Mankind's Evil Exposed In Lord Of The Flies
...the island in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, become associated with many aspects that symbolize certain ideas. Lord of the Flies shows the downfall of the boys from civilized to savage like and at times even barbaric. Through the use of symbols such as the conch, the beast, and the fire, William Golding demonstrates that humans, when taken away from society, slowly unleash the inherent evil within.
One of the first introduced symbols was the conch shell. The conch shell represents power and authority. Ralph had used it to call for the boys to come to meetings. "Ralph smiled and held the conch up for silence..." (p. 23) The conch had represented respect and order amongst the boys. Thus whomever had the conch, had the power to speak without being interrupted. Unfortunately not all the boys agreed on the power of the shell. "
the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist
suddenly Jack bounded out from the tribe and begun screaming wildly
" (p. 181). At that moment, the once respected and worthy conch shattered causing the common sense within the boys to disappear. Chaos broke loose after the conch had been destroyed, which shows that evil and havoc would occur without the conch's rules and boundaries.
Another key symbol is the infamous beast. There are two interpretations of the beast in Lord of the Flies. Jack had stuck a dead pig's head on a spear to offer the beast, but to Simon, the pig's head was the Lord of the Flies because there were flies swarming around the dead head. Simon speaks to the Lord of the Flies when he was hallucinating, and the Lord of the Flies even tells Simon who the real beast is. "Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you?" [Lord of the Flies] (p. 143) Simon learns that the beast, which scares all the boys, isn't a physical beast...
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