Symbolism Of Fire

Throughout the novel, the cause of the altering of the representation of the fire and the conch shell is due to the power shift on the island.

Throughout the novel, the Conch symbolizes order in the group, but later, the conch becomes of no existence, literally. Symbolically, the savagery in the novel overruled the meaning of the conch shell. As Piggy discovers a conch shell on the beach, he retains the memory of a man who used to own a shell similar to the one they have found and how it can create a loud sound which “can be [used] to call the others” on the island (16). The way the conch is used in this novel is to bring all the survivors from the plane crash together in order to work together and get rescued as they all desire to be. The

Ralph reminds the group that "[the] fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don 't keep the fire going?" (80). The signal fire is set as a reminder to Ralph to maintain the goal of being rescued and not being distracted by other things. Ralph as the leader of the group, finds a way to get rescued by explaining to the survivors that "[we] can help find them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the The mountain. We must make a fire" (38). OR can use quote: “Your only hope is keeping a signal fire going as long as there’s light to see. Then maybe a ship’ll notice the smoke and come and rescue us and take us home. But without that smoke we’ve got to wait till some ship comes by accident” (178). Ralph and the other survivors relied a lot on fires in the first parts of the novel in order to be rescued off the island. The fire being one of the main goals for Ralph 's rescue plan is a sign of hope and assurance of a “ship” accidentally spotting smoke from the island. As Ralph looks around him while hiding from Jack and his tribe, he sees that the smoke “was seeping through the branches in white and yellow wisps, the patch of blue sky overhead turned to the color of a storm cloud, and then the smoke billowed round him” (195). As the “smoke billowed round him”, the fire destroys most of the Island’s wildlife. The “smoke seeping through the branches” speaks for the destruction that the wildfire had produced by Jack and his followers. The “white and yellow” the smoke had caused the branches to look like had been the extinction of an innocent and civilized adolescent. The colors white and yellow represents a sense of goodness and innocence, but the fire burning