THE CONCH IN THE LORD OF THE FLIES

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"A conch he called it. He used to blow it and his mum would come. It's ever so valuable" – Piggy, Lord of the Flies. The novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is about an island of stranded young boys and their acts of survival among other events. In the book, there are many objects that symbolize a certain trait or idea. The conch, first written on page fifteen of chapter one, has a much larger symbol then most readers know. In fact, it can symbolize many things, such as power and order among the island of boys. This conch can be classified as a character all its own. As you read Lord of the Flies, the symbol of the conch can be unclear, for it actually has many symbols, as do main characters such as Ralph and Jack. The conch is an important object in the novel Lord of the Flies.

The conch is thrown into the novel at the very beginning. “ Ralph had stopped smiling and was pointing into the lagoon. Something creamy lay among the ferny weeds” is the first mention of the conch in chapter one. “The shell is deep cream color, touched here and there with fading pink. Between the point, worn away into a little hole, and the pink lips of the mouth, lay eighteen inches of shell with a slight spiral twist and covered delicate, embossed pattern” is how the shell is described in the novel. It is important to remember this description for future of the book. Piggy, one of the main characters in the novel, informed Ralph that is was a special shell called a conch, and how to blow into it so that it makes a sound. “He kind of spat.” says Piggy, referring to a man he had known that would blow into a conch. “He said you blew from down here” Piggys states as he lays a hand on Ralph’s abdomen. Ralph followed Piggy’s in...

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...rder over the stranded boys. The conch’s role in the novel is to symbol power, authority, democracy, and order among humans. When this is destroyed, we turn into savages.

Works Cited

Golding, William. Lord of the flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. Print.

"Lord of the Flies." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 3 May 2014.

"Lord of the Flies." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 5 May 2014. Web. 5 May 2014.

"Lord of the Flies Symbolism of the Conch by Studymode." StudyMode. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2014. .

Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Conch in Lord of the Flies." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 4 May 2014. .

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