The Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

The book, The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding shows Golding’s dark past in his dark tale of Schoolboys who crash land on a deserted island in WWII. He uses Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality to show his interpretation of what their reactions to many events would be. Freud “argued that personality is formed through conflicts among three fundamental structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego.” (#6) These three fundamental structures are best shown in the three characters Piggy, Ralph, and Jack. Jack shows id, Ralph shows ego, and Piggy shows superego.
Jack As Id
“The id is the disorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic, instinctual drives.” (#1) It is also said that id uses the pleasure principle, seeking the instant gratification of any impulse (#1). The character that best represents id in the book is Jack. Jack shows little interest in keeping the smoke fire going and instead goes hunting (Book), showing his want for instant gratification that the fire did not give him. Jack later steals piggy’s specs so that he can start a fire even though we learn that the other boys would have let Jack borrow them. (Book) This, again, shows Jack’s want for instant gratification. Jack shows us examples of id many times, and many
For example, Ralph joins Jack’s hunt and enjoys himself substantially, but at the end of the day he still knew he had to do the boring things like keep the fire going or building the shelters. (Book) Another good example is when Ralph stops Jack from beating up Piggy because he, unlike Jack has some respect for others, a clear trait Id lacks. (Book) This mediation between Jack, who is Id, and Piggy, who is Superego, shows that Ralph is a good representation of