I like the two passages in chapters 9 and 11. The children thought that Simon was the beast and beat him. Eventually he was killed and ‘its blood was staining the sand’. Then ‘the great wave of the tide moved farther along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open sea’. This is the end of chapter 9. Another similar passage appears in chapter 11 after Piggy’s death - ‘the sea breaths again in a long, slow sigh, the water boils white and pink over the rock; and when it goes sucking back again, the body of Piggy is gone’.Virtue symbolized by Simon and Piggy is destroyed by vice embodied by the savage. Of course, this unfortunate disturbs us awfully because we believe that it is not right for vice to win against virtue. The above passages, however, say that the results of intense conflicts between virtue and vice do not have much meaning because they disappear immediately by supernatural power as if nothing has happened. Perhaps, there are no such things like virtue or vice to begin with. Or the universe might not care much about the difference of virtue and vice on the tiny Earth, although it is an important matter of life and death to us.
These two passages also remind me of my favorite poem, ‘On the seashore’ written by Rabindranath Tagore.
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