His free indirect speech shows that he thinks of the beast as the people, something they can't control. He is too mature for that: 'his eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life'. Simon does not believe, like Jack, that the beast is something that they can hunt and kill. Simon, walking in front of Ralph, felt a flicker of incredulity - a beast with claws that scratched, that sat on the mountain-top, that left no tracks and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric. From all this, are we supposed to gather that Simon is sleep-deprived?
Simon is probably no older than ten, given that he is so short (see below) and Piggy calls him 'young Simon'. In addition, Simon has the burden of moral conscience - he alone voices the littluns' fears of the 'beastie', saying 'maybe it's only us'/'what's the dirtiest thing there is?', but when the boys laugh in his face they make it clear that Simon is alone in his traumatic fear. It's like camping night after night without a sleeping bag, for someone who has never gone camping before. So the boys rest in 'tottery' shelters on a deserted island, but have up to this point enjoyed living in a first-world country where even Piggy had a warm bed. Sleep deprivation, if Simon has it, is something that would make him more likely to have epileptic attacks.Īlthough Ralph is the only boy who helps Simon with the shelters, he describes them as 'tottery'. It's also worth noting that the boys may lack sleep. Therefore, Simon's continual fainting is more likely to be a diagnosed condition of which he is fully aware, such as epilepsy. Instead, Golding explains that Simon 'knew that one of his times was coming on'. If he had, that would imply that he viewed it as an isolated, random, and unexpected event that anyone could experience. Crucially, Golding did not say Simon 'felt rather faint so he soon passed out'. Yet the way we refer to an event is lot more telling than the details of the event itself. It is more likely that the pig-lord Simon saw was an epiphany about human nature, than a convenient figment of his stressed-out imagination. Golding may well have known about the correlation between religious experience and epilepsy. Normal victims of fainting don't hallucinate like this. In Simon's right temple, a pulse began to beat on the brain. the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. This would have been heightened by swaying branches and Simon's movement underfoot. Sunlight spread across a forest canopy will cause a 'dappled' effect of irregular light/dark patterns which are associated with with flashing lights. Simon was experiencing something similar beneath a veil of leaves. It's well known that epileptic victims are prone to seizures/fainting as a result of abnormal electrical activity triggered in the brain because of flashing light. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut, then sheltered them with his hand. The fact that he is 'reeling' even though he has 'allowed his pace to slacken until he was walking', hints that he gets dizzy easily, which is something that causes epileptic attacks and so is a common attribute of epileptic victims. Epileptic victims suffer from sensory disturbance, making Simon more likely to get distracted from something as small as the fact that Ralph 'smiled constrainedly' at him. Simon reeled and a white spot on his forehead turned read and trickled. When he bashed into a tree Ralph looked sideways and Robert sniggered. Similarly, Simon's fits seem to turn on and off at the flick of a switch.įor a moment or two Simon was happy to be accepted and then he ceased to think about himself. Epilepsy is characterised by its suddenness. Now that the pallor of his faint was over, Simon was a skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and course. Note 'recurrent episodes' in the definition, and that Simon is 'always throwing a faint'.
Modern-day causes of epilepsy involve taking drugs, which similarly degrade your body's functionality. and Addis and at matins over the precentor." // Epileptic victims are more likely to faint in stressful situations, such as performing in a choir, or as a result of tiredness. "He's always throwing a faint", said Merridew. Victims of epilepsy are more likely to faint as a result of over-heating. One of the boys flopped on his face in the sand and the line broke up. the choir huddled into line and stood there swaying in the sun A neurological disorder marked by sudden recurrent episodes of sensory disturbance, loss of consciousness, or convulsions, associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
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