Dimetria Hathaway English 10B January 25, 2016 Lord of the Flies Analysis In Lord of the Flies a group of six to twelve year olds are stranded on an island with no adults leaving them to fend for and govern themselves. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Golding uses a conch and pig head to show the unity and decay of a civilized society. The conch in LOFT represents a controlled, civilized society. “We can’t have everyone talking at once. We’ll have to have ‘Hands up’ like at school… Then I’ll give him conch,” [33]. This shows how Ralph is using the conch to try to create rules, respect, and order. The conch is being used to indicate who is allowed to talk, creating the first rule of the society and mimicking civilized. Without the conch the boys would be talking over one another and wouldn’t be able hear …show more content…
any ideas or problems that the group might be having; without the conch order in the society would decline. Later in the book Jack leaves the group because he does not want to follow the rules that were established.
Later in the night, a group of boys leaves to join Jack. The first hunt that the group of “savages” goes on after leaving the main group is very vicious and gruesome. “Jack held up the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick,” [136-137]. At that time they had created the Lord of the Flies, the opposite of the conch. As the Lord of the Flies decays, so does the civilization of the group. At the beginning of LOFT the conch is a very important part of the society; it helps keep the group organized and shows a civilized part of the boys. The Lord of the Flies, though, shows the savage nature of the boys. Although they may not appear to be important, the Lord of the Flies and the conch are very important in showing how the society has changed since the boys landed on the island. “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist,”
[181]. As the conch shatters, so does the remainder of any kind of civilization in the society. This isn’t the only part in the book where Golding uses symbolism to show how civilization has declined. “He walked slowly into the middle of the clearing and looked steadily at the skill that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer at him cynically,” [185]. Here Golding compares both the conch and the pig head. The pig head resembles what the conch had been, but at the same time had a sort of mock to it. The head is merely a skull now, and is completely decayed. This illustrates how the civilization has decayed into nonexistence. Lord of the Flies by William Golding uses symbolism to demonstrate the decline in civilization among a group of prepubescent boys. Not all people are suited for a position in power, and even those who seem the most qualified might not have the character to fulfill the job.
The evil in man is seen in many parts of life and it could be only be brought out when they have the power and position to do it. In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding symbolism is used to show the theme of the Inherent Evil of Man through the conch, the Lord of the Flies, and the fire. The breaking of the conch shows how the boys forget authority and destroy their only symbol of civilization. The Lord of the Flies shows the violence of the boys, and the temptation of the evil Lord of the Flies. The fire shows how something used for rescue and hope is turned into something violent and evil. The fire burns down trees and parts of the island when the savage boys are trying to kill Ralph.
In Lord of the Flies, there is a theme that runs throughout the book that relates to a historical instance that changed society. Throughout the book there is a power struggle between Jack and his hunters and Ralph, the Littluns and Piggy. Jack represents a dictatorship and Ralph and the others want a democracy where everyone’s opinion and vote matters. This correlates with the civil war times, when the North wanted freedoms and equality for all people and the south wanted to dictate how others lived. Jack represents the oppressive southern states that wanted to rule over the black Americans. Ralph represents the northern states that wanted a democracy where everyone’s ideas mattered.
Society and organization in William Goldin’s Lord of the Flies decayed and deteriorated similarly to a severed pig’s head in the story given the same name. A group of boys is stranded on an island; at first, their society flourishes. Sadly, conflicts quickly arose, weakening the society’s structure. In the earliest part of the book, a boy named Ralph and a boy named Piggy find a conch shell which, when blown, allows every other boy to find them. Jack, a harsh character and leader of a choir, is immediately brought to attention by attempting to ignore Simon, a member of his group who had fainted. Jack proceeded to degrade Piggy for his overweight condition. He then ran against Ralph for leadership on the island. One must not look hard to connect
tool that can call a meeting and wherever the Conch is thats where the meeting
What is the function of the conch in the assembly? It serves that people could speak their mind and no one could interrupt while the person with the conch.“And another thing. We can’t have everybody talking at once. We’ll have to have ’Hands up’ like at school.”(pg.44) Ralph proposes this because it gets confusing when people are talking at once and it would work better if there is a panic.“That’s what this shell’s called. I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking.”(pg.45) “And he won’t be interrupted: Except by me.” Ralph knows that the conch joined all together and he is proving himself to the others that he is a natural leader.
