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Juan Camilo Barrera Peñaranda

Daniel Martinez

Language Arts

June 16, 2021

Literary Analysis of Lord of the Flies (Conch Symbolism)

"William Golding" explores the creation of symbolism by giving the reader a picture of what is

being talked about when reading the text. The novel, “Lord of the flies” by William Golding

explores symbolism using the conch as an allegory giving meaning to the text. The Conch has

various meanings such as: Democracy, Order and Power; The reader will have a better

understanding of symbolism by understanding Golding's meanings.

The conch as a first aspect represents democracy being used as a symbol of authority and

stability in society, there's always a leader selected by a society, but the issue is that not all

people think the same. "Him with the shell"(Golding 19). The boys by the hands of the conch

select their leader, this means Ralph would be the chief and founder of society taking the conch

to summon assemblies and establish order. “The island community breaks up into two rival

groups, represented respectively by Ralph, who insists on civilized values and the hope of

rescue; (Xiafong Li). There may be a fair democracy but there will always be someone who does

not agree with the ideals of the leader, so they decide to go on their own and create their own

society without laws, leaving everything aside. “Ralph wants to set up a civilized utopia for all

the boys on the island”... “Jack is always associated with shadows and obscurity, and his
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frustrated angry eyes reveal his mind”. (Xiafong Li). Golding contrasts good and evil inside the

novel using Ralph as the chief showing order using democracy while Jack shows the negative

part of order (complete chaos) in society.

The shell was what established the order of society and when it lost importance, Jack's

mandate began to take power. “Things are breaking up. I don’t understand why. We began well;

we were happy,” (Golding 115). It's important to find a way out, fire is gone, the only way out is

stop fooling around and sort things out both societies finding a solution to the issue. “Blow the

conch,” said Piggy. “Blow as loud as you can.” (Golding 244). Piggy uses the conch as a symbol

of authority, Ralph asks him to do an assembly to talk to Jack and his tribe, making them realize

that they eventually have to leave the island. "I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you"

(Golding 127). The reader could observe when the conch was broken, absolute power and order

in society was broken and the moment Jack's mandate took power, chaos came.

Humans have an obsession for power, this has a drawback because humans are

possessive and they always want to be the ones that hold all the authority in society . “Power,

people are obsessed with it. You can take a nice person and turn them into a slob, into an insane

being, craving power, destroying anything that stands in their way” (Frederick Lenz).When

someone gives some force to an individual that is a righteous person may be the worst thing you

can do because that individual can totally change their personality and become a machine of

destruction. “The danger to power is obsession- power junkies. You need a virtuous mind and

humour to balance yourself, if you dont you will get shredded” (Frederick Lenz). In life the
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individual needs to be mentally capacitated to resist the temptation of power, this is what

happened with Jack creating his own society ending with the death of Piggy. “What connects two

thousand years of genocide? Too much power in too few hands''(Edmund Burke). Power corrupts

us as human beings and we must learn to control it, after it is too late and we let that authority

leave us something negative in our personality. It's important managing stability when attaining

power to not let it consume you. Everything can turn upside down if we don't do this because we

start to trample on others no matter what happens to them.

It shows how through the text the symbolism reveals its importance. Throughout Lord of the

Flies the reader was able to observe the importance that symbolism (conch) represents for the

text, thanks to the symbolism democracy, order and power could be observed. Without the use of

symbolism these different themes would not have had the same impact on the reader.

Sources:

- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hoSN-I3ipp9gD4bI79VXKYeCih6Fosmr/view

- http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8&sid=627e61ed-66d0-4
c64-acc5-598583b398c2%40sessionmgr40

- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1082261.pdf

- https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:132457/fulltext01