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Symbolism In Lord Of The Flies

Decent Essays

In the book, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, the author describes how a group of boys live on the island. With many symbols accompanying the characters throughout and help to describing how the boys change and show how some of the boys or objects are really important in the process of surviving. The story starts with one of the main characters, Ralph who walks out of a plane crash and is stranded on an island. He meets the next main character, Piggy and with him, they found a conch shell. Ralph uses this shell to call the other boys to him and Piggy. Once all the boys are with Ralph the author introduces the other main character Jack. From there all the characters try to survive by splitting up to attend different tasks. In the novel the conch and the painted faces development dramatically to describe different aspects of the boy’s life. When introducing symbols, one of the major ones would be the conch. In the novel the conch stands for qualities such as authority, leadership, organization, rules, and laws. The conch is explained in deep detail at the beginning of the story, so that the reader realizes early on that it is very important. When describing the conch, the author says, “In color the shell was deep cream, touched here and there with fading pink” (Golding 16). To continue, it is use throughout the story to call the boys together for an assembly, with Ralph being the one who usually always blew it. When Ralph called a meeting to discuss who would

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