Ego, And Superego In Lord Of The Flies, By H. M.

“Lord of the Flies” is a story about a group of British schoolboys that are on a plane that is shot down over a war zone. The boys crash land on a deserted island and they start their journey of learning how to survive without adults. In order to obtain a better understanding of this novel, many readers chose to take a psychoanalytic view when critiquing this. Andra Picus, a literary analysist, said the psychoanalytic approach can be applied to literature to better understand it the same way dreams can be studied to better understand human behavior. Author H.M. Abrams says in his critique "Psychological and Psychoanalytic Criticism" that literary texts, like dreams, express secret unconscious desires and anxieties”(Abrams, 1). To properly
These three parts work together to create a complete personality. An important part in analyzing the text “Lord of the Flies” is identifying which characters are meant to represent the id, ego, and superego. In the novel, the character Jack Merridew’s actions appear to be driven by the id. The id is the part of one’s psyche that controls aggressive and destructive behavior towards anything that gets in the way of pursuing pleasure. Throughout the novel, Jack is quick to abandon his former civilized behavior and jump into this newly found world of savagery. This seems to start when Jack realizes the boys must hunt for food, he takes it to a whole new level. The novel describes Jack hunting peculiarly. The passage says “The ground was hardened by an accustomed tread and as Jack rose to his full height he heard something moving on it. He swung back his right arm and hurled the spear with all his strength” (Golding, 40). We know as readers that Jack has probably never had spear throwing lessons, since all we know about his life before the island is that he’s in choir. However, the wording of the passage suggests Jack knows how to throw this spear and hunt, like it’s second nature for him. This serves as another clue to show readers how the situation is affecting the boys, and how Jack’s impulse to be aggressive is triggered quickly. This could be looked at as a suggestion that
Ralph is on one end of the spectrum, civilization, while Ralph is on the opposite end, savagery. Another character, Simon, is said to stand outside the spectrum, and not a part of it. Simon recognizes the good and the evil, but is not part of either. In many other critiques, Simon is established as the “Christ figure” in the novel and that is why he is not part of the spectrum. When Simon is killed, it represents the presence of a higher power leaving. The purity and innocence of all the boys on the island is killed along with Simon and the only thing left is their barbarism and