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Lord Of The Flies Symbolism Analysis

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As time passed on, William Golding changes the significant meaning of all the symbols. William Golding's book, Lord of the Flies, took young English school boys and places them on a deserted island. Where they have to work together to survive. Overtime, a beast lurking within the darkness will eventually show the evil within all the boys creating chaos on the island. Lord of the Flies introduces the symbols the conch as government, the fire as hope and Piggy’s glasses as technology and intellect and throughout the book symbols continue to change.
At first, when the boys land on the island the conch was a sign of government, civilization and order. When they were first establishing rules Ralph says, “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak” (Golding 33). The new rule they made, was if you wanted to speak you needed the conch and it showed order as rules were being made. The conch also represents leadership and it is how Ralph got elected. When they were deciding who should be chief a boy said, “Vote for chief....him with the shell”(Golding 22). In this case, the conch represented leadership as Ralph was elected the chief of the boys. After conflict arose between Jack and Ralph, Jack decides to leave and creates his own tribe on castle rock. This is where the conch began to lose its power. In the book Jack claims, that the conch does not work on his side of the island (Golding 150). This is an example of how the conch began to lose its power and civilization is

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