Compassion In Lord Of The Flies

Humans are though to be the most developed living species on the planet Earth. However, throughout life, one can also see humans can be so evil and illogical during moments of desperation that the ability of reason is cannot be found. In the book Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, Golding depicts many examples of human nature with the use of characters he placed in the story. One of these characters is a boy named Simon. Golding uses Simon to describe compassion, wisdom and insight, and a Christ-like figure. Golding uses Simon to first describe compassion. Compassion is the feeling of empathy and sympathy for the hardship or distress of others. Golding uses Simon to contemplate the understanding of humanity. “(He) found for them the fruit that they could not reach, pulled off the choicest from up in the foliage” (138). Simon is a compassionate boy who understands and tries to help everyone around him no matter their age or status. As most of the “biguns” in the story bully or ignore the “littluns”, Simon cares for them. He helps them retrieve the best fruit from the trees and does

Simon is depicted as Jesus or Christ-like in the book. His name also has a symbolic reference to one of the apostles of Jesus in the Bible. “(He) smiled pallidly at Ralph and said his name was Simon” (…). In the bible, there was an apostle named Simon, whose name was turned into Peter. Peter is the meaning for rock, or stronghold. The character, Simon was like a stronghold for the boys, he was the one who discovers that the beast, rather than a physical object, was themselves, “maybe it’s only us” (…). However, this was not what the boys wanted to hear. Like Jesus, Simon who wanted to save the boys and tried on multiple occasions, was killed for trying to save mankind, or in this case all the boys on the island. Upon his death, Golding depicts Simon death as,