Simon's encounter with the lord of the flies is one of the most important events in the book. Simon's meeting with Lord of the Flies is a foreshadow into his own death, Simon looks into the vast darkness in Lord of the flies and later dies after his meeting with lord of the flies. The meeting also reveals to Simon that the fear of the lord of the flies or the "beasties" is truly within themselves.

Simon is an epileptic and during an epileptic fugue he has an internalised conversation with the evil which he knows dwells within us all. He mentally projects this inner beast onto the pig's head on a stick which Jack has left as an offering for the imagined beast.