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Conch Shell In Lord Of The Flies

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The Lord of the Flies is a book filled with symbols, and the sow’s head and the conch shell are the main ones. These items are powerful symbols, but they each represent different kinds of power that are used in entirely different ways. Jack, who uses the sow’s head to instill fear and suppression over the younger boys, wields the head for a controlling type of power. Ralph, who employs the conch shell to bring all of the boys together as a united group, uses it in an orderly, leadership type of power. The two items’ symbolic meaning all depends on the users. The Lord of the Flies is ultimately a novel about power and how humans yearn to have the ultimate supremacy. One of the first things discovered on the island is the conch shell. Ralph finds it at the bottom of a lagoon, and it is a very valuable object. With the shell, Ralph is able to call all of the other boys to him. When the schoolboys hear the shell and realize what is happening, they answer the call of the conch and flock to Ralph. Ralph is seen as a powerful, important person, and they want him to be their leader. “Let him be chief with the trumpet thing,” (Golding 22). In this case, the conch shell is used as a symbol of authority and leadership. Ralph unites the boys into one group so they can discuss further life on the island. The conch …show more content…

The conch shell and the sow’s head are two of the biggest ones, because they give impeccable power to their users. The yearning for power is one of the biggest struggles of humanity, and it is portrayed perfectly in this book. Usually, the power comes from a specific source, in this case, it’s the sow’s head and the conch shell. Their users, two extremely different people, control the other boys on the island and use the power either for good or for bad. Ralph wants to unite the boys, while Jack wants to control the boys with fear. The symbolism and representation of the two objects mean all the

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Lord of the Flies Double Entry Journal #1 Conch “But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out; there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely there, yet most powerfully there was the conch” (22). While voting for a leader, Ralph is singled out and chosen due to the presence of the conch. The conch is a symbol of power—as well as a representation of law and democracy. When Ralph is found blowing the conch by the other boys, he is seen as the most capable and right leader.

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In the Lord of the Flies, Ralph and Piggy discover a conch shell on the beach. The Conch is used to summon the boys altogether after the crash that separates them. The conch shell becomes a powerful symbol of civilization and order in the novel. I think the Conch symbolizes as the last reminder of civilization or the holder of conch is powerful because the Conch is a difficult tool to use/ activate. The reason that Ralph was the leader of the group was because he could activate the conch and that conch is seen as power and authority towards the boys.

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The conch was a symbol used to display order and power in the lord of the flies. In the beginning of the book Ralph is voted to be the leader of the group just because he has the conch they littleuns started chanting “Ralph, Ralph” “Him with the trumpet thing”, and Jack does not like the conch he wants to get rid of it just to prove that he is the rightful leader of the group and at the end of the story he ends up destroying it and all orders and power is gone. The Conch also represented order throughout the group in the book people can only speak if they have the conch and others can only speak if they raise their hand up like if they were in school to maintain order. Golding also uses the Fire to represent technology and also represents human

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The conch shell is first found by Piggy and Ralph who use it to call for survivors. The shell is then established as a symbol of democracy, as found in this quote, “... I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking,” (33). Allowing each boy to speak when in possession of the conch shows that, although Ralph is chief, all boys can have a say in the rulings of the island. This democratic system is a beginning representation of our world in which everyone knows their place and there is overall peace.

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Symbolism of the Conch in Lord of the Flies by William Golding represents civilization. The novel Lord of the Flies is about a group of boys from England who have been stranded on an island after an airplane crash. They are expected to fend for themselves and are slowly reverting back to their primal savage ways. The group is quickly split into two a savage side and a rational, civilized side. Throughout the novel a key symbol was the conch.

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The conch shell plays a big part in Ralph’s authority and order. His leadership skills, along with the conch by his side, is what made the other kids on the island listen and idolize him. Golding glorifies the power of Ralph and his conch shell in order to represent control, which is important to the ongoing order and regulation of the boys throughout their time on the island. Without the shell, there would be no order among the lives of the boys on the uninhabited island. In addition to Ralph promoting the power of the conch, Jack also agrees and emphasizes that in order to run a society, there must be a strong and rational set of rules that needs to be followed.

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As a result, she continues to use and tell her lies to her advantage. As for The Lord of the Flies, Ralph represents productive leadership, civilization, and order in humanity because he has been elected as the leader. He creates rules that mirror civilized society by using the conch shell to call meetings. The conch, as the social tool, symbolizes

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Ralph notices the discord but resolves it by enforcing, “I 'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he 's speaking” (Golding 33). The conch represents the discipline of the boys and their civilization. Since Ralph thought to use the conch as a speaking system, the conch represents his leadership and authority over the boys. It also represents his authority because he is the only boy that does not need the conch to speak.

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Jack was the power hungry hunter, Ralph was the motivated leader, and the “Littluns” was the lower class with the biggest population. Many boys followed the peculiar noise through the island and gathered around Ralph. It was decided right there that he was the leader, and there was no way out now. “… there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch” (23). Ralph held the conch, the very symbol that brought the boys together.

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Readers know that Jack, who represents brutality and the hunger for power, is constantly trying to overthrow Ralph for his position as leader. However, even Jack respects the conch at first, though it represents the exact opposite of his character. Simon is the only person that symbolizes true purity and goodness. He is only one who understands that the island is changing them and that their fear of the beast will eventually cause them to develop into beasts themselves. The conch, much like Simon, represents morality and harmony.

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The conch and the sow’s head both wield a specific type of power over the juvenile boys in Lord of the Flies. The conch, used to call assemblies, represents progress and civilization while the sow’s head represents terror, barbarity, and malevolence and is partly to blame for Simon’s demise. Lord of the Flies is a novel about power because throughout the book Jack and Ralph quarrel over who should be the chieftain of the children and the novel uses the conch and the sow’s head to represent divergent forms of power and authority. Also, the book shows the reader the power of symbols such as the conch and the pig’s head and even the island that the children remain inevitably imprisoned on until their liberation at the conclusion of the novel. Just about everything within this novel is a representation of something that is considerably greater.

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835 Words | 4 Pages

“Power is dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best.” When the young boys first gathered after the crash, they were civil, mostly well behaved boys until the need for power took advantage of them. Two crucial symbols from the novel are the sow’s head and the conch shell. Each of these symbols represent power however, their powers have different meanings.

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In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, young boys get stranded on an island with no adults in the midst of a war. The boys were orderly and civilized in the beginning but then as they began killing pigs they slowly became savages and lost their civilization. The boys began turning on each other and the evil within them became present. Golding uses a variety of literary devices including personification, symbols, metaphors, and irony, to project the theme that pure and realistic people in the world can be unheard and destroyed by evil.

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This is an example of how the conch symbolizes the rules within the boys society because the conch is what tells when the boys when they can talk. The rules created by the conch is what led to a lot of the boys disagreements which slowly drove them to become¨beasts¨. Overall the conch is the most symbolic piece in Lord of the Flies because it symbolizes the boys rules, their civilization, and power over the boys. This is important to the theme of the story because the conch helps the boys realize that they are the beast all along. The conch helps the boys to notice this because when it breaks they realize it was controlling them all along and making them the

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