Simon The Interpreter

Dear Book club, (Me [Hobbes] , Locke, Machiavelli, Jeremy Bentham, and Clark Griswald from National Lampoons Movies)

Today we will be discussing the role that Simon played in chapters 8 and 9.

I, Thomas Hobbes, believe that chapters 8 and 9 are the most important in the book because Simon's hallucinations allow him to see clearly what the other boys on the isle can not. These chapters also show the true horror of human nature.

Simon was a conscientious and easy going human being. Simon never intentionally harmed anyone and was always a "Jesus" like figure. Simon portrayed little to none of my beliefs on human nature. In chapter 8, Simon witnesses the cruel and repulsive human nature of the hunters. He sees the brutal massacre of a mother pig and one of her many piglets. This saddens Simon because he can't understand why humans have such a cruel human nature.

In the book I believe Simon is comparable to Jesus, a christian martyr. For example in the book, he saw images that shed light on the complexity of life on the isle. He was also influenced by a source that could not speak. This is similar to Jesus because like Simon, Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert. Jesus saw images that could positively influence man kind, much like Simon did. Simon was also the name of an apostle of Jesus. While Simon was talking to the pig, he learned that the beast was just a part of his imagination. After this epiphany, Simon realizes that there is no beast on the island. To test his new found realization, he decides to hike up to the mountain where the so called beast was last seen. After reaching the pinnacle of the Mountain of Fire, he can clearly see the beast. Instead of some dreaded monster, there lies the carcass of a man who parachuted onto the island. The beast was merely a dead human being with a parachute attached to him. This confirms Simon's conversation with the Lord of the Flies. Simon was elated by this news and decided to run down the mountain to tell his fellow tribes members the good news.

While running down the mountain the weather starts to make a turn for the worst. The sky crackles with thunder and is illuminated by the flashes of lightning. Once Simon reaches his tribes members, he crawls through the creepers and into an irie voodoo scene. Suddenly the tribes members start to attack Simon with their spears, nails, and teeth yelling "Kill the beast, cut his throat, spill his blood." Simon tries to tell them to stop hitting him and also tries to tell them the news, but sadly this does not stop the torture he is enduring. With a few frantic steps Simon falls off the ledge to the beach, where he is promptly killed by his pursuers. Then the sky opens up with rain. This scene reminds me of Jesus's crucifixion because after he was killed the skies opened up. This scene also shows the true terror of human nature and how drastically unpredictable it is.

The importance of the Lord of the Flies is to symbolize our own thoughts. In our minds a continuous battle of right versus wrong rages each hour of every day. The pig is, in a sense, our common sense telling us the blunt truth, "You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close. I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?" This quote symbolizes that the pig is Simon's thoughts tell him what is and what is no. We sometimes ignore our common sense out of ignorance, which usually results in our own faulty actions.

Simon's death was a brutal massacre scene that was masterminded by a few toddlers. As I have already pointed out, Simon's death was very similar to Jesus's crucifixion. People who knew of Jesus thought he was a beast and that he must be vanquished. In the book Simon, seen by the boys while crawling out of the woods, was thought to have been the beast. The boys brash actions resulted in the death of Simon, the interpreter. In the bible, after the death of Jesus, the sky's opened up and turned black. This was similar to Simon's death because the very same events transpired. "Now a great wind blew the rain sideways, cascading the water from the forest trees." This scene shows the similarities between the interpreters from both tribes.