Lord Of The Flies Conch Shell Analysis

Two of the most important symbols in the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding were the conch shell and the Lord of the Flies itself. After a plane crashes on an uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean, leaving a group of schoolboys stranded without adult supervision, the conch becomes the sole source of order on the island. The shell becomes a symbol of civilization very early in novel after Ralph and Piggy use it to call the rest of the boys to a meeting. However, as time goes on, fear and chaos set in, unleashing the beast within each of them, as symbolized by the Lord of the Flies, and resulting in the boys' savage behavior. In Lord of the Flies, the conch shell is an important symbol of order and power, while the Lord of the Flies symbolizes the devil from the reader's perspective, but symbolizes the beast in the eyes of the boys.
At the beginning of the novel, Ralph and Piggy discover a conch shell on the beach and use it to summon the boys after the crash. After Ralph blew the conch, the boys held a meeting and, despite having no obvious leadership skills, Ralph was elected leader. To the boys, the conch shell symbolizes power; whomever held the conch reserved the right to speak. As the story progresses, however, the conch becomes increasingly less important. After the division of leadership between Jack and Ralph, the conch is left behind symbolizing the triumph of chaos over order. From the reader's perspective, the conch is an obvious symbol of order. Throughout the novel, like a shell bleached and cracked by the sun and salt water, the order that the conch had once established slowly disintegrates until it was finally crushed by the boulder which killed Piggy, symbolizing the transition from order to