Psyche In Lord Of The Flies

Set during the atomic war, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, describes a situation between many boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island after a plane crash. Since no parents are on the plane which crashed, the boys learn to navigate alone through the unfamiliar territory in order to survive. Starting with the first interaction, the boys begins to fight for dominance. This causes lots of conflict between the three main boys: Jack, Ralph, and Piggy. As they fight for control, these boys exhibit characteristics of Freud’s psyche theory, which has three parts: the Id, Ego, and Superego. Throughout the book, Lord of the Flies, Golding uses Freud’s psyche theory to reveal that every person performs actions that are driven by evil desires, no matter how intellectual he is. Jack, the controlling leader of the dominant tribe who places an emphasis on killing animals for food, resembles the Id in Freud’s psyche. Most of the decisions he makes are impulsive and he does not think about the consequences of his actions. This depicts the Id because the Id uses an “aggressive instinct” (McLeod) and “impulse” (McLeod) actions to behave. For example, Ralph puts Jack in charge of watching the signal fire, which will alert passing ships that the boys are on the island. While on duty, Jack is “compelled” (Golding 64) to go hunt and catch pigs with another group of boys by his innate evil desires. This caused the fire to go “out, smokeless and dead, [since the] watchers were gone” (Golding 68). This angers …show more content…
This increases the complexity of Freud’s psyche because these evil desires overcome the good morals, values, and reason that the higher levels use. As humans, every person faces the desire to make wrong decisions and get involved in evil doings; however, each person must fight the urge by using his morals and reason to overcome the feeling and make intellectual