When Ralph and piggy first find the conch, they are fascinated by it. When describing the conch's appearance, Golding uses beautiful and pure imagery "eighteen inches of shell with a slight spiral twist and covered with a delicate, embossed pattern", creating an image that the conch is a good and important thing to have on the island. The conch becomes very useful on the island. It controls all the boys from talking at the same time, "Ralph smiled and held up the conch for silence". When the conch is blown the boys stop whatever they are doing and unite as a group. It represents civilization and order. It prevents the boys from fighting and arguing. At the election for leader, Ralph's ability to use the conch gives him an advantage over Jack, "let him be chief with the trumpet thing." The boys respect the conch for its power, and they respect Ralph for being able to use this power. .
As gradually the boys become less and less civilised, they stop listening to and respecting the conch, which makes them even less orderly. As people stop listening to the conch, it becomes faded and worn. When it was needed, it held power therefore it looked powerful. Towards the end of the book it looses it's importance, and therefore stops looking important, "the conch lay at Ralph's feet, fragile and white". It starts off as a deep, gleaming cream colour, with patches of pink, but ends up white and drained of power.
Ralph sees the conch as an ally throughout the book, and he believes in its power all the way through, as does Piggy, "you let me carry the conch, Ralph. I"ll show him the one thing he hasn't got". The loss of the conch means the loss of authority, unity and reason on the island. It is quite ironic that when the conch is destroyed, so is Piggy, who was the wisest on the island, and the one who found the conch in the first place. Jack sees this as a turning point, "there isn't a tribe for you anymore! The conch is gone.