Who Is The Conch In Lord Of The Flies

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For thousands of years, philosophers, thinker and writers have tried to answer questions that have plagued mankind for years like, what is the point of life, what is man truly, what happens after death? William Golding in his novel, Lord of the Flies, explores what is truly at the heart of man by putting a group of young British boys on a deserted island void of civilization and authority. Slowly the boys progress form civilized boys to savages. Golding uses the conch, Jack and the beast symbolically to prove that evil is truly at the core of man. William Golding uses the conch in Lord of the Flies to represent the eventual destruction of the law and order on the island. The conch brought the boys together in the very beginning of the book…show more content…
It spirals out of control into a unanimous fear. Soon everyone is claiming they saw the beast or that it is real. As the boys slipped from being civilized to savages their belief in the beast became stronger. Simon is the first to figure out what the beast was. “Maybe it’s only us” (Golding 89). He realizes that the beast that they are all so afraid of is really inside of them, the beast is fear, fear of the unknown. This fear was present even from the time they first arrived on the island, “‘They’re all dead’” (4). “‘No one knows where we are’” (31). The fear arises when the gravity of the situation, there are no adults and they could be lost forever, hits the boys. This fear of the unknown, answers to the questions of whether or not they will be rescued drives the kids apart concerning priorities of the fire and food. This fear induced chaos reaches a climax as kids begin to kill each other. “Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill… I’m the reason…why things are what they are.” This fear that was in the boys that Simon discovered, was the source of the chaos and disorder. This fear brought out the evil that was in the boys and caused them to commit atrocities that no one would think kids would be able to
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