"Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.
The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.
Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble. The strange, attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapours busied themselves round his head. The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water.
Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling; and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea.”
2 comments:
Golding writes these paragraphs in a very descriptive and almost poetic way. It is a very somber and mellow mood that shows how something important has happened and what an impact it causes for the story. Golding ties in part of nature to show that it has a respect for what has just happened to Simon. Phrases like "Even the sound of the water was still", and "The sun and the moon were pulling" are just a few ways that Golding uses diction to create this mood.
The paragraphs Golding writes that surround the death of Simon do a very good job in creating a mellow mood. Everything seems to still with the his death, almost in a respectful way and while those who killed him feel no remorse, Golding's paragraphs make the mood calming in a bittersweet way. It's calming in that now Simon is no longer tortured by the seizure and the island it's self but also bittersweet in that Simon is no longer alive. He was kind, and always did the right thing despite the other boys being consumed by their own savagery.
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