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How the author uses symbols in the Lord of the Flies
The use of symbols in Lord of the Flies
How the author uses symbols in the Lord of the Flies
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In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, a plane crash strands a group of boys on an uninhabited island, with no adults around. As the boys come to realize this, they begin to establish a civilized government, based on the governments seen at home. Before Ralph and Piggy find the other boys, they find a pristine, “creamy” (Golding 15) shell. The shell brings all of the boys together, and becomes a symbol of the civilization they once knew, until the “Lord of the Flies”(Golding 143) replaces it, which represents the savagery and evil that everyone has in them. The conch shell represents unity, civilization, and government amongst the boys, and once the boys destroy the shell, they abandon their discipline. When Ralph originally finds …show more content…
He calls the group together, the boys elect him as chief, and he coordinates the group to create a civilization and its accompanying tasks. The conch is in Ralph’s possession from the beginning as well. From the second he picks it up, the conch is Ralph’s. Its majestic beauty mirrors Ralph’s physical attractiveness, a connection the other boys see when they meet Ralph, and as a result, they elect Ralph as their leader. Due to this, one could argue that the conch symbolizes Ralph’s leadership, which is strong in the beginning, but as the conch loses its majestic appeal to the boys, tension between Ralph and Jack rises (Golding 50-51), and Ralph’s leadership weakens. This is especially seen after Ralph calls a meeting, and the meeting disperses without Ralph’s dismissal. Ralph worries, “‘If I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going” (Golding 92). Ralph feels that if he blows the conch again, it will lose its significance, and the boys will never come for a meeting again. After Jack declares that, “[He’s] not going to play any longer” (Golding 127), and sets off to make his own tribe, some of the boys start to leave Ralph’s leadership. It no longer influences them, until eventually, Roger shatters the conch with a boulder, crushes Ralph’s last follower, destroying his influence, and disintegrating his …show more content…
As soon as Ralph calls the others on the island, the boys create a civilization with the characteristics of the societies they knew back at home. They elect a leader to serve as governance, Jack’s choir boys are made hunters to serve as the labor union, the boys attempt to create a distress signal system through the signal fire, and Ralph creates rules similar to those that dictate them at home. The boys may forget their jobs and specific tasks, but Ralph blows the conch, and they meet, reminding them of the task at hand. However, as tensions rise between Ralph and Jack, the group begins to disintegrate, refusing to listen to Ralph or obey the rules set in place. At this point, the conch loses much of its significance, a fact Ralph is well aware of. He refuses to overuse the conch, fearing he might disband the group altogether (Golding 92). As a result, the hunters stop maintaining the fire, which was their original assignment, and begin to do whatever they feel like, namely hunting pigs. In the scenes where the boys hunt, the development of their savagery can be clearly noted. Their hunts progress from hunting pigs for meat, to torturing pigs for fun (Golding 135-136), to murdering Simon (Golding 152), to hunting Ralph and planning to treat him just like the pig. It is just before the hunt for Ralph that the conch is destroyed. This milestone indicates the crossover from civility to total savagery of Jack’s
William Golding communicates the idea through Ralph that all the order and goodness of the island is gone when the Conch breaks and how the rest of the boys turned into savages. Golding shows in the novel that, “Samneric were savages like the rest; Piggy was dead, and the conch smashed to powder.” This quote it demonstrates how the other boys took everything from Ralph who was the only person still somewhat civilized. The rest of the boys just follow and let the evil inside consume them. The other boys broke the conch to show how they turned on the only person not evil. The conch broke because they forgot how authority works and the do not listen to anybody and more. Samneric turned to evil also and the only person that wasn’t changed was
The conch is used for the first time in the book and able to draw all of the boys to the same spot on the island showing its power. “Immediately, the thing sounded. A deep harsh note boomed under the palms...” (Golding 12) Soon after the conch is blown, the boys start to arrive one by one. The conch is able to reach over the whole island to get the boys to gather. Very quickly the conch is put on a high place of order. In fact, the boys cannot even talk in the assemblies unless they are holding the conch. The conch can calm everybody down. If everything is going crazy, all Ralph has to do is blow the conch and then the boys will assemble. In addition to the power of the conch, it represents civility, as the boys are savages without it. “‘If I blow the conch and they don’t come back, then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued.’” (Golding 99) Ralph knows if they do not come back after he blows the conch then they have officially become savages; there would be no coming back from it. He does not want to blow the conch because he wants to believe that they are still civil and have order, but deep down he knows that they are savages. Throughout the novel, Ralph is always using the conch to bring order back to the boys. The boys are nothing without the conch....
