Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The symbolism of the conch, its importance in the novel and the

attitude of the boys towards it.

William Golding uses a lot of symbolism in his novel, Lord of the

Flies, for objects that represent ideas or progression into savagery.

One of the main objects is the conch. This shell represents power and

authority, and we can see this because Ralph uses it to call the

others to join him in a meeting. In these meetings whomever holds the

shell is entitled to speak and this represents democracy and freedom

of speech within a group instead of a purely autocratic assembly that

Jack would have. The conch shows how people use objects to give power,

like a crown or scepter. Ralph first gets the confidence to suggest

that a chief is necessary from the conch and from then on he uses it

as his support, I quote, " 'Shut up', said Ralph absently. He lifted

the conch. 'Seems to me we ought to have a chief to decide things' ".

His forcefulness gains respect from the others, and I quote "Ralph

smiled and held up the conch for silence" and immediately the boys

listened to what he had to say. Ralph uses the shell to set up the

rules by which the boys will live and says "I'll give the conch to the

next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking". This is an

enormous privilege because it allows this person to share their ideas

with the group. This is the way in which Ralph convinces the boys that

they must light a fire in order to be rescued and also gives Jack the

responsibility to lead the hunters which gives him power and keeps the

former prefect and leader of the choir happy.

At the beginning, the co...

... middle of paper ...

... It is also obvious

that it is Jack and Roger who have finally destroyed all of the rules

that Ralph made, and "The conch exploded into a thousand white

fragments and ceased to exist". It is then the boys who are not

hunters that suffer and Jack hurts a little one for no apparent

reason. "He got angry and made us tie Wilford up" is all that his

followers knew, and yet they did not doubt him for the boys still need

some rules in their lives. It is the society members that suffer when

there is no democracy; not the leaders like Jack, and at the end of

the book there was nothing that prevented the boys from complete

disorder. It is when this happens that we realize that even though an

object can give power like a spear to Jack or the conch to Ralph, an

object can never truly provide power for others can just disregard it.