The very first rule the boys established was:
“Who ever holds the conch gets to speak.”
The best thing is to have rules, because without rules nobody knows what to do. People do what they feel like doing and that can bring serious consequences.
Through the novel Golding represents civilization as including the valuing of beauty, and the conch is beautiful. If the conch were destroyed there would be dissension, no rules, no leadership, chaos, Ralph represents order, leadership and ultimately civilization, just like the conch.
Ralph also uses the conch to pull the boys together.
“We can use this to call the others. Have a meeting. They'll come when they hear us.”
Here the conch begins to take on more meaning as a symbol. The conch begins to represent community and cooperation. The shell governs meetings since the boy who holds it gets to speak. So the conch symbolizes democratic way of functioning, and democratic society.
“The conch is gone, see? See? That's what you'll get! I meant that! There isn't a tribe for you anymore.”
The rock that Roger rolls onto Piggy also crushes the , telling the end of the civilized nature among all the boys on the island but Ralph.
“There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate or dignity of the conch.”
“The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.”
In these final appearances of the conch in the book we realize that civilization is gone.
At the end of the novel the conch shell loses its power and influence among them. The other boys ignore Ralph and throw stones at him when he blows the conch in Jack's camp. Piggy, who still believes that Ralph is still chief and has to use the conch.
“You could call an assembly, you're still chief, and you are over us.”
In this quote and the next two we see the symbolic meaning of the conch as civilization being fleshed out and given more emesis.
“The conch counts here too” said Ralph, “and all over .”
“The group of boys looked at the white shell with affectionate respect Piggy placed it in Ralph's hand and the littluns, seeing the familiar symbol, started to come back.”
To remind the others of his leadership, he uses the conch as a symbol of his authority.
The conch plays a key role of importance in this theme because it symbolizes not only to the power to speak during assembly but also the power of order and speech itself. As long as the conch's symbolic power remained alive to the boys, there was hope that they could still be rescued. The boys respected the conch until all the democratic authority on the island was gone. Ralph was left by himself, with no tribe and no Piggy to support him. Golding shows how civilization on the island breaks down and chaos ensues.
The fire in ‘Lord of the Flies’ is an important symbol of hope and rescue. I am going to discuss how Golding uses the fire as a symbol of hope throughout the novel.
One of the first decisions Ralph make when he becomes chief is to have a signal fire.
“There’s another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.”
“A fire! Make a fire!”
The problem was that the boys didn’t have any matches to light it, this is how piggy’s glasses also becomes a key part in the novel.
“Have you got any matches.”
As we can see, the fire is already playing an important role in the novel without even being lit.
When the fire was lit, Jack wanted to guard the fire with his choir boys, as we can see the fire is providing useful jobs for the boys.
“I’ll split up the choir-my hunters, that is into groups, and we’ll be responsible for keeping the fire going.”
At this point in the novel, the fire is keeping the boys sane and giving them something to do while there is still hope they would be rescued.
Meanwhile, Piggy cuts into the discussion with an odd laughter, looking down, and the signal fire had spread to a large part of the island, burning down everything in its path.
“You got your small fire all right,”
At this point in the novel, the boys start to become scared and fear starts to involve itself in the boys’ time on the island.
As we can see from this, the fire is also important in the novel ‘Lord of the Flies’. When the fire goes out, the boys on the island have lost the desire to be rescued and have accepted their savage lives on the island. This means the fire functions as a measurement of strength of the civilized instinct remaining on the island. Ironically, at the end of the novel, a fire finally summons a ship to the island, but not the signal fire. Instead it’s the fire of savagery; the forest fire which Jack and his gang starts as a part of his quest to hunt and kill Ralph.
