Morality In Lord Of The Flies Essay

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In society, there is always the fight in which an order must be found, a balance between the omnipresent forces of good and evil created by the presence moral systems. As these morals begin to wane, some hold to their previous customs, becoming figures of the order that remains after chaos begins to overrun a society that once ran smoothly. Morals, being unique to human thought and behavior, are often taken for granted until such a moment that their worth is questioned and the underlying, animalistic nature of human life is revealed. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses the character Simon as a conduit to convey the morals and their weakening power on the island the children crash land upon. Though his allegiance lay at one time with…show more content…
Simon treks to the mountain where “he [takes] the lines in his hands, [freeing] them from the rocks” (147). In this, the main aspect of Christ’s death is made apparent. The death of Christ is said to free all humans of their inherent sin. In the action of freeing the parachutist from the confines of his parachute’s strings, Simon is saving the already lost creature from rotting by cause of himself. On the night of Simon’s death, the boys are confronted with “a thing… crawling out of the forest… [as if in] a pain” (152). This thing, being Simon, again depicts Christ as in the time before his crucifixion. Bearing knowledge and enduring pain, Simon goes forward to his ultimate, untimely death in the ritualistic dance and murder at the hands of his peers. The boys responsible for this action come to the revelation that “that was Simon… [and] that [it] was murder” (156). The abrupt end of Simon’s life makes his fellows think about what has been done. In this moment, the fragility of the morals imposed upon the boys is brought into the light; the lack of intrinsic value that morals have on the human nature is made clear. With the end of Simon comes the end of the order found on the
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