Lord of the flies

Lord of the Flies essay


Symbolism is widely used in William Golding’s book, The Lord of the Flies. He uses it mainly to show the digression of the boy’s sense of civilization slowly falling away. He uses many examples to show this but three of them are prominent. The first is when the conch is shattered, because all the “authority” is lost. The second is when Simon dies, because he symbolized the rationality of the group. And the last example is when the boys’ “civilization” becomes totally hopeless. This is the scene where Piggy is killed. Each of these aspects of the civilization were forgotten as the boys become more barbaric, until the authority is restored again.

The conch is the boys’ way of showing who’s in charge. The conch is a white shell that Piggy finds in the beginning of the book with Ralph. After Piggy explains what the shell does, Ralph bows on it to call all of the boys to the little clearing that they later use as a meeting pla...