Lord of the Flies: Chapter 9-12 Notes
Uploaded by kelsey.lobsinger on Apr 14, 2000
1. After Simon is killed, the next paragraph begins, "The clouds open and let the rain down like a waterfall…" When the boys kill Simon they not only kill him and spirituality, but what they perceive to be the beast. Because the beast was created by them and embodied all of their evils, one of its interpretations can be as mankind's sin. Simon is very similar to Jesus in this book. The Roman's ruled the world during Jesus' life, and now a similar bloodthirsty society rules the island during Simon's life. Both are killed by such a society, and both sacrifice themselves so that mankind's sin can be forgiven. When Simon dies, the rain washes away not only spirituality, but also the beast and all of the sins that accompany it. Golding writes that the water bounded from the mountaintop. Because the mountain top represented the peak of society, this could be interpreted to state that all of society carries sin, even the glorious moments of it, and that Simon's sacrifice was extended to the boys' entire stay on the island and the sin that was committed during that period of time. This is also similar to Jesus' sacrifice that was for all of mankind's sins, not just the sins of the Roman society that killed him. After Simon has been killed, the figures stagger away. By referring to the boys as figures, they are no longer individuals, but the nameless men who are the vehicle that society uses to carry out its evil deeds. It is no longer of relevance who did what because it was the entire society that killed Simon. This can be related to other societies, such as Nazi Germany. Today Hitler is credited with most of the responsibility for World War II. We do not like to blame German society for it because that would mean that we are also capable of this if we had to endure the circumstances of 1940's Germany. We cannot blame the German race for these problems, as they are a characteristic of humanity. We fought World War II against the forces of racism, but we ourselves treated the Japanese very poorly while all of this was going on. Although we too went through the depression, we did not have the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles against us. When any society has such horrible circumstances, they tend to look...