Lord of the Flies: Chp 9 and 10

Prompt 7

Chapters nine and ten of the “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, were very intriguing, and thrilling. I believe the climax of the novel is described, although somewhat disguised, in chapter nine. I realize now that the climax began to unfold when Simon is gleaning knowledge about the Beast from the Lord of the Flies at the end of chapter eight.  When the Lord if the Flies said, “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could kill!” (Golding 143) I was perplexed, but now it is now evident to me that Golding is trying to demonstrate that the Beast is the savagery that exists in human nature.  As chapter nine unfolds we see the savagery at its worst.  The description of Simon discovering that the Beast was not the dead man covered by the parachute was also difficult to decipher, but upon looking back over this section I realized that this Beast was not what the boys should fear, but the Beast within themselves.  Once Simon realizes this he rushes to tell the others of his breakthrough but his news is lost in the din of thunder and the chant  “Kill the beast. Cut his throat. Spill his blood”(Golding 152).   This is certainly the climax, the thunder cracks and the boys are in a turbulent frenzy when Simon stumbles into the melee and is savagely beaten to death.  The death of Simon affects the remainder of the novel because the boys are changed forever knowing that they have killed a friend. It confused me how they could not have realized it was Simon, however, the boys seemed to be feeding off each others thirst for blood and were caught up in the moment.  I believe this could be described as a ‘mob mentality’, where one person in the group initiated the act and everyone else followed. The significance of killing Simon is that he was the symbol of purity, a figure of Christ and nature, and when they kill him they are killing off all that is good in their society.

 Another part of the novel that intrigued me was “Power lay in the brown swell of his forearms: authority sat on his shoulder and chattered in his ear like an ape“ (Golding 150). This perplexed me because at the beginning of the novel, it was Ralph who everyone wanted as leader and now they have shifted their allegiance to Jack.  It may be that the savagery has led to this power change as they realize that Ralph will likely try to tame the barbarism and bring back the civility.  The civilization rapidly went down hill when Jack assumed power, and now we see that Jack is intent on keeping the power as he has taken to beating and punishing Wilfred for no reason.  This would instil fear in the others assuring him control by domination.