Page 110 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019

Darwinism versus Disability: Epilepsy in Lord of the Flies
Kelley Jordan

In William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, the question of what it means to truly be
human arises when a group of English schoolboys are trapped on an island. They try to create a
civilized society for themselves, but fail, leaving two of the boys dead by the end of the novel.
One of these boys is Simon, who suffers from epilepsy. When examining his character from a
disability studies or ableist perspective, the reader gets a sense of the attitude regarding disability
and chronic illness at the time the story was originally published. Golding uses the society his
characters create to provide commentary on such attitudes.

The audience first meets Simon, along with all the other boys, when Ralph summons
everyone to the beach for a meeting. The first thing they see Simon do is faint. The boys move
him out of the way, and Jack, who is the leader of the choir Simon is a part of, does not seem
concerned with the other boy's condition. He remarks, “He's always throwing a faint…”
(Golding 20 Kindle edition). Simon's fainting spell at the beginning and Jack's lack of concern
towards it is the first hint that Simon has a medical condition and that he suffers from it often
enough that other people are accustomed to it. By foreshadowing Simon's illness in this way,
Golding reveals the lack of knowledge and empathy for his condition. With the exception of the
other boys in the choir, nobody seems to realize that he has epilepsy at all. This lack of
understanding reveals to the audience that epilepsy is stigmatized in the universe in which the
novel takes place.

Golding also provides other clues that Simon is chronically ill. On page 23 of the Kindle
edition of the novel, Golding writes, “… He was a skinny vivid little boy…” Throughout the
novel, Simon is also described as being very small for his age. Being thin and smaller than

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