They often obey his destructive orders just to avoid being punished. Jack tells Ralph, after Roger kills Piggy, “ ‘See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that! There isn’t a tribe for you anymore! The conch is gone—’ -He ran forward, stooping- ‘I’m chief!’ ” (Golding 181) Jack threatens Ralph and the boys by reminding them of the consequences of not succumbing to his authority. They are physically and emotionally tormented, forced to participate in Jack’s violent acts. As time goes by, they willingly join in on Jack’s brutal endeavors, such as hunting Ralph down in an attempt to sacrifice him to the beast. He
After Jack separates himself from the rest of the tribe, Ralph barges into the camp and attempts to use the conch shell to gather up his former tribe mates. The boys say that the conch doesn’t work here, and they start throwing rocks at Ralph.
At the beginning of the novel, Ralph and Piggy discover a conch shell on the beach and use it to summon the boys together after the crash separates them. The conch shell becomes a symbol of civilization and order in the novel. The shell initially is a successful way of governing the boys’ meetings, following simple etiquette—whoever is holding the shell has the right to speak. The shell acts as more than a symbol, it is a tool...
When the boys arrive at the island after a plane crash, they are forced to find a way to keep everything in order and under control. “At first they delight in their freedom and in their pleasure of the island”( Saidi, Hasan1). Then the boys begin to explore, Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell on the beach. When Ralph and Piggy first see the shell Piggy says "S'right. It's a shell! I seen one like that before. On someone's back wall. A conch he called it. He used to blow it and then his mum would come. It's ever so valuable--" (Golding15). They use this shell as a symbol of how fragile order and democracy is. The sound from the shell gathers all the boys together after the plane crash. The plane crash seperated them in th...
Ralph feels the need to create a better place as he attempts to get everyone home. Although he is demanding, Ralph shows that he has good ideas and can enforce what he thinks should happen: "Shut up," said Ralph absently. He lifted the conch. "Seem to me we ought to have a chief to decide things," (Golding, 22)." His forcefulness gains respect and a confident response from the others. "Ralph smiled and held up the conch for silence," (Golding, 23)." The conch is mentioned and revered as one of the symbols of such power. As Ralph blows the conch, the others draw nearer, compelled to follow: "By the time Ralph had finished blowing the conch the platform was crowded," (Golding32). Piggy, however, was aware of the conch first, but Ralph was credited with its discovery and use. When it was first found, Ralph thought it was a stone in the water but Piggy saw it as the shell and explained what he knew about it:
Ralph was introduced as a fair and likeable boy. His interaction with Piggy demonstrated his kind nature as he did not call him names with hateful intentions as Jack had. His good looks allowed him to be well accepted among his peers, and this gave him enough confidence. His handsome features and the conch as a symbol of power and order made him stand out from the crowd of boys and led to his being proclaimed Chief: "There was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerful, there was the conch" (p. 24). From the quick decisions he made as Chief near the beginning of the novel, it could be seen that Ralph was well-organized. Gradually, Ralph became confused and began to lose realness in his thoughts and speeches: "Ralph was puzzled by the shutter that flickered in his brain. There was something he wanted to say; then the shutter had come down." (p. 156) He started to feel lost as the boys, with the exception of Piggy, began to change and adapt to their freedom.. He was more influenced by Piggy than by Jack.
The main characters of this novel are Ralph, Jack, Simon, and Piggy. Ralph, who represents civilizing instinct, is elected as the leader of the group of the boys and tries to promote harmony among themselves. Even though he seeks to lead the group and defeats Jack in the election, he doesn’t try to dominate people. Rather, he focuses on the group’s common interest of being rescued. For example, he gives responsibility to the hunters to keep a signal fire while he tries to make a shelter. Unlike Ralph, Jack would like to dominate people. This is especially evident once he becomes the leader of the hunters on the island. He tends to show the other boys how strong and brave he is while expressing his dominance over them. By the end of the novel, Jack usurps Ralph to become the general leader, in which position he shows how barbaric and cruel he can be.
