Revision

I chose my Literary Analysis for my revision because I felt that this was my overall worst essay so for this year. The particular areas that I focused on were ideas and organization. The reason I chose to focus on this area was because I thought that the transitions between my paragraphs needed to be polished and me ideas also needed improvement. However, I do think that the end result is a huge improvement from the original essay.


Revised Essay: (The spacing got messed up while copying and pasting it into the post)

                                                         The Representation of the Conch

In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Piggy and Ralph uncover the conch shell on the sand at the very beginning of the book and use it to call the boys together after the crash had separated them. The shell unifies them for the first time after the crash and helps them to meet once again. As it is used throughout the novel, the conch shell becomes an authoritative symbol of society and order. The shell efficiently guides the boys’ assemblies because the boy who carries the shell obtains the ability and right to speak freely. Over time the conch loses its value and respect to the boys and soon becomes nonexistent. The conch’s power evolves in four specific phases: it pulls new boys to the group, it magnifies the leader’s influence, then it becomes a disputed item, until finally, it is rejected by the group.

The loud signal of the conch shell at the beginning of the story becomes a unifying force for the boys. In the beginning, the boys have been stranded on an island after an unexpected plane crash. Left in a state of chaos far from civilization, the boys must build society and order on their own if they’re going to survive as a group. In the absence of technology, the boys turn to a natural instrument which is a metaphor for their new dependence on nature. When the conch is first found, and blown, it brings everyone together, as the reader sees when “Ralph found his breath and blew a series of short blasts. Piggy exclaimed: ‘There’s one!’” (17). Piggy shouts this because one boy is seen coming into view from the jungle in response to the sound of the conch. Each boy comes for their own reason, some for curiosity and others for the prospect of rescue, but all of them respond to the conch. As the conch is blown it unifies them for the first time after the crash and helps them meet.

Thanks to the uniting effects of the conch, the assembly can now organize and choose a leader.  It is Ralph who is chosen to be chief, and the reason for this is because he holds the conch. One of the kids says, “‘Him with the shell. Ralph! Ralph! Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing.’ Ralph raised a hand for silence” (22). Because Ralph holds the conch, a symbol of power and authority, he is chosen as chief. As the leader of the group, Ralph’s voice is powerful and the words he speaks are usually brought to action. But with the conch, his voice becomes an instrument. However, as the group is making him leader, he raises a hand asking for silence which represents his ability to lead even without the conch. This is important later as the boys move away from needing the conch to validate the leader’s identity. Also in this quote, the conch is again compared to an instrument. Instruments produce music and music is a universal language. This represents the boys’ return to primitive forms of communication while stranded. At first the conch is an important object to the boys in bringing civilizing influences to the boys as they work together to create something great out of something truly terrible.

However, the conch becomes less important to the boys, representing their slow-moving tendency toward disorder and chaos. When the boys start a fire on the top of the mountain, Piggy holds the conch and attempts to speak. But Jack scolds Piggy by saying, “The conch doesn’t count on top of the mountain, so you shut up.” Piggy responds with “I got the conch in my hand” (42). Piggy gets the conch snatched out of his hands by Ralph because Piggy makes the mistake of thinking that merely holding the conch bestows power. This fight over the conch begins the fight over power, which destabilizes the group. Boys like Jack start to force their control on the conch and lose respect for it and each other. The boys eventually lose respect for the conch and think nothing of it because it has become so hotly contested.

One day at an assembly, Jack places even less importance on the conch excluding more of the boys and thus diminishing the democratic order and authority that the conch provides. Jack despises the conch later in the novel and wants desperately for it to be destroyed and demolished. Jack says, “We don’t need the conch any more. We know who ought to say thins […] It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us” (101-102). Jack’s statement here obviously links the downfall of the conch to a shift in the social order. Jack is slowly transforming into a power-hungry dictator, and the boys shrink the orderly influence of the conch replaced by man’s wicked intentions.

Lord of the Flies lends an interesting perspective into how social order arises out of nothingness, the 
conch being the primary symbol of this development. When the boys crash on the island, they are completely cut off from the whole world. This makes the novel fascinating because it explores how people have the tendency to form new systems and new order out of chaotic, new situations. This novel occurs after World War II, a time in which almost all the world’s societies found themselves pitted against each other. Morality itself was an afterthought as countries bombed each other and devised propaganda against each other. When men are at war, they become like boys again. Despite being so advanced, the world became a very dark, primitive place. Lord of the Flies explores what it would be like in a world where mere boys are given control over the social order, reflecting the environment of World War II. The conch becomes this social order and this new propaganda, and its rejection at the end shows how fractured society can become when warring “boys” are in charge. The moral sense which once united, the world becomes a tool that suddenly no one knows