Quote 3
“What
I mean is . . . maybe it’s only us”
Simon speaks these words in Chapter 5,
during the meeting in which the boys consider the question of the
beast. One littlun has proposed the terrifying idea that the beast
may hide in the ocean during the day and emerge only at night, and
the boys argue about whether the beast might actually exist. Simon,
meanwhile, proposes that perhaps the beast is only the boys themselves.
Although the other boys laugh off Simon’s suggestion, Simon’s words
are central to Golding’s point that innate human evil exists. Simon
is the first character in the novel to see the beast not as an external
force but as a component of human nature. Simon does not yet fully
understand his own idea, but it becomes clearer to him in Chapter 8,
when he has a vision in the glade and confronts the Lord of the
Flies.
