Symbolism of the Conch in Lord of the Flies by William Golding

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Symbolism of the Conch in Lord of the Flies by William Golding

In William Golding's Lord of the Flies the Conch represents power and order.

Power is represented by the fact that you have to be holding it to speak, and

Order is displayed by the meetings or gatherings that its used to call and hold.

The Conch's power is presented in the very beginning on pg 22 as the

children vote for Ralph to be chief just because he was the one with the Conch.

' "Him with the shell." "Ralph! Ralph!" "Let him be chief with the trumpet

thing" ' this excerpt from pg 22 shows how everybody seems to think that power,

responsibility and leadership skills comes from the Conch. Another Example of

the Conch's Power is the fact that through out the book the conch is the only

tool that can call a meeting and wherever the Conch is thats where the meeting

is. No other symbol in Lord of the Flies holds so much power. This is one of

the reasons that Jack Merridew disrespects the Conch. He wants to break the

spell the symbol has on everybody. He wants to prove that he is the rightful

leader.

The Conch also displays order through the rule that you must have the Conch

to Speak in an assembly or meeting. "And another thing. We can't have everybody

talking at once. We'll have to have 'hands up' like at school." At first

everyone thinks that this is the best method to maintain order but soon they

find out how quickly the power of the conch is abused by Ralph and Jack. On pg

89 While Simon is trying to speak Ralph and Jack try to get him to sit down. "

'Sit down' 'Shut up' 'take the Conch!' 'Sod you' ' Shut up!' " This shows early

on that the Order is starting to fall apart, fortunatly Ralph doesn't become a

corrupt leader he keeps his head on straight which causes the others to get

restless. They want to have fun but Ralph being the leader doesn't have a choice

some things need to be done in order to stay civilized. Jack on the other hand

decides to separate and build his own "Tribe" he uses catchy words like "We'll

hunt and have fun" but in actuality Ralph's group which is declining is the

safer and the more fun of the two. Here's an excerpt on pg 92 that shows that

Ralph is losing control of Jack and the Conch is loosing its effect on the other

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