Conch In Lord Of The Flies

William Greene “Lord of the Flies” symbolism essay I like many others have read William Golding’s book “Lord of the Flies”, and I was personally impressed with his clever use of symbolism within the book. To understand what the symbols mean and why they are important It is necessary to understand what William Golding's philosophy is. Luckily for us many critics have made the general belief of Golding in “Lord of the Flies” is that the only thing keeping humans from descending into an animal like madness is government and organization. So this interpretation of the book is the one that will be used to interpret symbols in the book. the most major symbols in the book are the conch; standing for government, the Beast, being

The conch is what calls the boys to the meeting where they elect Ralph to be the chief. The first thing Ralph and Piggy do after finding the conch is hold a meeting to start an island government. Furthermore as soon as the conch starts being ignored things start to fall apart. And finally the conch is destroyed right before Piggy meets his unfortunate death; Piggy is important here because Piggy is the character that supported government on the island most. Immediately after Piggy and the conch are destroyed Jack's tribe almost kills Ralph the last remaining relic of the island's government “‘There isn’t a tribe fore you any more! The conch is gone” viciously with full intention, he hurled his spear at Ralph”p181. In short the conch shell represents government because of its placement through the

However If you take a closer look at all the falling inside the novel you’ll start to notice it carries the theme of the destruction of falling of civilization. The book starts with the boys falling onto the island their physical separation from society. The beast that destroys the boys’ humanity turns out to be the corpse of a parachutist, parachutes are used to help people survive large falls and the “beast” most likely fell onto the island. The final fall during of the book is Piggy’s death, following Piggy’s fall Jack's tribe becomes complete savages leaving any trace of civilization behind. Each time a fall occurs in the book the boy’s get more and more separated from societal norms and act less and less