Lord of the Flies EssayA conch may seem ordinary but you should never judge anything from its appearance. In William Golding's book, Lord of The Flies, the conch plays an important role throughout the story where kids get stranded on an island and fail to stay united and civilised. The conch is a strong object that symbolises 3 main things. It represents power, civilisation and leadership as it helps the kids stay in order and be disciplined. The conch shall be responsible to keep the boys well-organized.In this short story, the conch plays a major role especially when it represents power. In this story, the conch represents power during assemblies. When everyone gathers in an assembly, the one with the conch has the power to speak ...view middle of the document...
In this book, the boys use a democracy based theme, where everyone gets to say what they think about someone or something. Everything also runs on voting like when they chose the leader. "We'll have rules!" he cried excitedly (Golding, pg33). Jack proclaims that making rules will help this crowd be civilised and that the conch shall be the main object that shall call meetings. Therefore, you can see that without the conch, there would be no civilisation.One of the main things that leads to a good group is a good leader with good leadership skills. In this story Ralph is the leader for the group of students at first but Jack loses his discipline and separates from the group and begins to act like a possessed hunter. Ralph is the leader mainly because of the reason that he found the conch. "Him with the shell. Ralph! Ralph! Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing." (Golding, pg22). Everyone declares Ralph the leader because he has the main object, the conch, and he controls the symbol of leadership. As you can see, the conch is an exquisite representation of leadership.In conclusion, the conch is an important object that demonstrates power, civilisation and leadership. The conch gives the person holding it, the power to talk in assemblies where they can be heard and where everyone listens silently. When the rules are made, it causes people to follow them, and following the rules shows that they are civilised. Leadership is an important thing and the conch shows that when Ralph gets chosen to be a leader just for finding the conch and being responsible. Without the conch, there would have been nobody left alive just after the first few days of being stranded on the island.