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Conch Symbol In Lord Of The Flies

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People can change drastically when things are turned around in an instant. The Lord of the Flies is a book about young boys, whose plane has just crashed and they are stranded on the island without any adults. The young boys change throughout the novel; here, on the island, innocence is gone and their savage side comes out. William Golding uses symbols such as the conch, the signal fire and the beast in the Lord of the Flies to signify chaos, calmness, hope and fear which is intended to be represented by all of these things.
The signal fire symbolizes the hope of the boys being rescued from the island; then, it becomes a sign of their own chaos towards the end of the book. Golding states this on page 187 ?,”The fire reached the coconut palms …show more content…

In the book, the boys argued about the conch and if it still had its original significance. “Call an assembly?” Ralph laughed sharply as he said the word and Piggy frowned. “You’re still chief.” Ralph laughed again. “You are. Over us.” “I got the conch.” “Ralph! Stop laughing like that. Look, there ain’t no need, Ralph! What’re the others going to think?” (Golding, 158) The conch started off as a symbol of calmness and was supposed to help the boys keep order, as the conch being a “talking piece”. Later on, it turned into chaos, causing a lot of issues between the boys, and not being the symbol of calmness as it had started off as in the novel. The conch was one of the bigger symbols in the book and showed many different things, just like other things in the book, like the fire, and the imaginary beast. Lord of the Flies is a book about how boys get stranded on an island and don’t know how they will survive in the wild without any adults. In this essay, the symbols of the conch, the imaginary beast, and the fire symbolized different things like chaos, calmness, hope, and fear. Going from living in the suburbs, and having adults to help teach them things in life, to having to learn by themselves on how they’ll be able to

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The first time the reader realizes the power of the conch is in the beginning whenever the conch was found on the island. To illustrate Ralph says “ I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak, he can hold it when he’s speaking.”(33 ) This quote shows power and keeping everyone in line at the beginning of their journey on the island. For when someone raises the conch all the other boys are instructed to be quiet and listen to the speaker.

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