Conch'd Up

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

First off, I apologize for the lack of booksketches as of late. I've been having to do a lot of preparing to move into my own house, and spent a weekend out of town, and just have been busy in general. It has been a stressful/down couple of weeks. I'll be trying to move this weekend, so hopefully things will settle down after that.

Lord of the Flies is a novel that places children in an extreme situation and lets animalistic instincts play out and snowball. Without the presence of adults, the children on the deserted island have to cooperate, organize, and communicate to survive. When their makeshift society starts to break down, immaturity morphs into a dangerous tribal sensation. Craving for power and control where there is essentially none. You want to control the conch and the fire and the meat; you don't want the "opposition" to have it.

Once the conch-led democracy dissipated into the more savage tribe-led society, the rules changed. That's because whoever had the power made the rules. And the power belonged to young boys hefting sharp sticks and sporting painted faces.

About the illustration:
Haha, sorry, this image popped into my head and I just had to draw it. The ultimate representation of authority on the island: a conch wearing Piggy's glasses. If this combination would have come into existance, maybe they would have worshipped it! The true "Lord of the Flies," eh?

This illustration was done using Prismacolor pens.