"Men fear the bearers of truth and destroy them." ~Jordan
This is also true in William Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies. They dreaded the conch and all that it represented so they destroyed it. It all began with a plane crash. A group of young British boys who were abandoned on a deserted island, left to salvage the little life they had left. There was Ralph, the chief. He wanted to be rescued with smoke from a fire on an orderly, civilized society. And Piggy, the outsider. Everyone made fun of him, harassed him and excluded him when all he wanted was to think about back home and everything he was forced to leave behind. Jack, the hunter. He wanted meat, he wanted to be leader and he wasn't going to stop until he got what he wanted. I believe that William Golding was trying to portray in his novel that the function and representations of the conch were a tool of communication, the rules that formed and kept a civilized society, and power.
The conch provided who ever was in possession of it the right to speak. This is shown various times throughout the novel. One evening, Jack and Ralph called a meeting to speak with the other boys about what was discovered on the mountain: "'Talk...talk, talk, talk.' He took the conch from Jack. 'Oh, take it! Go on- talk!'" (pg. 116) When Ralph obtained the conch he controlled the power of communication. He had the right to speak what was on his mind without interruptions or difficulties. From the beginning the conch had this immense quality. It gave people the right to speak.
The conch also gives the boys rules and control. It displayed this numerous times. During the first afternoon the boys begin to form these regulations of their new society. "We'll have to have hands up like at school.' '...I'll give the conch to the next person to speak... and he won't be interrupted.' 'We'll have rules! L
...