Simon's stable innocence is polluted when he comes across malignity. The Lord of the Flies, also a symbol of disorder and chaos, meets Simon face to face and Simon is defeated.
In many other incidents, the boys brutally slay many pigs. The pigs represent innocence because every time a pig is killed, the boys" life on the island falls deeper and deeper into corruption. When Jack and his hunters go hunting, the doomed pig is "a little apart from the rest, sunk is deep maternal bliss, the largest sow of the lot. She [is] black and pink; and the great bladder of the belly [is] fringed with a row of piglets that [sleep] or [burrow] and [squeak]" (134). There is nothing more pure and sincere than "maternal bliss," and Golding goes into depth describing the innocent and simple satisfaction of the sow with her piglets. The quote also serves to show that innocence is vulnerable, as there is nothing protecting the defenseless sow as she is busy nursing her piglets. That is when the hunters attack the unsuspecting sow as "the sow [falls] and the hunters [hurl] themselves at her. This dreadful eruption from an unknown world made her frantic; she [squeals] and [bucks] and the air [is] full of sweat and noise and blood and terror" (135). The hunters represent sin and depravity, and they "[hurl] themselves at her" when she is unsuspecting. This shows how evil can captivate suddenly and without warning, contaminating innocence without a second thought. When Golding writes that this intrusion is a "dreadful eruption from an unknown world," he is hinting that although evil can be unknown when lost in innocence, no one is safe from a sudden, unsuspecting eruption of evil. When one is hit upon with evil, one fights back, as evident in the sow when she squeals and bucks. However, it is usually a losing battle and is also terrifying. The sow's stable environment of unknowing innocence was destroyed when evil was thrown upon her, in the form of Jack and his hunters.
