Before Ralph calls his assembly in the evening in Chapter 5 of "The Lord of the Flies," he "adjusts his values" and reflects,
Piggy could think. He could go step by step inside that fat head of his...
If Piggy who stands outside "the triangle" at the assembly is the voice of logic, Simon, who is the first to recognize that the beast "is human," is the most intuitive and pure of the boys. He is the heart of the group, as well. When Piggy does not get any of the crabmeat in Chapter 4, Simon generously shoves his piece over to Piggy. Earlier he retrieves Piggy's glasses after Jack smacks Piggy's head. It is Simon who recognizes the evil inherent in the boys:
...maybe there is a beast....What I mean is...maybe it's only us....We could be sort of....
But, his "effort fell about him in ruins; the laughter beat him cruelly...." and he, too, stands "outside the triangle," as the boys refuse to understand the import of Simon's words. Instead, the "evil that men do," as Shakespeare wrote, crushes the goodness in the person of Simon; the hunters kill him, chanting "kill the beast" when the beast is really within themselves. As Simon's murdered body washes to sea, it glows with a phosphorescent light as though the soul of man has departed from the island.
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