Conch In Lord Of The Flies Essay

Imagine being stranded on an uninhabited island far from help. Would you stay in control, or would you go insane? The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is about British schoolboys who are marooned on an uninhabited, isolated island without adults when their airplane crashes while they are being evacuated to a safer country during World War 2. The leaders of the boys are Ralph and Jack along with Piggy as another main character. Throughout the book, order collapses, the leaders turn against each other, and everything starts to go downhill when fear starts to take control of them. From the story, it is clear that the conch symbolizes order among the boys because the conch is what they use to call meetings, the fire represents their emotions of whether they are going to get off of the island or not because they build one in hope of getting rescued, and the title, The Lord of the flies, symbolizes their fear controlling them because they start to think without reason and play violent “games” out of fear of the beast. Some of the most important symbols in the story are the conch, the fire, and the title of the book. The first symbol is the conch that represents the order among the boys. One example that shows that

In one instance, the boys are playing a violent “game” after the feast. On page 152 it says, “Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable. ‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’” The boys are so afraid that they are going to be hunted down by some “beast” that they pretend to be the hunter in order to shake off their fear that they are being hunted. Being the hunter in the game makes the boys feel powerful which takes away the fear