[In Lord of the Flies] Simon has been given the conventional characteristics of the mystic whose non-rational approach to the ways of knowing are presumably meant to reassert the mystery and to re-affirm the meaning of the universe beyond its apparent basis in natural law but, in point of fact, Simon first fails to do so and then brings back the truth of the opposite. We have been led to believe in the possibility of the mystery which we later learn the author himself is not willing to accept but, on the other hand, cannot quite abandon. However, I think it is possible to suggest how this confusion has come about, and the other half of the dual hero, the fat boy Piggy, will make this clear.

If Simon represents intuition, feeling, the mystic's approach to knowledge, Piggy represents rationality, logic, science and the processes of thought on...