallucinations of almost religious importance, which shows us that he is the “Jesus” figure in this story. After this encounter with the pigs head, we also know that he is the one that understands the happenings on the island far better than the other boys.
Imagined Monster Isn’t What Everyone Else Thinks (Simon knows what’s actually happening)
We know that Simon knows everything the other boys on the island don’t: that there is no real monster and the monster is actually within them and it’s all in their heads.
This is assumed because when the other boys are afraid to go into the woods, Simon is not only fearless, but he goes into the woods to sleep because he knows that there is no actual monster in there. This ties into Simon being a literary device because it shows a part of the fact that the intention of human nature is, most of the time, not good and leads people to think things without a good reason. We discover Simon, a “Jesus” figure, whose character opposes the assumed rule of human nature, and starts a conflict between good and evil by knowing what is truly happening on the island.
The Conflict Between Good and Evil (Simons Death)
When Simon gets killed, it symbolizes how Golding interprets good and evil and usually what the outcome is when they are in conflict with each other. It shows that the “monster” has overcome all the boys on the island and there is nothing to stop it, not even a Jesus-like figure. This event symbolizes evil ruling good in human nature, because if good was to essentially “defeat” evil, they would have to use some form of evil to do so.