Hook Sentence: Lord Of The Flies

Jack kills Piggy and breaks the conch “The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and

The conch a significance a powerful symbol of civilization.The shell governs the boys meetings and the respect they have with each other.For example as the novel progress the conch, “we can use this to call the others. Have a meeting, they'll come when they hear this.”(Golding 22)Piggy tells ralph that blowing the conch anyone else on the island will come when they hear it. It symbolizes the forces that brought the boys together.Later the conch becomes disrespected and cannot hold everyone together anymore. The boys become savages and lose every resource they have to survive in the island.Jack and Ralph feud “I’m chief and i've got the conch ralph says, Jack responds you don’t have it with you and the conch doesn't count at this end of the

“ ‘And another thing. We can't have everybody talking at once. We'll have to have 'hands up' like at school’ ”(33). Ralph tried to stay civilized like they did outside of the islands, so he made a rule that everyone can speak for themselves and they could discuss about their ideas, but as the time went, Jack started to break the rules what Ralph made. If they didn’t broke the rules, there wouldn’t be fights against each other and everything would have gone alright. At the first few chapters of the book, Ralph tries to hear every one's voice and thoughts like civilized people, and not doing dictatorship. “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking”(33). This quote proves that Ralph really tried to stay the same like before, and for few chapters, he was able to keep peace. Ralph unlike Jack, was a democratic leader who tried to rule fairly by using Conch, which was used communicating with others and anybody could speak if they want to and other boys had to listen to him and don’t interrupt him.

A good leader needs to have confidence in their knowledge and experience to be able to lead others. Ralph shows this confidence through his initiative. When a situation occurs on the island, Ralph is one of the first people to react and step up and take control. Ralph uses the conch as a way to show authority among all of the other boys. By maintaining order with the conch to hold meetings, Ralph is showing initiative. He attempts to tell the boys what to do so that they can survive. When most of the boys are off playing games, Ralph takes it upon himself to build huts. One major event that truly represents initiative on Ralph’s part is when he notices a ship in the distance, and runs all the way up the mountain to try and light the signal fire.

Ralph is an insufficient leader, which causes his society to greatly decline. Ralph creates the policy of only speaking when one holds the conch in their hands; only Ralph is allowed to interrupt since he is the leader. The boys are at the top of a mountain, defeated, because their fire didn’t stay lit. When Piggy tries to explain why it didn’t work, Jack interrupts him.

First Ralph was voted to be the leader or chief on the island for the time being. During the vote for chief Golding points out the fact that Ralph shows the qualities of a leader out of all the boys. “But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out. . . and most obscurely yet most powerfully there was the conch” (Golding 22). Ralph was seen as the best fit for the new role based the current circumstances. After all isn’t a leader supposed to create a sense of unity? Once the so called “beast” has been discussed, Ralph to restate the plan to be rescued. During a meeting that is then called, Golding talks about how Ralph has to actually wave the conch to grasp everyone’s attention. “The simple statement, unbacked by any proof but the weight of Ralph’s new aurhority, brought light and happiness. He had to wave the conch before he could make them hear him” (Golding 37). The conch has shown much more power of leadership and control than Ralph. If he were to call a meeting without the conch little to nothing would happen, but more frustration of Ralph. Coincidentally this starts to happen when new

Albeit low, the tension thickens as the boys strive to hold the conch and to speak their opinions. Golding mainly portrays the beginnings of the tense environment that the island will become through the internal tension each of the boys express. This is especially evident in Piggy, when he is speaking and the silence becomes “so complete that they could hear the unevenness of [his] breathing” (34). His struggle to claim the conch so he could voice his opinion makes him anxious and nervous. The battle to display dominance while holding the right to speak only grows more difficult as the novel progresses, and the conch’s power only grows with the continuation of the novel’s plot and the emergence of the savagery within the boys.

The conch was initially used to gather the scattered survivors on the islands. After the reunion, the boys decide to bring back the old society's authorities by listing rules that are to be followed, and that the conch eventually elects their first leader - Ralph.

Even though Ralph became chief, he still gave some power to Jack by putting him

The conch symbolically explains the change of government on the island. Golding suggests the the government structured by the conch when he states, “‘That’s what this shell is called. I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he is speaking’” (Golding 33).

Ralph came to Jack’s tribe and they had a conversation: “‘I’m chief, said Ralph tremously. ‘And what about the fire? And I’ve got the conch-’ ‘You haven’t got it with you,’ said Jack, sneering”(150). Jack showed no care for the conch and its uselessness to him and his leadership.

     When everyone is more settled down, Ralph suggests that they elect a leader and chief. All the kids elect Ralph as the leader, mainly because he is the one who found the conch and the one who is holding it. We at once see how Jack greatly disapproves of the decision taken by the kids. He

1. The animals who gather to hear Major’s speech each mirror a single human trait. What is revealed in Clover? Boxer? Benjamin?

When the group of boys first arrived at what they believed was a desolate island the conch shell was one of the first things they discovered. Not only used as a form of unification, the conch shell became a tool used to keep order. It placed a system, similar to democracy, in effect for the boys. The conch shells’ sole purpose was to mimic the role of a microphone: in the sense that at group meetings the conch was to be held by each speaker. This system allowed everyone an equal chance to speak their thoughts while remaining uninterrupted.

When the boys first start a fire on top of the mountain, Piggy holds the conch and attempts to speak. But Jack scolds him by saying, “The conch doesn’t count on top of the mountain, so you shut up” (Golding 39). Boys like Jack begin to place restrictions on the conch and lose respect for it and for one another. Then one day at an assembly, Jack places even less importance on the conch excluding more of the boys and weakening the equal order and authority that the conch provides. Jack says, “We don’t need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things...It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us” (Golding 92). Jack’s statement here clearly connects the end of the conch to a change in the social order. Jack is slowly becoming a power-hungry dictator, and the orderly influence of the conch is replaced by man’s evil desires.