Lord Of The Flies Conch Essay

The Conch

The conch shell was the only thing powerful enough to bring all of the boys together. In the Lord of the Flies, the author William Golding creates the conch to represent power. By the end of the book, it has evolved to become powerless. With the conch symbolizing power, Ralph using that power, it's organization, and how it became powerless, that is the evolution of the conch.

The conch symbolizes power because it is the only thing that can bring all of the boys together. In the beginning of Lord of the Flies, Piggy shows Ralph how to blow into the conch shell. “By the time Ralph finished blowing the Conch the platform was crowded.” (Golding 32). Whenever Ralph blows the conch, all of the boys come together and they have a meeting where they all talk to each other about what is the best decision to make. In those meetings, whoever is holding the

conch shell is the only one who is talking at that moment, almost as if they are using the shell as a microphone to show that whoever is holding it has the power to speak. “I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking.” (Golding 33).
We first see the conch shell when Piggy and Ralph find it and blow into it to gather all of the other boys that were separated by the plane crash. Piggy and Ralph are the first ones to discover the conch. It is described as “something creamy” (Golding 15) and is “ever so expensive.” (Golding 16). Since Ralph was the one who blew the conch, he is made the leader of the group. The conch holds power because when Ralph blows into it, it summons all of the boys together as a group and keeps them together. Ralph is the only one who holds and uses the power of the conch all the way up until the end where Jack tries to take that power away.
The boys are very disorganized on the island, so much that they all descend into savagery.

As the boys start descending into savagery, the conch starts losing its power. The more savage the boys get, the more power the conch loses. The conch finally becomes powerless and ends by getting shattered by a boulder.

The boulder rolled down the mountainside and on its path, shattered the conch shell along with killing Piggy. This happened because Robert was mad about Ralph and Jack fighting, so he “leaned all his weight” (Golding 180) on the boulder and it fell down the mountainside. “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.” (Golding 181). He did not intentionally want to kill Piggy or shatter the shell but Piggy happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding creates the conch shell to represent power. Throughout the book, we read how it evolved over time from being the most powerful thing on the island, to losing its power by falling into savagery, and ending by being shattered by a

boulder.