Essay On The Conch In Lord Of The Flies

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Golding uses characters and symbols in order to show the darkness in man's heart throughout the story.

In the beginning of the novel the conch represents power. Throughout Lord of the Flies the conch is used to call meetings and shows leadership within the boys. “‘ The conch. I got a right to speak’” (45). The conch represents power and who ever has it may speak during an assembly. The conch also causes problems within the leadership of the boys. Ralph and Jack compete over who is the leader, with doing that they broke the conch. When the conch is broken, it represents loss of humanity because with no conch, there is no power. On page 181, Jack says, ”’ See? See? That’s what you’ll get! I meant that! There isn’t a tribe for you anymore! The conch is gone….. I’m the chief!”’ When the conch broke,

Jack’s savagery is shown. Before the conch is broken, Jack kills Piggy after an argument. Now that the conch is broken, Ralph does not have a tribe, so Jack becomes the leader of the island. Throughout Lord of the Flies the symbol of the conch changes from power to the loss of humanity by Jack’s savagery.

Throughout Lord of the Flies Jack’s morals are forgotten because his savagery takes over. When the boys land on the island Jack feels that he would be the best leader because of the previous leadership he had. Jack said with simple arrogance, “‘I ought to be chief, because I’m chapter chorister and head boy”’ (22). Jack thinks that he would be a better leader because of his experience with leadership. But throughout the novel, it is shown that he would not he the best leader, because he does not act like what an adult would do in this situation. Jack is focused on fight and hunting, but he should be focusing on making a fire. “‘There was a ship. Out there. You said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out….. They might have see us”’(70).  Jack thinks that because there are no adults that he can do anything but he needs to be focusing on being rescued. His morals have been lost and now he wants to remain on the island with no morals. Because of the loss of his morals, Jack creates a fire to try and find Ralph to kill him. Jack is wanting to kill Ralph because Jack believes that he is the leader now that Piggy and Simon died. When Jack starts the fire, it represents his savagery because he is killing Ralph, just to be the chief.  Jack’s morals are lost throughout the story because is too focused on becoming chief and hunting.

Throughout the novel, fire is a symbol of hope and destruction.

At the beginning of Lord of the Flies, the fire is created as a way to be rescued, but as the novel goes on the fire turns into a symbol of destruction. To create the fire, Jack takes Piggy’s glasses which gives Jack control of when they can get off the island. “‘His specs-use them as burning classes”’(40).  The fire is suppose to represent hope, but now that Jack has power of the fire, it turns into destruction because he is wanting to become the chief. At the end of the story, Jack does not use the fire to rescue, but he uses it to get Ralph out of the bushes to kill him. “‘All at once the lights flickering ahead of merged together… and a tall bush directly in his path burst into a great fan-shaped flame”’(199). The fire is destructive, but as the fire was heading toward Ralph someone was there to rescue them. Not knowing that this fire was going to rescue them, Jack used this fire for destruction, but it turned out to be a fire of hope. In Lord of the Flies, the fire was used as a sign of hope, but as the novel went on it was being used as a sign of

destruction.