The Conch
Sometimes a simple object can have great meaning. A crown in a kingdom represents leadership and royalty. In the movie “Hook”, the golden sword with half a coconut on the bottom symbolizes who is in charge, who is “the Pan.” Sometimes it is not the importance of an object but the meaning behind it that is truly valued. In the classic novel Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, the conch shell plays a significant role to the character Piggy and as the story goes on, the significance changes.
When the boys first reach the island, they find a conch shell. It soon became the gathering sound. When they blow the in the shell, it let the all the boys know that it was time to meet. Piggy first came up with this idea. “We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They’ll come when they hear us-”(16). At the meeting, only the person holding the shell could speak. The shell quickly becomes a symbol of rule and organization, two things that Piggy desperately tries to hold on to. He fears change and disorder. He constantly struggles to compete with other boys and with rules and regulations; he feels they can be rescued. The conch starts off holding things together, keeping some kind of order on the island. It resembles the rules that the boys were used to before they came to the island.
After a while on the island, Piggy becomes restless. He can no longer take being pushed around and bullied. He wants to bring leadership back to the island. At this point in the story the significance of the conch changes. Instead of hoping the conch give rule to the island and the boys, Piggy now wants to enforce the conch’s power. He tries to use it as a way of justifying his actions. He wants to get his glasses back and uses the conch to persuade himself to do so. “I got the conch. I’m going to that Jack Merridew an’ tell him, I am”(171). Piggy believes that the conch represents a central power that rules the island. If he had the conch, he has the power...