Conch In Lord Of The Flies

Have you ever stopped and taken some time to reflect back upon yourself and your actions? Have you wondered where to start to fix those problems? With regards to these questions, numerous life lessons are taught throughout William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies. William Golding once said, “the book is supposed to show how the defects of society are directly traceable to the defects of the individual.” There are multiple ways for a theme to be taught through methods such as personification, imagery, and irony. But at the end of the day, motifs are the most important literary element contributing to the themes of Golding’s Lord Of The Flies. Firstly, the conch is used to support the theme that hierarchies of power are necessary to keep a group

Because someone must hold it in order to speak, the conch is being used as an authority over the boys. An instance of this is when Ralph says, “‘I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking’” (Golding 33). The conch keeps the boys in line by allowing everyone an opportunity to share their opinions with everyone. At first, even Jack and Roger obeyed this turn based method of speech. This simple shell allows the boys to remain civilized just like their old lives where parents, teachers, and adults have authority over the immature children. The shell acts similar to the undeniable control of adults that provides tranquility to all. Secondly, the conch represents the order and the peace on the island so when the conch breaks, there is nothing left of civilization on the island so chaos begins to show its true form unrestricted from the norms of society. A prime example of this is when “the rock struck Piggy… the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” (Golding 181). Also, Piggy, the most civil of them all, disappears along with the shell so not only did the symbolic shell of harmony disappear, the most rational mind in the group of the boys is gone as well. Without the

First of all, the uncontrolled fire that nearly consumed the island was the consequence of rash behavior. The boys were so caught up in the moment thinking about rescue if they keep a fire going that they forgot think about future consequences. Because of reckless and impulsive behavior, “...a quarter of a mile square of forest was savage with smoke and flame” (Golding 34). This irrational act leads them to nearly destroy all hopes of rescue because the forest is one of the few resources that they have. This foolish scenario of a missed opportunity only occurred because of the frivolous and flippant boys that never once thought of anything else but themselves. If the boys had not acted upon pure instinct and taken some time to make logical choices, then the boys would be in a far better position. Furthermore, the second fire they built would have saved the boys earlier if Jack and his hunters had not acted on the groundless and ludicrous thought that a good dinner is more important than retaining the signal fire. Ralph saw the ship and ran up the hill to find that “The fire was out, smokeless and dead; the watchers were gone” (Golding 51). Because of the craving for meat, Jack and his men’s irrational actions let the unintentional consequence of the fire to go out. The quick and illogical