References to various religions in novels are made to help the
author illustrate to the reader the situation in which he has placed his
characters. In The Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses biblical
allusion to enhance the reader's perspective on the story. In events and
metaphors, the character Simon stands out as the Christ figure, and the
Beast plays the part of the Devil. As Simon is out walking, he
comes across a group of small children trying to reach fruit hanging from
the higher branches of the tree. Here, the littluns who had run after him
had caught up with him. They talked, cried out unintelligibly, lugged
him toward the trees. Then, amid the roar of the bees in the afternoon
sunlight, Simon found for them the fruit they could not reach, pulled off
the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back to the endless
outstretched hands. When he had satisfied them he paused and looked
round. The littluns watched him inscrutably over double handfuls of ripe
fruit. (56) In giving them the fruit until they are satisfied, Simon
recreates the event in which Christ multiplied the loaves and fishes to
feed the poor until they were contented. After this, Simon disappears
from the others to be alone and begins to have feelings that something is
wrong. He starts to have premonitions of the Beast: The Lord of the
Flies. When the boys set off in a party to find the Beast on the
mountain, Simon starts to see a vision of what they will find. Simon . .
. felt a flicker of incredulity -- a beast with claws that scratched, that
sat on a mountain-top, that left no tracks and yet was no fast enough to
catch Samneric. However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before
his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick. (103)
Simon has a direct premonition of one of the physical manifestations of
the Beast. He later finds th...