Words: 476
William Gildings novel, Lord of the Flies, symbolizes humanity and uses many efferent objects to represent the real world, such as the conch, fire, and the pig hunts. The conch representing order relates to rules within society. Fire is used to show destruction and hope, similar to how things in the world benefit from something negatively affecting another. We live in a violent and brutal world which William Gilding represents when hunting the pigs. William Gilding represents humanity though the conch shell.
The conch shell allows some to be heard and gives power to lead a group. In real life there??s democracies, republics, dictatorships, monarchies, etc, yet each government as a leader and a ruler that speaks over the others. In every case, if liked or not liked, the speaker is heard. The speaker in this case is whomever has the conch. Ralph says, “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking,” (Gilding 33). This quote shows if you hold the conch, you may talk. This is the setting up of rule and power.
Remarkably when there were arguments and separations within the group, the conch shell slowly began to wear away. And finally, when there was no leadership the conch shell broke. In the world, governments crumble and through the crumbling body is heard. And when governments crumble there is no leader, just like how nobody listened to Ralph nor Piggy at all. The novel Lord of the Flies signifies fire many times. In some cases fire is positive allowing the boys a chance of survival. In other cases fire is complete destruction.
Piggy says, “Cause the smokes a signal and we can’t be rescued if we don’t have smoke” (Gilding 73). In this case Piggy finds fire as a positive and wants it to be saved. Interestingly enough destruction at the end of this novel lead to the boys rescue. So does this mean destruction and the same importance as arrival? An extreme example of this can be seen as the Nazi Regime. Germany’s economy was atrocious and they needed a leader to “survive” the hard times. They elected Hitler to save the country, instead he destroyed it.
So destruction has the same importance of being saved. “The fire reached the coconut palms by the beach and swallowed them noisily. A flame, seemingly detached, swung like an acrobat and licked up the palm heads on the platform. The sky was black,” (Gilding 201). This proves that because of such destruction to the island (fire), it was the only reason the boys were saved. Hunting the mother pig represents rape, violence, and sadly human nature. Gilding’s goal when writing about the hunting of the mother pig was to relate this to our world.