Freudian Theory in Lord of the Flies
In the story, Lord of the Flies, the exemplification of Freud's Theory of the Id, Ego and Superego looks at different characters throughout the story. Freud primarily agrees with the idea that there are two energies that derive human behaviour. These two energies are the pleasure principle and aggression. The human mind is comprised of the conscious, preconscious and the unconscious. Within these realms of the mind, the human personality is controlled by those energies. The id is driven completely by the pleasure principle. The ego aims to please both the id and the superego, while the superego is the instinctual moral good and aims to please the ego. In the book, the boys plane was shot down as they were trying to escape the bombing in England and they end up on a deserted island. These boys are quite young, young enough to have not yet been completely moulded by society. This isolation, on the island, reveals the true identity of the boys and human nature is revealed. While reading the novel and having a comprehension of Freudian theory, it allows one to see Jack as the id, Ralph as the ego and Simon as the superego and how that causes conflict between them.
Jack fits into the concept of the Id, as it overpowers both the Ego and the Superego. The Id is seen in Jack through his aggressive behaviours, he becomes monomaniac and is infatuated with completing his only desire, to “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”. This quote is undeniably violent, it shows how Jack kills things for his own pleasure and he kills the pigs to show power and dominance over the other children. When things fall apart between the different personalities, because Jack hates to be instructed in morality by the Superego, He appeals himself to the more childish uncivilized collection of the children. When the other boys join him, he is able to succumb to his inner human desires and delve into the world of savagery and murder, he is able to act impulsively and irrationally in an attempt to fill his desires, “Which is better, to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?”. Nevertheless, Jack is still able to try his best to do what is best for the boys, but his power hunger ends up making the situation much worse: “The chief snatched one of the remaining spears and poked Sam in the ribs”. His own name becomes a taboo, he has an almost god-like power and uses it for evil. It is clear in the story, that if it were not for the rescue, Jack’s behaviour would have eventually gotten them all killed. In short, all of his actions are exactly those of a little-underdeveloped child, who is ruled by the Id.
Ego, being one of the three elements in the Freudian Theory, is represented in the novel by Ralph. When arriving on the island, he begins to call order to all the children, trying to construct a form of civilization with the Superego. He was always realistic about the decisions he made and he tries to bring order to chaos on ...
