Lord Of The Flies

            In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the reality of how merciless the world really is can be revealed symbolically through Golding's use of object symbolism. The characters that Golding establishes allow us, as humans to realize that not only adults, but children too, are cruel and selfish creatures that will stop at nothing to get what they want. In the novel the symbolic significance of certain objects develops and leads to the main idea that Golding is trying to express. Object symbolism is used to show the relationship of the biblical struggle between good .
             The powerful conch for starters, is what the boys base their whole order of civilization on. The conch symbolizes the power of the beholder and regulation during the meetings. The conch has more than one meaning in the novel. In the beginning of the novel the conch allows the boys to listen to the person who carries the conch, but towards the end of the novel the conch begins to represent the disarray order and peacefulness that had originally been established when the boys first inhabited the island. Rogers act of destroying the shell shows that order and organization are no longer important to the boys, but power is what they seek for now.
             Another example of object symbolism is portrayed through Piggy's glasses. Even though in the beginning of the novel Piggy was seen as the fat useless kid with the thick glasses, it's Piggy's glasses that are eventually used as the boys source of being able to build a fire. When the boys finally do build a fire Ralph comes up with the idea to use the fire as a signal so the boats can see that there is life on the island. Therefore the fire stands for the boys aspiration to be rescued from the island. It is Jack though who lets the fire die out and by doing that it shows the boys don't have anything to look forward to. When Piggy advises to rebuild the fire there is a return of hope. The ability to build a fire is very significant because when Jack's tribe steals the glasses that action shows an exchange of power between the boys.