Page 112 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019

beast in his final moments dehumanizes him and shows the level of frenzy the other boys have
risen to. They are so caught up in their paranoia and the thrill of the hunt that they are blind to
the fact that Simon is the one who is trying to talk to them and that he is telling them there is
nothing to be afraid of after all.

Simon's death is the second one in the novel and the first sign to Ralph that things are
starting to go wrong for them. Anjum writes in her analysis of the novel, “The ‘civilizing
instinct’ of a man urging him to… follow rules… and the feral instinct inciting him to act
brutally…run parallel in this novel.” Here, Anjum alludes to the two groups the boys are split
into. As the article describing the thematic elements of the novel phrases it, “One group…
including Simon…represents the good and discipline” (Rahman 227). By having Simon die at
that point in the novel, Golding creates a martyr and alludes to depictions of epilepsy throughout
history. According to Wagner on page 45 of her article, epilepsy was sometimes called “sacred
disease” in ancient times, due to the visions people had during episodes.

Simon does have a vision during his episode. The Lord of the Flies sets off an epileptic
reaction and has a conversation with Simon about the nature of good and evil in all people and
about how the thing the boys are afraid of is all in their heads. The conversation between the two
characters is in the foreground of the scene, but there is concrete evidence that Simon is having a
seizure while the patient is going on. On page 134 of the Kindle edition, Golding writes,
“Simon's head was tilted slightly up. His eyes could not break away…” This description mirrors
an experience Wagner writes about in her article. She describes the first seizure she ever had as
she remembers it: “my heart was pounding and my vision narrowed… I was inside of myself and
outside of myself….And in the back of my throat…there was…an elusive silver scent…” (43). If
Simon's experience had been written in first person, one could imagine him describing

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