Conch Shell Essay

      In Lord of the Flies, the conch symbolizes how the society on the island is working. At the beginning of the story, the idea with the conch works.  The conch starts to lose its power as the story progresses. Eventually, the conch is shattered. The conch symbolizes something important in the book.

      When Ralph blows the conch for the first time, the kids come to see what’s going on and the power of the conch is seen for the first time. Ralph was blowing the conch and “signs of life were visible now on the beach” (18). The boys would obey the rule of only talking when they have the conch. “’I got the conch,’ said Piggy, in a hurt voice. ‘I got the right to speak’” (44). The other boys at this point let him continue; therefore the society that they have made is working.

     Toward the end of the book, the tribe splits. Jack says that the conch has no power where his tribe is and Ralph says, “The conch counts here too. And all over the island” (151). Ralph had forgotten the conch on the beach. It seems that Ralph had forgotten about the conch… Meaning he forgot about the society. It seemed like the society had been left behind for the short while and there was no care on the island about anything. The boys ended up killing Simon that same night because they thought he was the beast.

      When Piggy was knocked off the cliff the conch “exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” (181). This symbolizes that the society they worked for not longer exists, that they are savages now. They no longer have the emotional and mental ties to what is off the island.

     The conch represents the society of the boys on the island. When the rule with the conch works, the society the boys have goes well and they still have the ties to the outside word. The ties slowly become nonexistent and the conch no longer has its power. The conch ends up shattering into nothing and that symbolizes that the society ceases to exist. In Lord of the Flies, the conch is something important and represents something important to surving.

Newspaper Article

Just last week a naval ship reached and island thought to be deserted. Once arriving on the island one naval officer claims that there was one young boy being chased by many other boys that were carrying torches of some sort. The boy, that was being chased, claims to have been the leader, or “chief,” on the island. The boys say that they were traveling when their plane was shot down and they landed on the uncivilized island. The date of their arrival on the island is not known. Two boys died before they were rescued. At this time there is no information on how they died.

Journal Entries

May 7, 1943

Today I met this boy Piggy on the beach. We found this conch shell and he told me how to blow it. When I blew it, other kids came and found us. There was this one named Jack Merridew. He’s the leader of the choir from school. He wanted to be the leader of all us boys but the boys voted me leader. I don’t think that I can be a good chief. But they voted and I’m stuck now. I allowed Jack to decide what his choir will be. He decided that they should be hunters. Jack, Simon, and I all went to explore today. I left Piggy to get everyone’s names. I hope he got them all so we can keep track all the kids. On our exploration, we found a pig and were going to kill it for food but it escaped. We decided that we are going to build a fire on the mountaintop so that if someone sees it then we can get rescued. We rolled this rock down a hill in order to make a path for us.

Ralph