The first signs of evil emerging from was when Jack and his hunters killed a pig and re-enacted the killing. They began to chant which became like a ritual and rather symbolic. Jack had completed his target of killing a pig he now had a taste of the glory and satisfaction it made him feel. This meant that almost like an addiction jack wanted to continue this amazing feeling of self-achievement. There was already plenty of food on the island. It is possible that Jack simply wanted to kill pigs because his new evil state was beginning to emerge and he wanted to continue this new and amazing lust for killing. Just shortly after this he gets in to a disagreement with Piggy ‘jack smacked Piggy’s head. Piggy’s glasses flew of and tinkled on the rocks piggy cried out in terror.’ This shows he is becoming a more sinister character if what he did then to Piggy wasn’t bad enough when piggy scrambled around trying to find his glasses jack went to hit him again. He then ‘mimicked the whine and scramble.’ This is not normal behaviour it is cruel going on the verge of evil.
At a later assembly Jack refused to obey rules and split the group in half many of the older boys joined Jack, while the others stayed with Ralph. A dead fighter pilot was seen by some of the boys which they convinced themselves was the beast. . Now they have seen a physical thing they can convince them selves there is evil on the island. All of the evil they have they can blame on this physical face which appears in their nightmares.
Simon is a kind gentle character often related to nature for the fact that he is kind to small creatures and helps out the littleuns; for example he reached down for them the nicer fruit. ‘ Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled of the choicest from up in the foliage.’ The littleuns look up to him for doing this and think of him as almost a Christ like figure ‘ The littleuns watched him inscrutable over double handfuls of ripe fruit.’
Because Simon has a vivid imagination and is at one with nature he is described in the book as hearing the pig’s head, which is a gift to the beast, speak to him. The head was described in the most unpleasant way as ‘the obscene thing grinned and dripped.’ It was also described as ‘ the lord of the flies.’ This is because of the amount of flies attracted to the pig’s head. We can tell Simon isn’t really having a conversation with this pigs head as Simon is described as ‘answered him in the same silent voice.’ So as we can see form this he is on the verge of insanity.
The head starts telling Simon truthful things to hurt him for example ‘they think your batty, you don’t want Ralph to think your batty do you? You like Ralph a lot,’ these things upset Simon as deep down he knows the head is speaking out Simons inner deep feelings.
The head later says to Simon ‘there isn’t any one to help you only me, and I’m the beast.’ I feel Simon interpreted the head as the beast as that is what he fears the most, he is not afraid of animals but he fears himself and other humans much more the beast then says ‘I am a part of you.’ Simon interprets himself as the beast as he is different as the beast says ‘misjudged.’ We can see in this scene Simons views aren’t the same as the others he in an outcast who is often found alone and seeks acceptance.
It is ironic as Simon sees himself as the beast as in the next chapter Simon goes to find the others who are over excited dancing and chanting hysterically about killing the beast when Simon walks in jack shouts out ‘look the beast,’ the boys are just entering insanity and in there hysterical madness they beat Simon to death with their spears.
I personally believe that the beast represents the way in which people will try to convince himself that there is no evil inside of them by making someone or something else seem to be the cause for the evil. You can see this developing as the beast gets discussed more and more the boys become more evil. At the end when the island reaches its peak of hysterical insane riotess evil there is suddenly an anti climax where Ralph is rescued it is a huge relief I believe William Golding did this because he didn’t want evil to win over good, the adult figure on the island represented law and order and made us violent beasts which are trying to murder Ralph at the end of the day are only children, but this had just been forgotten amongst all the chaos
Emily Willis 11PRi