While the boys are under Jack's control, they quickly went back into how they started when they first got there. However, Ralph was able to keep the boys under control by holding meetings. At the meetings, a sense of order is instilled because the boys are not allowed to speak unless they have the conch shell. "I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." (p. 31) By making this rule, he gains respect from the boys and becomes for confident as a leader. Ralph uses his power to tries to make the boys better people. He shows his by building them shelters. "They talk and scream. The littuns. Even some of the others." (p. 53) Ralph is saying that the boys need the shelters because they are afraid and the shelters will help the boys feel more secure. This shows he has better knowledge of people making him a better leader than Jack who does not understand this. Jack does not realize that the boys need to feel secure and need someone in control.
In his novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding presents a conch shell representing the order of civilization. He uses this symbol to effectively portray the theme that humans are inherently evil and have savage desires, shown through the decline from discipline and peace among the boys on the deserted island. In the novel, civilization directly correlates to the boys’ past lives in England. Before coming to the island, there were adults present who maintained order by enforcing rules and punishing those who did not follow them. However on the island, the conch, representing this society, is a powerful object that demands the respect of the boys in a similar way that the adults do.
During Ralph’s first time pig-hunting, he is able to wound a pig and is exceedingly exhilarated by it, “Ralph was full of fright and apprehension and pride. ‘I hit him! The spear stuck in-”’ (Golding 124) The boys later lose control of their morality when they recreate the pig hunt with a boy named Robert acting as the pig. Ralph gets caught-up in his destructive mindset after experiencing what it feels like to go hunting, and loses control of himself, “Ralph, carried away by a sudden thick excitement, grabbed Eric’s spear and jabbed at Robert with it… Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.” (Golding 125) Nonetheless, he is still very in-tune with his civility and is able to regain himself and remind the other boys that it is just a game. Towards the novel’s climax, Ralph comes to terms with all of the horrors he encountered and crimes that were committed on the island. Right after Piggy’s death, Jack and his tribe decide that Ralph needs to die so they set the forest on fire and chase him through the jungle to kill him. Once Ralph reaches the beach, he sees a naval officer who has come to rescue them after seeing the fire. Ralph is not even fazed by the fact that two of
Ralph is one of the few boys who realize that the only way to survive is through peace and order. Because he summons the boys at the beginning of the novel with the conch he and Piggy find, they look upon him as the most responsible of the boys and elect him as a chief over the humiliated Jack. Ralph creates a stable and peaceful society for the children to live; this significantly bothers Jack because he wants to have fun and do things that he never did back in the civilized society. Jack is eventually successful of pulling nearly all of the children out of Ralph’s control to form savages. Ralph represents the civilization, and Jack represents the primitive society.
Jack finds a pig while hunting, yet he cannot kill it, his reason being, “because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting living flesh; because of the unbearable blood” (31). Because of the strictly regulated society Jack has grown up in, he finds it disturbing to kill an animal, even if he must do it to have food. Later in the story, changes can be seen in the boys from when they first arrived on the island. During an assembly, the boys discuss how to track the “beast” living on the island, and Jack speaks without holding the conch. After being reprimanded for that he says, “Conch! Conch!...We don't need the conch anymore… It's time some people knew they've got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us” (101). Jack’s disregard for the conch shows his growing distaste for laws and civilization. He also challenges Ralph's authority by implying he should be in charge of decisions taken for the group. After some time, Ralph is only left with Piggy, Samneric, and some littluns on his side of the island. These boys realize everyone else has become savage.
When Ralph finds a conch shell and uses it to call the boys from all over the island, they come running. The conch is a very powerful tool. When the boys have settled the conch is used to control the boys and to create an order on the island. A rule is set out by Ralph using the conch, "Whoever has the conch has got the right to talk". This shows the conch's power and Ralph's leaderhsip.