Simon Birch: A film about a boy who was not an Outsider

Simon Birch Journal Entry
By Alyssa Schankman

Simon Birch is a film about outsiders, friendship, and love and sacrifice revolving around the life of a diminutive twelve-year-old boy named Simon. It captures the answers to the questions studied in the course of English thus far during the short story “The Lady or the Tiger” and the novels A Separate Peace and Lord of the Flies. In the film, Simon acted as an outsider, a friend, and a sacrifice. As all those things, Simon became a hero.
I believe Simon was the key to learning the answer to the first question, “Who Are the Outsiders?” If Simon were in Lord of the Flies, he would have been like Ralph and Piggy, but he would have taught them that being an outsider could make someone a hero. Simon had power when he was an outsider, but Ralph and Piggy didn’t. That’s because Simon had faith. He believed in others and in himself. Simon knew he wasn’t meant to just be an ill-treated outsider all his life. So the...