What keeps a civilized person from losing their innocence and becoming a savage? In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a group of British schoolboys are stranded on an island after their plane was shot down during a war. Trapped on the island, the boys create a social order by using a conch to call upon assemblies and to represent the right of speech. In this allegoric novel, the conch, which is a delicate and fragile shell also used as a horn, represents democratic power, order, and as well as authority. However, as the story progresses, the conch that keeps the children civilized soon loses its influence, and many boys begin to follow their animalistic desires into savagery.

In the beginning of the novel when the boys find themselves stranded on an unknown territory, they are rational, civilized children who have high morals and...