In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, Piggy’s death is a pivotal point in the novel, signifying the

extinguishing of all traces of civilization and logic on the island as savagery, in one merciless act, takes
the reigns of control on the island. Piggy’s murder is entirely and inarguably intentional, committed by
Roger, a symbol of human nature’s inherent darkness--its pure, unadulterated savagery. Piggy’s
character, on the other hand, is a source of light, the unwavering voice beneath Ralph’s campaigns for
civilization, and is an advocate of logic and scientific reason.

Both boys serve as advisors of sorts to their respective leaders--Piggy to Ralph and Roger to Jack. It is a
consistent and almost fitting death in the novel’s larger theme of the struggles of civilization against
savagery which is the dark side of human nature to which Golding shows civilization can quickly devolve.
Savagery annihilates reason purposefully, swiftly and violently. Piggy’s death is different from Simon’s,
ultimately more significant to the novel’s overarching message, although equally violent in nature.

While Simon’s slaughter can hardly be attributed to accident, Simon’s murder closely resembled a hunt
and a crime of temporary insanity more so than a cold-blooded murder. Simon is killed in the fever of
excitement and the boys’ barbaric chants, their lusts for blood speaking louder than their swiftly
diminishing tendencies toward reason. However, Piggy’s death cannot be mistaken for an accident of
any sort. Roger, his killer, is a boy who had, from the start, consistently test the boundaries of
conscience and civilization and quickly grown to disregard them entirely.

Piggy’s death, however, does not come entirely as a surprise, foreshadowed by the destruction of other
entities that once stood as symbols of the power of civilization, each respective object and person
meeting its demise at a devastatingly fitting point in the novel and each symbolizing further descent into
the depths of savagery. Piggy’s spectacles, for example, were broken in one lens earlier in the novel
after the signal fire goes out as a ship passes, and Jack had his first successful hunt.

The spectacles are later stolen by Jack’s tribe and Piggy, a symbol of reason, is left completely blind soon
before he is murdered. Simon, a character who stands for the untainted (and unrealistic) good of
humanity, is killed not long before Piggy’s murder. All signs seem to point inevitably towards Piggy’s
death, yet it is still devastating to the reader, as a voice who had been unwavering in its fight for
civilization is silenced. Simon’s murder is a true and horrifying display of the boys’ violent capabilities, a
revealing of the great extent of their innate savagery.

Although Simon’s vision brings him to the realization of and the existence of an inner beast, he only truly
meets and learns first-hand of the “beast’s” dominion over the boys on the island. In killing Simon, the
boys are acting on a savage impulse--a tendency which has spread with exercise, come to conquer all
others. The boys, in their murderous dance, exhibit a bloodlust, an energy and a barbarity shockingly
similar to that of animals--semi-aware of their actions while entirely enraptured with the excitement
and intensity of the moment. Even Piggy and Ralph are not exempt from involvement.
The two boys discuss it briefly on the morning following Simon’s murder, and while Piggy denies any
association, Ralph is assured of their guilt. There is no question as to the identity of the boy they call the
beast, yet Golding constantly alternates between referring to Simon by his name and as “the beast”. The
name by which Simon is called is a strategic and revealing device. He is called Simon when desperately
attempting to reason with the boys and convey his message, while referred to as “the beast” when
being beaten mercilessly by the horde of boys.

Yet however revealing an event Simon’s death proves to be, its significance does not equate to that of
Piggy’s death and its repercussions. Simon is merely a casualty of savagery--an unfortunate sacrifice and
a victim of the boys’ savage impulses. His death represents the overpowering and eventual annihilation
of good. However, the power of good has long since been left behind on the island and after Simon’s
confrontation with the Lord of the Flies, it was only a matter of time before Simon, and the power of
good with him, officially met his demise.

Simon did not often play an active part in the plot of the novel, yet he was a constantly present force of
kindness and productivity, and ultimately inherent to the novel’s inherent message. Compared to Jack’s
savagery and Ralph’s civilization, Simon’s significance was on an entirely different plane--a
representation of pure goodness and morality. However, the novel predominantly compares order and
primitive instinct. No matter how important, Simon’s death reveals less of the descent not savagery that
the novel so expertly chronicles than Piggy’s death, an event symbolizing so much more than merely the
bloodied shores would suggest. Although Simon’s death is equally as important as Piggy’s death in some
respect, viewing the two separate from the themes of Lord of the Flies, in consideration of the novel’s
central purpose, the symbolic value of Simon’s death is not as momentous as that of the destruction of
one of the novel’s main forces of civilization, which is a more relevant and therefore significant event.