Lord of the Flies Symbolism Essay Sample

Symbolism, symbolism is something that most readers don't notice or care about, yet it can explain a lot about what is going on at the time, and it can also inform you about what will happen later in the book. Lord of the Flies, a book by William Golding, has a lot of symbolism and can tell you a lot about what is happening in the book. The three most important and used throughout the book symbols were the Conch, fire and Piggy’s Glasses. Each of these symbolisms represents something important in the book. The Conch represents democracy, rules and power, the fire is symbol of hope and fire is the thing that helped them get rescued and the last symbol is Piggy’s glasses which represents intelligence and power.  

The first symbolism in the book was the conch. It was the shell that Piggy found on the island in Chapter 1. The conch represents power, politics (democracy), and rules. When Ralph and Piggy met the other boys, Ralph thought that they needed a chief "Shut up," said Ralph absently. He lifted the conch. "Seems to me we ought to have a chief to decide things." And everyone agreed with Ralph’s decision and then Ralph was chosen as the leader by the majority of votes. After Ralph was chosen as the leader, he made a rule that if he blows the conch and if you hear it, it means that there is going to be a meeting and wherever you are you must come and attend the meeting. "The Conch, we can use this to call the others. Have a meeting they'll come when they hear us- (16)." But in the second meeting Ralph noticed that everybody was speaking at the same time, and it was all crowded, so he decided to make one more rule and the rule was that only the person with the conch could speak and anyone can have the conch, and nobody could interrupt until the person with conch is finished speaking expect Ralph. "Conch, that's what the shell is called. I'll give the conch to the next person who speaks. He can hold when he is speaking (33)." The conch also shows equality, everyone has the right to take the conch and speak and their opinion will matter. So, the Conch represents the main idea of the story democracy, rules and equality which are everywhere in the story. The word “Conch” itself is an important to the whole book because it represents the three main parts of the story democracy, rules and equality. 

The second symbol in the book was Piggy’s Glasses. Piggy’s glasses represented Piggy’s personality and science. Whenever Piggy has a great idea his glasses flash, this represents Piggy’s intelligence and kind of a confidence in him that he knows this idea is going to work, and his glasses were also used to make the fire “His specs-use them as burning glasses (40)!", which represents science because the boys had to think hard on how they were going to make a fire and it shows that they applied all the knowledge that they had to figure out on how to make a fire. But Piggy’s glasses also represented power because to be rescued they need to have a fire and whoever has Piggy’s glasses to make a fire also has most of the power. Like in Chapter 10 Jack stole glasses from Ralph because Jack knew that it’s the most powerful thing and the only way, he could be the “real leader”. And the fire that is the symbol of hope left Ralph’s group hopeless after Jack stole the glasses.