Lotf TIQA
William Golding shows that not everyone can wield the conch successfully and properly in Lord of the Flies to express his idea that not everyone can wield authority with decency and success. When Ralph and Piggy find the conch on the island, Piggy rants about how the conch is so valuable. Then, after teaching Ralph how to use the conch, Piggy encourages Ralph to blow it, ‘“My auntie wouldn’t let me blow [the conch] on account of my asthma…try [it], Ralph’” (Golding 15). This adumbrative quote predicts two things; it foreshadows Piggy’s fecklessness in relation to authority, and also foreshadows the assistance that Piggy will give to the more competent Ralph. Additionally, Ralph’s ability to blow the conch at any time symbolizes the authority he will always have over the boys. Even after Jack usurps power, Ralph is still respected in that none of the other boys dare to directly challenge him without their masks. Later on, the conch also predicts that Jack won’t be a decent leader later in the book. During Ralph’s speech about why the boys should’ve maintained the fire instead of gone hunting for pig. Jack manages to snatch the conch before “the Hands [that] were reaching for the conch” (Golding 80), forcing Ralph to climb to higher ground, could grab it. Ralph’s speech was completely disregarded by Jack in his attempts to take it. Even though Jack snatched the conch, he never once actually blows in it; Jack can get power, but he can’t use it in a positive manner. The power that Ralph used to build shelters and build order was used by Jack to mask himself, hunt pig, and raid Ralph and Piggy. In the end of Lord of the Flies, Jack’s rashness with his power of authority decimates the shreds of civilization on the island, culminating in the razing of the island; with his symbolization of the conch, Golding says that not everyone can, or should, wield the awesome power of