Fear And Reason In Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

A major theme of the action-adventure story Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is that fear controls humanity more than reason. In most catastrophic situations, people act based on the amount of fear that they have in that moment. However, in this scenario, the boys in the novel do not have the ability to ‘move on’ from their current crisis; as they have become isolated on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and with no way of telling how long it will be until they are rescued. Golding has explored the theme in the novel that communication is most important in foul situations when Ralph discovers the conch among the bank of the leaves in the first chapter of Lord of the Flies; then proceeds to make the significant decision to put the creamy shell to his mouth and then make the sound, which
later pulls the group together.
First, the conch is a symbol that provides comfort in the book, as other characters are in fear when they first crash-land on the island. This symbol fights off that sense of fear as the conch is implemented in this story to relieve the sense of fear. This fact is a direct connection to Ralph can be looked at as an annoying character in the novel. Also, in the quote, “‘S'right. It's a shell! I seen one like that before. On someone's back wall. A conch he called it. He used to blow it and then his mum would come. It's ever so valuable-’” (Golding 15). The main speaker in this quote is Piggy, directing his statement at Ralph. The quote describes the fact to the reader that the conch is described as grabbing the attention of the other people that may have survived the plane accident. The narrator views the symbol positively, as when Ralph sounds the conch for the first time, the other boys come to the general location where they heard the conch shell being blown. The boys view the conch as being a positive figure in their timespan when they are on the island. In the indicated moment, the other boys have contradicting ideas about the symbolism of the conch. Next, the theme fear controls humanity more than reason is also reflected in the quote, "'We need an assembly. Not for fun. Not for laughing and falling off the log’ -- ‘not for making jokes, or for’ -- he lifted the conch in an effort to find the compelling word--‘for cleverness. Not for these things. But to put things straight’” (Golding 79). In the aforementioned quote, the main speaker is Ralph, he is directing his dialogue at Jack, Maurice, and Piggy. The quote shows that Ralph is using human logic to show that there is a resolution to every difficult problem. In the stated, it is stated that Ralph has a sense of mental calmness and is trying to help out the rest of the boys to rising to the same level as he is. In the previously mentioned moment, the theme of the fact that fear controls humanity more than reason can be reflected to show that human problem-solving can be shown to solve a multitude of problems. After that, the third piece of evidence in the novel that shows that fear controls humanity more than reason can also be reflected in the passage, “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).
In the passage of the novel, where there is no particular dialogue, the main speaker is the narrator and they are directing their words toward the reader to display the juncture when the Conch was destroyed in the near-end of Lord of the Flies. The author creates a direct connection between the destruction of the Conch shell and the end of the book, right around the time that the boys are rescued from the island from the British military. During the time mentioned, the story takes place in the forest on the island. In the moment mentioned, Golding creates a sense that the end of the boy’s time on the island is near, as the conch was the first thing on the island that signified the fact that there was someone trying to bring a group together. Since the conch has recently been destroyed, William Golding could be attempting to foreshadow the end of the boys’ time on the
island.