Musings of a Mentor

Dec. 21, 2006

By Thomas and Brandon H

by Thomas Campbell
    The three main symbols were Piggy’s glasses, the conch shell, and the head of the pig. Piggy’s glasses represent technology because when Piggy wears them he speaks rationally, intelligently and scientifically. The conch shell represents democracy and everybody’s chance to speak. It gathers them together and brings structure to all the boys. It helps them choose the leader with less arguing. The pig’s head represents superstition and savagery. The superstition is that there is a beast and the savagery is that it would want a blood offering. Jack uses the pig’s head to excite the blood lust of the tribe. In this book there were many symbols knowing how to recognize the symbols will help you understand a book better.
by Brandon Hamilton
    The conch is one of the most important things on the island. It symbolizes government, justice and society, instead of savageness. When the story first started Ralph and Piggy found the conch on the beach. Ralph blows it to assemble all the children on the island. Then they all vote on a chief, which ends up being Ralph. As chief, Ralph decides to use the conch so everyone has a chance to be heard by passing it around. Whoever has it is able to speak so everybody wasn’t talking all at once. Ralph also decides when he blows the conch everyone is to gather for a meeting.
    After a while, Jack stops listening to Ralph and starts his own tribe. The children that were Jack’s friends when the plane crashed were the first to join Jack’s tribe. Later, almost all of the kids joined Jack because they saw that his tribe had no rules. The only five that were left in Ralph’s tribe were Ralph, Piggy, Simon, Eric and Sam. Jack didn’t respect society, he also didn’t respect the person that was speaking with the conch because he talked when he didn’t have the conch, in fact, he really didn’t respect any of the children on the island.
    At the end of the story Piggy tried to use the conch to get everyone to calm down and act civilized. His valiant effort cost him his life because he could not see without his glasses, therefore, he did not see the rock coming straight for him. After Piggy’s death, the conch was destroyed; and, Jack’s tribe tried to kill Ralph, but was unsuccessful.
    Even though the conch represents well being it wasn’t fool proof. At first it worked, until Jack began to disobey the rules and do what he wanted. It is worst to be a savage then to be civilized. Society doesn’t easily accept or tolerate those who act wild and uncivilized. In this story Simon, Piggy and Ralph are the civilized ones while those who deserted to Jack’s tribe did so because they believed that savagery was just another fun game.

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I hope my blog inspires dreamers to dream big and leaves wisdom seekers a little wiser. :)