“Lord of the Flies,” written by “William Golding,” is arguably one of the most influential survival novels. The book inspired numerous modern dystopian novels such as “The Hunger Games,” “The Maze Runner,” and so much more. One of the reasons the book was lucrative is due to its symbolism and how well Golding executed the theme. The primary takeaway is how quickly a person can go from civilization to savagery; without systems holding things into place, they corrupt even quicker. In “Lord of the Flies” William Golding uses the symbolization of the conch to convey that people will eventually corrupt without a suitable system.
At the start of the novel, Piggy finds a conch shell. He tells Ralph about a time when he was in a society built on consensus and order, “A conch he called it. He used to blow it, and then his mother would come. It's ever so valuable” (LOTF pg. 11). Piggy tells tales about how an acquaintance blew the conch to get his mother’s attention. The system worked for both the mother and the son. As soon as he called, she came to him. As a result of Piggy's resourcefulness, he decides to use the conch to gather all the other survivors in a circle around him. There is another example of where the boys were in a society that Golding uses to develop the
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Both literally and symbolically the conch is a fragile object. This is because once Jack gets a little nibble of power, he realizes he can effectively control the boys with violence, without the conch. Ralph, now known as chief to the savage survivors, takes something that he deems more valuable than the conch. “From his left hand dangled Piggy's broken glasses” (LOTF pg. 131) Before this point, most of the readers saw the conch as the highest influential item on the island, but Ralph could not care less about a stupid shell. He sees that Piggy’s glasses meant more to the civil survivors. Moreover, the shell also represents power at the same