Tag: character study

Illustration of Simon by Andrés Vera Martínez

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Simon stands apart from the other biguns as a luminous symbol of innate goodness, moral clarity, and spiritual insight. The novel places him at the beginning as a sickly and quiet, but kind boy ending up as a prophet violently silenced by the very society he tried to save.

In this article…

1. Introduction as a Fragile Yet Strong Boy

Simon is one of the choirboys under Jack Merridew’s command. In the first scene is introduced, he faints. Jack remarks:

“He’s always throwing a faint… He did in Gib; and Addis; and at matins over the precentor.”

It’s an early hint at his fragility. But he is not much physically weak for someone who faints frequently. In fact, he accompanies Ralph and Jack to the mountain during their first expedition pacing between them. This could be symbolic of the two eventual leaders’ trust in his ability, neutrality between two dominant personalities, and kind of physical and moral balance.

Simon has a natural affinity for peace. Unlike Jack, who seeks control, or Ralph, who carries the burden of leadership, and Piggy, who seeks supports, he prefers independence, solitude and reflection. He is more connected with nature than the others since he escapes to a hidden forest glade, finding solace among butterflies, candle-buds, and silence.

He is also the most compassionate. Simon is the only one who truly understands and helps Piggy, fetching his glasses and comforting the younger “littluns” with fruit. His kindness is instinctive, not strategic.

In these early moments, he emerges as a spiritual leader as expected of a choirboy. Unlike Jack and his hunters, he retains his moral compass and remains a gentle soul existing outside the usual group dynamics.

2. A Prophetic Insight: Seeing the Truth Others Can’t

In a meeting of the boys where they talk of the beast from water and air, Ralph, Jack and Piggy dismiss the fear because no one has seen a beast. Simon is the one who sees urges them to look within.

“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.”

This line, whispered during a fearful assembly, is perhaps the most profound insight in the entire novel. While others imagine a physical monster stalking them, Simon realizes the “beast” is the darkness within themselves. He touches the central theme of Golding’s novel: that savagery is not an external threat but a dormant part of human nature.

But his voice is lost amid fear, ridicule, and power politics. Like a prophet dismissed for others to look into their souls, the group isolates him further since the idea is too unsettling to accept.

3. The Vision: The Lord of the Flies and the Breaking of the Mind

The most symbolic and harrowing moment in the entire novel comes with Simon’s hallucinatory confrontation with the impaled sow’s head, the literal Lord of the Flies. It says to him:

“There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me. And I’m the Beast.”

The beast adds:

“I’m part of you. Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?”

As his mind keeps drifting, the Lord of the Flies brings out the truth:

“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! … You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?”

In these moments, Simon’s mind shatters and he descends into unconsciousness. After this psychosis he is the most isolated as he has gone where no other boy has.

4. Simon’s Martyrdom

After waking, Simon climbs the mountain and discovered the decayed body of a parachutist, the beast from air.

“The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.”

He stumbles down from the mountain to reveal the truth and staggers into the boys’ frenzied dance.

In a moment of ritualistic hysteria, Simon is mistaken for the beast and brutally murdered by the very boys he came to save.

At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore… There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

Jack and his hunters are indifferent, and Piggy and Ralph try rationalising the action, but the nature mourns his death. The storm that follows, washing his body out to sea with glowing creatures surrounding him, transforms Simon’s death into something sacred:

“Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellation… Simultaneously, the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall.”

Golding paints Simon as a Christ-like figure, a martyr who dies bringing truth to a world unwilling to hear it. His death marks the irrevocable fall into savagery.

Conclusion: Simon as the Soul of the Novel

Simon’s arc from a silent, compassionate child to a misunderstood prophet makes him the most morally uncorrupted character in Lord of the Flies. He represents inherent human goodness, unaffected by society and groupthink, spiritual and philosophical depth, grounded in empathy and insight, and the inevitable fate of truth in a world ruled by fear and violence. His murder is the most numbing moment implying the end of humanity. Once he dies, there remains only savagery.

Why Kazuo Kiriyama did not win the Battle

By Sandeept

On November 9, 2018

In Blogging, Book Review, Character study, Movies, Review

Kazuo Kiriyama is the best “player” of the “game” that involves killing classmates. He alone kills twelve of his classmates. Yet he ends up dead. A lot of Battle Royale video game fans seem to be annoyed by this fact. They say, “He deserved to win.” I say, “He didn’t. A novel or a movie is different from a video game.”

The kid who never smiled

We get the first and the most important insight into Kazuo Kiriyama’s character through Mitsuru Numai in Chapter 11. Mitsuru had been in an occasion, saved from bullies by Kazuo and since then, he had revered the latter. He believed Kazuo was the one capable of beating the system and destroy the Battle Royal Programme because he had defeated local yakuza (Yakuza is an organization of powerful Japanese gangsters or mafias).

Mitsuru and his friends make him the leader of the gang called the Kiriyama family. Despite being called notorious in the city, the Kiriyama family never bullied upon others in the school. They all relied on Kazuo Kiriyama and did things for fun. However, when Kiriyama kills his gang within an hour of the beginning of the game, Mitsuru Numai notices one thing that they had always ignored: “Kazuo Kiriyama never smiled.” (Chapter 11, Battle Royale)

Kazuo Kiriyama is apathetic. He does not feel anything. Neither joy, nor sorrow, no pity, no guilt. We later know that while he was still in his mother’s womb, she fell in an accident and a stake had entered Kiriyama’s head. The accident destroyed his emotional centre. Whatever the reason, Kiriyama is what Shogo Kawada tells us: “A hollow man … There’s no place in his heart for logic or love, no. For any kind of values. That kind of person. On top of that, there’s no reason for the way he is.” (Chapter 67, Battle Royale).

The coin toss

If one thing that changed the complexion of the story, it is Kiriyama’s coin toss. He had two options:

To participate in the game, and
To destroy the Battle Royale Programme and the government.

Kiriyama’s choices are not based on logic. They were based on chance. Had he used logic, he would have chosen the second option. He would have been a great helping hand to our heroes Shogo Kawada, Shuya Nanahara and Shinji Mimura. None of our heroes believed he was capable of killing his classmates. He hadn’t even bullied one! Kiriyama’s coin toss, thus becomes a bane for all his classmates.

Even if Kiriyama had not been thinking logically, had the coin toss made him destroy the Programme, he would have got support from his gang as well as the others. They would not have to fear their own classmates. Forty of them could have brought down the Programme in no time.

In the movie, however, Kiriyama is a new student like Shogo Kawada and is a mystery. In the novel, he is their classmate and still a mystery. Kiriyama from the novel, to me, is a bigger villain. But he could have easily turned into a hero.

Why Kiriyama did not win

Simply, because letting Kiriyama win was against the books theme of love and kindness. Kiriyama is the exact opposite of love and kindness. Had Koshun Takami, the author, let Kiriyama win, he would have set a wrong example. He had to save the lovely Noriko and the lucky Shuya to send a message: “Apathy is a vice,” and: “Choice made without reasoning is a curse.”

Had Kiriyama won, another theme of the book would have been crushed: rebellion. After the coin toss, Kiriyama’s chance of being a rebellion dies. Rebellion stays alive in the form of Nakagawa and Nanahara. They didn’t get long lecture from Kawada about the system and change to get killed in the end. They are there to bring about some change. Kiriyama’s victory would have shattered Shogo’s dream, and our hopes that the Battle Royale Programme would come to an end. Kiriyama did not win. We still have a hope.

[Featured image obtained from fdzeta.com]

Experiences of a common man!