My paragraphs proved that Conch is very affective symbol during the book. The Conch represents power because Ralph became the chief with the Conch and he controlled the boys and made the rules that is fair for every one so nobody would be hurt. Conch also symbolizes democracy because it was used to communicate others, and anyone who wants to speak and nobody can interrupt him. Conch shows the unity of the boys because Ralph made the boys work together with peace and making an assembly when needed. The Conch, which is just a shell that we can see at the beach, which became a very important object in the Lord of the Flies which symbolizes power, democracy, and unity.
Power as defined by the Oxford Dictionary is “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.” In the book Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, power and in some cases the lack of power play a vital role in explaining the story. The story is about a group of young British boys who are stranded on an island and forced to create a civilization of their own. William Golding chose a conch shell to symbolize power. The conch shell plays a very vital role in representing power and the way that a civilization created by power, can be slowly broken down because of lack of power.
Generally speaking, the conch has represented democracy and collectiveness throughout the novel. Golding uses the conch to highlight many different ideas in the book by setting the story on an island, which is a microcosm of the entire world and the world that the boys lived in before encountering the fateful crash of the plane. The group of boys encounter problems which, even on this island, they are unable to escape from. It is important to remember that at the same time, there is a nuclear war taking place. The ‘long scar’ that ‘smashed into the jungle’ implies that the island has already been ruined permanently. It seems as though the attempt to remove the boys from a war-filled world has failed because the island is already contaminated by the crash of the plane, which was shot down by an enemy plane, this is somewhat related to warfare. The boys now need to survive on the island and this causes problems revolving around social order, as there are no adults present. In that case, some of the problems are attempted to be resolved by using the conch.
Golding uses the conch shell, which Ralph and Piggy find, to demonstrate a source of leadership and order within the civilization. As the conch becomes a source of authority and assembly, it “becomes no less than the basic challenge to the Tribe to choose between democracy and anarchy, civilization and savagery” (Gregor). As order decreases within the civilization the boys are forced to choose between Ralph, who symbolizes order, and Jack, who symbolizes savagery and chaos. The boys quickly join forces with Jack, which is their first step of their decline into savagery. One of their final falls into savagery was when Roger rolled the boulder into Piggy and “the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” (Golding 181). By the conch breaking, order on the island was completely gone and the physical violence began to increase as chaos started to occur. In Kathleen Woodward’s article, “On Aggression: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies,” Woodward says that “children require strict supervision and constant discipline, for without these, they pose a serious threat to the adult world” (Woodward). As the rules for the adult world were made to keep order so were the rules and tasks that Ralph had assigned. Rules are cru...
They thought their society was stable; they thought it would last. It all started with the conch shell that gathered them. In the book The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of boys became nomads on an island causing them to take on the biggest challenge of their lives, survival. The traits for a successful survivalist would include cooperation, maturity and responsibility. But if they can’t achieve those traits they will crash, causing chaos on the island.
Imagine a group of young boys who have just crash-landed on a deserted tropical island with no adults or supervision. William Golding showed in his ground breaking novel Lord of the Flies, what may happen in just those circumstances. In his very complicated and diverse novel Golding brings out many ideas and uses many literary devices. Above all others though comes symbolism of three main important objects being the conch, fire, and "Piggy's" eyeglasses. Through each of these three symbols Golding shows how the boys adapt and change throughout the novel. These symbols also help to show each of the boy's ideals on a variety of elements from human nature to society and its controls. All three of these symbols also change and are one of the most important elements of the story.
In society rules and government restrain man’s inherent evil, but without rules evil is left with no adversary and can wreak havoc. In William Golding’s book Lord of the Flies important objects, like the conch and glasses are used as symbols that represent rules and government in society. These symbols are shown how they restrict and provide a barrier between man’s inherent evil and conforming to society and its rules.
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a story about a band of British boys that crash land on a deserted island, with no adults anywhere to be found. They are left to fend for themselves as order comes to an end and the island swallows them whole. Two key and complex symbols in this story are a conch shell and fire. The conch is a tool Ralph and Piggy, two boys on the island, find in the beginning of the story while searching for other boys that may have survived the crash. The fire is a way for the boys to stay “warm and safe” while they are on the island. As the young British boys become more aware of the dangers on the island, the conch and fire’s physical and symbolic manifestations change as life on the island begins to fall apart.
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.
The conch shell was an object that Ralph found in the lagoon and was used to call assemblies. The sow’s head is a pig’s head that was chopped off and put on to a stick for the "beast". The conch is a symbol of the powers involved with civilized leadership. In the beginning of the Lord of the Flies, the boys valued the conch and the rules that came with it. The conch serves as an object that represents the sense of public law and power.