Lord of the Flies Essay The Lord of the Flies teaches us about symbolism and how power can be a positive quality but also a negative one. William Golding uses objects in the novel to represent the uses of power. The object may start out a good thing but may eventually turn into a dangerous and obsessive objet. The boys are trapped on a deserted island and leadership must be put into action. Ralph is immediately called as leader and starts to execute his power over everyone. Ralph shows his power by using the conch shell and by giving order to everyone. Whether or not he used his power in the right way is an important question that needs to be answered. There are a few ways in which power was shown in the novel. The boys found a conch shell and decided to make it the meeting horn. When the shell sounded then you were automatically supposed to report to the meeting. Also whoever held the shell then that person was the only one allowed to talk. Another source of power was the use of Piggy’s glasses. Piggy’s glasses were unique in the way that he could start fire with them. Whoever held these could easily survive in the wilderness. These were the 2 most important items that symbolized power in the novel. These are some of the ways the boys showed power and how important the items meant to them. The symbols were used for good purposes and for bad purposes. The conch shell was uses as a god thing to get everyone together quickly. By calling everyone together, plans on survival could be executed. The bad thing that resulted was that the conch was overused. Overusing resulted in no accomplishment in exploring or poor execution of the plan because they didn’t have enough time to fulfill the plan. Piggy’s glasses were another symbol of power. The glasses could make fire which helped the planes and ships to see that there people on the island. The bad thing was that it became an obsessive object to have. Jack decided to raid Ralph’s camp for the glasses so he could start...