"A conch, he called it. He blew it and his mother came. She is so valuable" – Piggy, Lord of the Flies. The novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is about, among other events, an island of stranded young boys and their acts of survival. In the book, many objects symbolize a certain trait or idea. The conch, first written about on page fifteen of chapter one, has a much larger symbol than most readers are familiar with. In fact, it can symbolize many things, such as power and order within Boys' Island. This conch can be classified as a character in its own right. When reading Lord of the Flies, the symbol of the conch shell may be blurred, as it actually has many symbols, just like the main characters such as Ralph and Jack. The conch is an important object in the novel Lord of the Flies. The conch is introduced into the novel from the beginning. “Ralph had stopped smiling and was pointing at the lagoon. Something creamy lay among the ferns” is the first mention of the conch in the first chapter. “The shell is dark cream in color, touched here and there with pale pink. Between the tip, worn into a small hole, and the pink lips of the mouth, were eighteen inches of shell with a slight spiral twist and covered with a delicate relief pattern, "this is how the shell is described in the novel. It is important to remember this description for the rest of the book. Piggy, one of the main characters in the novel, informed Ralph that it was a special shell called a conch and how to blow into it so that it made a sound. “He kind of spat.” said Piggy, referring to a man he had known who would blow a conch shell. “He said you blew out of here,” Piggys says, placing a hand on Ralph’s abdomen. Ralph followed Piggy into the middle of a sheet of paper, above the stranded boys. The role of the conch in the novel is to symbolize power, authority, democracy and order among humans. When this is destroyed, we turn into savages. Works Cited Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962. “Lord of the Flies” print. SparkNotes. SparkNotes and Web. May 3, 2014. “Lord of the Flies.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, May 5, 2014. Web. May 5, 2014. “Lord of the Flies, Conch Symbolism by Studymode.” » Study mode. Np, and Web. May 4, 2014. .Shmoop editorial team. “The conch in Lord of the Flies.” Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., November 11, 2008. Web. May 4 2014. .