An In-Depth Analysis of Lord of the Flies through the Freudian Theory
Around the time of World War II, a theory by Sigmund Freud emerged stating that the human psyche contains the psychic apparatus, otherwise known as the id, superego, and ego. Furthermore, the id, superego, and ego can be categorized based off of their different principles. The id is associated with the pleasure principle, the superego with the morality principle, and the ego with the reality principle. Interestingly enough, the allegorical novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding also escalated in popularity around this time as well. With the growing interest of these two topics, a myriad number of people began to analyze Golding’s style within the novel by using the Freudian Theory, thus presenting evidence of the relativity between the two. To clarify, Golding uses the characterization of Jack, Piggy, and Ralph to illustrate that the human psyche is …show more content…
From the start of Lord of the Flies, Ralph “wants to have fun and wants to be rescued” (Golding p. 29) while they are on the island. Ralph is a combination of both Jack and Piggy because he wants his actions to be based on both the pleasure principle and ethical principle. This combination of both the id and superego components is known as the ego in the human psyche. The ego is the component that is further developed within Ralph as the novel advances. Although, a scarcity of Ralph’s actions could be categorized as aspects of the id or superego. For example, Ralph tells the other boys that “there was a ship, but no smoke to signal because everyone was hunting.” (Golding p. 59) During this quote in the novel, he has the “parent voice” as he points out the wrongs of the other boys. Even though Ralph is characterized through multiple parts of the psyche, his personality is primarily based off of the realistic principle that mediates between the id and
Around the time of World War II, a theory by Sigmund Freud emerged stating that the human psyche contains the psychic apparatus, otherwise known as the id, superego, and ego. Furthermore, the id, superego, and ego can be categorized based off of their different principles. The id is associated with the pleasure principle, the superego with the morality principle, and the ego with the reality principle. Interestingly enough, the allegorical novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding also escalated in popularity around this time as well. With the growing interest of these two topics, a myriad number of people began to analyze Golding’s style within the novel by using the Freudian Theory, thus presenting evidence of the relativity between the two. To clarify, Golding uses the characterization of Jack, Piggy, and Ralph to illustrate that the human psyche is …show more content…
From the start of Lord of the Flies, Ralph “wants to have fun and wants to be rescued” (Golding p. 29) while they are on the island. Ralph is a combination of both Jack and Piggy because he wants his actions to be based on both the pleasure principle and ethical principle. This combination of both the id and superego components is known as the ego in the human psyche. The ego is the component that is further developed within Ralph as the novel advances. Although, a scarcity of Ralph’s actions could be categorized as aspects of the id or superego. For example, Ralph tells the other boys that “there was a ship, but no smoke to signal because everyone was hunting.” (Golding p. 59) During this quote in the novel, he has the “parent voice” as he points out the wrongs of the other boys. Even though Ralph is characterized through multiple parts of the psyche, his personality is primarily based off of the realistic principle that mediates between the id and