Lord of the Flies Group

Question:

tink10
tink10
Student
College - Freshman

"Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness" What does this mean? What is the "illness"?

(Ch.5,p.89)

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Posted by tink10 on Thursday April 3, 2008 at 12:45 PM and tagged with illness, lord of the flies, quote, simon.

Answers:

  1. slshcolnik
    slshcolnik Teacher
    High School - 10th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Man's "essential illness" as presented by Golding, is man's inherent evil nature. This illness (man's tendency towards evil) is represented by the boys decent into violence and depravity - ultimately the death of Simon himself. Simon was the most intuitive of the group and saw that this starting to become a problem in the group. He just was not able to articulate - or find the words to explain - this to the rest of the boys. Even if he could, most likely the group would not have understood or cared about what Simon was saying.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/flies/character-analysis
    http://www.enotes.com/flies/overview

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    Posted by slshcolnik on Saturday April 5, 2008 at 2:51 PM

  2. moniq16
    moniq16 Student
    High School - 10th Grade

    mankind's essential illness is the necessity to kill

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    Posted by moniq16 on Saturday November 8, 2008 at 8:29 PM