What is the climax of this novel? What happens? How do the events of this novel make you feel?

The climax of this novel is nearly right after Simon wakes up from his faint after his encounter with the Lord of the Flies. All the boys on the island (except for Simon, who was at that time just regaining consciousness) are at Jock's tribal beach place, having a feast, eating the meat from the same sow as the head that Lord of the Flies uses as an "image" for Simon. They start their hunting chant and the climax goes on... Here's page 152~154:


"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"

The movement became regular while the chant lost its first superficial excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse. Roger ceased to be a pig and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily. Some of the littluns started a ring on their own; and the complimentary circles went round and round as though repetition would achieve safety of itself. There was the throb and stamp of a single organism.

The dark sky was shattered by a blue-white scar. An instant later the noise was on them like the blow of a gigantic whip. The chant rose a tone in agony.

"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"

Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind.

"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"

Again the blue-white scar jagged above them and the sulphurous explosion beat down. The littluns screamed and blundered about, fleeing from the edge of the forest, and one of them broke the ring of biguns in his terror.

"Him! Him!"

The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast was like a pain. The beast stumbled into the horseshoe.

"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"

The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill.

"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"

The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beats struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

Then the clouds opened and let down the rain like a waterfall. The water bounded from the mountain-top, tore leaves and branches from the trees, poured like a cold shower over the struggling heap on the sand. Presently the heap broke up and figures staggered away. Only the beast lay still, a few yards from the sea. Even in the rain they could see how small a beast it was; and already its blood was staining the sand.

***

Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling, and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. 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 steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out toward the open sea.


If I were asked this question just last year, my response would have been much different. I would have said that the climax of The Lord of the Flies was when Jack and his tribe had a man-hunt to kill Ralph, because that was the "most exciting part" of the book. But now I know that the climax is "the point of no return". My view of the climax is changed, so I say that this scene is the climax of the whole story. If they had not killed Simon, he would have told them the truth about the Beast, saving them from the chaos that was to come; but they did, in fact, murder him, changing the whole course of the story.

I, personally, didn't like the climax of this story (I liked the book, however), though it was necessary in order to portray the theme that Golding has so effectively shown. I didn't like it because Simon was my favourite character, and also the boys' only hope to be saved from each other. But they killed him. How can he save them if he's dead? He can't! After I read this scene, I stopped reading and sat in a corner, angry at that id**t William Golding for killing poor, little Simon. Simon's not supposed to die! They NEED him! He is the one that's supposed to overcome the Lord of the Flies, and save the island and its society of young boys. BUT HE DIED!!!!!!!! No hope for the island, unless, of course, an adult comes to save them, which, obviously, CANNOT HAPPEN (though it did) because of the lack of a signal fire.

But, in the end, Simon's death was needed for Golding's book to be of value. I realize that, so I'm not going to complain.... as much. But, yeah. This is what I believe to be the climax of The Lord of the Flies.


-Tanner-