Lord of the Flies

1. Lord of the Flies Chapter 9 A View to a Death

2. Descent into Savagery • The boys continue to move away from order and responsibility. • They have forsaken the wisdom of shelters and responsibilities in favor of Jack’s offer of meat.

3. The Feast • Reminiscent of Roman feasts (the fall of Roman’s civilization being linked here with descent into carnal pleasures and away from order), the feast is a savage scene of debauchery where the boys give into their base instincts.

4. Losing Sense of Identity • Ralph no longer cares who joins Jack. • Piggy suggests they join Jack in order to get meat. • They both exhibit moral weakness, making the murderous dance circle later in the chapter plausible.

5. The New Power on the Island (Jack) • The conch is abandoned by Jack for good. • Jack challenges Ralph to blow it to see if anyone will come (Ralph does not). • Ralph, submitting to Jack’s usurping of power, does not even take the conch with him when he goes to Jack’s camp.

6. Absolute Ruler • Jack has overthrown democratic rule on the island and secured authoritarian power for himself and himself alone.

7. Holy Simon • Simon reawakens in the clearing and discovers the true nature of the beast (a dead parachutist). • Seeing this decaying corpse tied up and mocked by the whim of the wind, Simon decides to cut away the strings and free the dead man.

8. The Truth About the Beast (Man) • Simon already understood that the beast was man himself, now Simon is also identifying that the scary thing on the island is literally a man, a dead one at that. • Mankind is the beast, both metaphorically but also in actuality.

9. Flies and their Lord • The corpse of the man, like the pig’s head, is covered in flies. • The rotting of the pig/man attracts the flies. Symbolically this represents the rotting/decaying of the island/world. • The flies are lords over decay. They are drawn to decay, and this decay was spawned by violence (brutal killing of pig, violent death in war for parachutist…).

10. Simon’s Death • Simon is the only pure boy on the island. • He returns to the beasts of the world (the boys on the island) because he feels that it is his duty to tell them about the dead parachutist. • He is brutally killed by all the boys (including Piggy and Ralph). • He is sacrificed by the hands of the very people he wanted to save (Christ-like). • His burial at sea by the magical glowing creatures further strengthens the religious allegory and his connection to Jesus.