These are a representation of Piggy and since he wears them, he takes on the values they symbolise like insight, common sense which is lacking towards the end when the glass cracks, guidance, reason, intelligence, the consequence of action (unlike Simon he knew that every action had a consequence. Had Simon know this, he would not have gone to the boys with the knowledge of what the beast was when they were in such hysteria.) The glasses are needed to light the fire and this is ironic as Piggy was myopic (short-sighted) and such glasses do not light a fire. Golding did this knowingly to show that although Piggy was intelligent and could see the repercussions of their actions in the future, he did not see the things that were right in front of him. Such examples are that he did not realise that Ralph did not like him at the start of the novel and that although he did not realise that he was going to die at the end even though he had had a lot of premonitions. Thanks to Piggy's ideas the boys did not regress from the start. When one of his lenses was broken his qualities were reduced in quality and he stopped trying to help the boys even though he still had insight.
Piggy found it and knew how to use it and who believed in it but it was Ralph who fished it out and blew it, he got the credit for Piggy's idea. Jack did not believe in it at all but he abused it for his ends. It symbolises law, order, unity, rules, punishment, co-operation, authority and democracy. It unifies them and the island wants this, however the boys divided themselves. Piggy was the only one to have blind faith in the conch and its ideals to the end and when he died it was removed with him. Once it was removed from the island, all it ideals left with it and chaos reigned then. It is seen that in general it brought more co-operation than unity as Ralph had destroyed the latter by from the very start of the novel distinguish between the hunter...