ipl-logo

Power In Lord Of The Flies Analysis

814 Words4 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. The demand for power thrived on their souls and drove them to their breaking points. Lord of the Flies is about the role of power and control in the world and how it can enhance society or bring civilization as we know it, crumbling down. Throughout the novel, the leaders in the book, use certain symbols and objects to give them authority over the other boys and have law and order on the island. The pig’s head and the conch both wield a certain …show more content…

Well, the conch portrays power and authority. When a meeting needed to be held the conch was blown to round up all of the boys. When one of the boys would like to speak during one of their gatherings they had to be in possession of the conch. In chapter one Ralph is the first to be granted with the power of the conch when he holds his first assembly on the island, “But 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. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.” The sow’s head on the other hand, had a whole other meaning of power. It represented the power of evil and savagery. It symbolized all the evils and horrors of the world and frightened the boys a great deal. The conch gave them hope order and survival. The beast gave them anger, savagery, and death. They are the same thing: power, but they are organization and hope versus evil and bad, just like things in

Show More
Related
389 Words | 2 Pages

The conch represents democracy, respect, order, and power in the novel. Ralph and Piggy find the conch in the chapter one and Piggy said to use the conch to “call the others and have meetings”. Whenever the boys have a meeting around the campfire, the person holding the conch is the only one allowed to speak. This is shown in chapter one again when Ralph used the conch to control the crowd and it said “They obeyed the summons of the conch, partly because Ralph blew it, and he was big enough to be a link with the adult world of authority.” That created a mutual respect for everyone's ideas.

Read More
822 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine a group of young British boys within the ages of six to twelve who have just crash-landed on a deserted tropical island with no adults or supervision to help guide them and keep things under control. William Golding connected the symbols to the natures of the boys, as the significance of the symbols changed so did the behavior of the boys. The symbols evolved in a way that destroyed the original meaning of them. The conch shell was the first discovered by Piggy and was used as a symbol of order and law, but throughout the novel the idea of order and law changed. Piggy’s specs were used as a source of fire by using science and intellect, but when the specs broke everything became blurry just like Piggy’s vision.

Read More
895 Words | 4 Pages

The boys were pushed to this level of savagery by the need for power. In chapter nine of Lord of the Flies, William Golding employs symbolism, repetition, and animal imagery to convey the theme that the need for power can cause people to become savages. Golding uses the rhetorical strategy symbolism to convey the theme that the need for power can cause people to become savages. In this story they use a conch shell to symbolize order within the group.

Read More
1511 Words | 7 Pages

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.

Read More
1951 Words | 8 Pages

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses items and people to symbolize many different things. These symbolic things include Piggy’s glasses, Simon’s epilepsy, the Lord of the Flies, and arguably the most important symbol, the conch shell. The conch shell was first found in the water by Piggy, who then comes up with the idea of using the conch as a blow horn to call for meetings. Throughout Lord of the Flies, the conch shell becomes not only associated with Ralph and his leadership, but with Piggy and his intuitive and wise ideas and Jack and his dictator-like, irresponsible authority. The conch shell, representing law and order, assisted in the election of Ralph as chief and ultimately determines the future of the island.

Read More
1193 Words | 5 Pages

1. Shortly after arriving on the island, Ralph and Piggy discover a conch in the water. Ralph blows the conch to announce his location so the boys can gather. From the first use of the conch, it signifies the unity of the boys because it is what brought them together. The conch is also used to maintain organization.

Read More
1119 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the conch is a primary symbol, which represents civility and order. Throughout the book it served as a power tool that the boys highly respected, in fact, the symbolism of the conch begins before it is even blown. Ralph is the one who originally discovers and posses the shell, but it’s Piggy who explains it’s significance. Piggy has to teach Ralph how to blow it; this shows how from the beginning the conch is linked with both Piggy and Ralph.

Read More
275 Words | 2 Pages

In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the Lord of the Flies signifies the power of evil and violence within people. When Simon imagines the pig’s head speaking to him, the pig’s head implies, “I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are? ” (143). The Lord of the Flies symbolizes chaos and corruption that’s caused by the boys on the island.

Read More
2042 Words | 9 Pages

Lord of the Flies dates back to 1954 when a famous novelist, William Golding decided to write a book which could show an unusual version of the human beings. Born into an environment where his mother was a suffragette and later experiencing World War II where human ruthlessness was at its peak, made him better inclined in to writing a piece where he could explain his readers how human beings react in different situations. The setting of the novel depicts a situation where the human behavior is rational. The novel hence persuades the readers to realize the importance of ethics and civilization and how their absence can disrupt the society .Furthermore, the novel shows a negative aspect of the mankind and explains the reason it develops savagery

Read More
796 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
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.

Read More
1036 Words | 5 Pages

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

Read More
431 Words | 2 Pages

In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the head of the pig becomes an ongoing and important symbol. When Jack goes hunting, he is able to kill a mother pig. He cuts off its head, places it on a stick and the pig's head becomes an offering for the beast. The pig's head represents the evil and violence that lies within the boys, it also shows a loss of innocence in the boys and it represents the title of the novel, ‘Lord of the Flies’.

Read More
991 Words | 4 Pages

The desire for power is one of the strongest human drives. In Lord of The Flies by William Golding there is a constant struggle for power between the main characters, Ralph, Jack, and Piggy. Ralph has power because he was voted chief and uses his power in an ugly way. Jack is struggling to get out of Ralph's power and gain his own power. The boys’ struggle for power is an ugly struggle and the author uses this to demonstrate the ugly struggle for power that is human nature.

Read More
496 Words | 2 Pages

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding shows the progression of absolute power, and how ambition can take over one's mind. Stranded on an island after their plane crashed, the boys create their own democracy with one absolute ruler, just like many other governments throughout history. The boys voted Ralph as their ruler, but Jack slowly starts to take some of Ralph’s power, and eventually usurps him as their chief. Lord of the Flies suggests that absolute power is corrupt, and that humans are overly ambitious in wanting to take power from the person who has the most of it. Just like any large group of people, the boys decide that they “ought to have a chief to decide things” (Golding 22).

Read More

More about Power In Lord Of The Flies Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document