Symbol of the Conch in Lord of the Flies Essay Sample

In all parts of the world, every culture and religion are very different from each other, and sometimes it's truly hard to understand someone else's religious or cultural practices. But, when one starts to understand the beauty and the hidden meaning of something they truly start to recognize why a person wrote that or initiated an idea. Just like that literature also has these hidden meanings, whether that be an object or a character, these particular things in literature are called symbols, and when they are used by authors, it's called symbolism. In his allegorical novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding continuously highlights the conch, which is used as a symbol to represent democracy, and this helps the reader show how basic morals and principles of humanity will continue to fade, without the constraints of society.

One of the initial ways that Golding uses the conch to show the law, and order that this conch represents is when, Ralph is establishing the rules that the group will follow and continues to stress the rule that, only the person with the conch can talk, showing how he wants, the boys to live with rules, and is trying to apply the civilization of his known society on this island. One example of the law and order in the initial part of the story is seen when everybody is following, as they are taught to do in their society. “By the time Ralph finished blowing the conch the platform was crowded.” (Golding 32) This quick response by the boys shows how civilized they are at this point in the story, and how the conch is acting as their tieback to their civilization and giving them a sense of law and order at this stranded island. This shows that they still are trying to replicate the way their society had been operating back home. Along with establishing rules and following them, the conch is also used to run their meetings, showing that everyone has a chance to talk, and proving that this isn’t communism or democracy, where only one person had control. This is hinted at many times throughout during every meeting at the beginning of the novel. When the boys are trying to find roles and jobs for everyone he acknowledges that “ [the assembly] can’t have everybody talking at once” (Golding 33). By making sure everyone gets to talk, and everyone has a say in the group’s decisions and actions. This shows Ralph's attempts to set up democracy with law and order, by creating equality between the boys. These examples show Golding's use of the conch as a symbol for law and order, and also show how in the initial interactions between the boys or the “meeting”, they attempted to set up systems where everyone had a say, and they attempted to replicate what they had been exposed to back home in England.

In the initial meeting, and the interaction between the boys, the conch can be seen as a successful symbol for rules, and regulation, however later in the book, it is seen that the conch goes through many changes, and Godling highlights these changes vividly throughout the story. An example of this is seen when Ralph is hesitant to blow the conch to bring the boys back together and he says “If [he blows] the conch and [assembly doesn’t] come back; then we’ve had it. We shouldn't keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals’” (Golding 92). This quote portrays how their morals and civility are slowly diminishing, because, at the beginning of the story, they are making sure they respond to the conch, and meet up with the group as fast as they could, but as the story goes on they start losing track of the rules, and regulation, the importance and the significance of the conch in the group starts to disappear. In the middle of the story, the significance of the conch did start to fade away, but it wasn’t until Piggy’s death, that the civility of the boys truly broke, and disappeared with them.“The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” (Golding 181). This conveys that when the boys ruthlessly kill Piggy and the conch, they lose all sense of rules, regulation, and most importantly, humanity. This point in the story is very important to a theme in the story which is, the duality of man, and this certain action shows how the boys have entirely given up to the savage part of them and become savages. The use of symbolism by golding to represent the democracy with law order by using the conch was hinted repeatedly throughout the novel. It also highlighted the changes that the conch goes through, how it starts by everyone following the rules, however as their hope of being rescued is diminishing so are their morals.

Symbolism is one of the main aspects of William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies. He uses a conch, that Ralph finds at the beginning of the book, to represent the law and order, and the attempt to replicate the world that they have been used to back home. Literature isn’t the only place symbolism is used, it's used in a plethora of other things such as history, religion, and culture. In religion, it can be used in forms such as architecture or artworks. Another name for symbolism is the “hidden meaning”, and it is everywhere, one just has to be willing to open their eyes, and explore these things.