In William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies the trials and tribulations of real life are seen through the eyes of school children. After a plane crash a group of boys become stranded on an island, and human nature begins to take full effect as the boys begin to organize themselves to survive. Throughout the duration of the novel a constant theme and/or struggle is presented, which illustrates many conservative undertones.
According to Edmund Burke, a conservative thinker, order and a traditional way of running government is the correct direction that human nature and society, as a whole should strive to attain. In the Novel, one of the central characters, Ralph, represents this struggle in which many Conservatives have to obtain this goal of order. When Ralph was first elected as the leader of the boys, they established central goals for the new society of having fun and getting rescued via a fire signal. In the beginning, many of the boys were willing to work toward the same goals by building shelter and dividing up tasks such as watching the fire. This orderly society that Ralph envisioned is in direct correlation with that of Edmund’s organic view of society, which compares everyone’s task to an organ. Thus, all of the individuals are coming together to work in harmony to have a flourishing society.
A true conservative is longing to conserve something whether it a physical possession or mere power. In the Lord of the flies, this is evident because power is a developed theme that is shown throughout out the piece. First, the conch shell in which the boys find to call the others is a symbol of power. The person that has this shell has the right to speak and it is used to govern when they meet. This symbol relates to the conservative outlook because Hierarchy is also established within the book because the boys are split into different groups such as "biguns" and "littluns." Dividing into these