Chapter 9: A view to a Death

The chapter begins with Simon waking up and heading for Jack's feast in order to tell everyone that the beast was not real. Meanwhile Ralph and Piggy were bathing, and then they decided to go to Jack's feast. When they came to the feast everyone was eating already. Then the boys who were cooking at the fire hauled off a chunk of meat and purposefully bumped Piggy with it, which burned him. This made everyone laugh, even Ralph, who was being nice to Piggy for a while. I think this shows how Piggy is the person that everyone tries to hurt or make fun of in order to make themselves feel better, or just for no reason at all. "Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal." (149) Piggy and Ralph got their portion of meat and ate it. Jack started to speak about who will join his tribe and him and Ralph started arguing again. After it started to rain Jack said "Do our dance! Come on! Dance!" (151) Everybody started to dance and chant about killing the beast. While everyone was dancing and chanting something came out of the forest, and everyone thought it was the beast. Everybody closed in on the "beast" and killed it. Later in the chapter it explains the beast was Simon. When I figured out that they killed Simon I thought it was horrible. He was one of the few nice characters in the book. I think them killing Simon goes to show how scared of the beast everyone was. I also noticed that the title of the chapter foreshadows what is going to happen in the chapter. I did not like this chapter too much because I think that at some point the boys realized they were not killing the beast, but a person.