ipl-logo

Ego, Superego In Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

691 Words3 Pages

L.O.F Id, Ego, Superego It is believed by the theory that Sigmund Freud brought forth, that there is three different personalities a person develops in their minds, which is the id, ego, and superego. Perhaps the best examples of each of these personality traits in one person would be in the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Three main characters describe each trait. Jack would represent id, Ralph would be the ego, and Piggy would represent the superego. Id is what develops in our earliest stages of life. Id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality. The id responds directly and immediately to impulsive short term pleasure (1). Jack would be the best example for the behavioral traits of id. He lets short term pleasure distract him from what is really important, which is getting rescued. Jack becomes consumed in his hunting and that is all that seems to matter to him(2). He lets the signal fire die out since he choose to hunt. Jack along with Maurice and Roger invade Ralph’s …show more content…

Ego is the one who mediates between the unrealistic id and the external world.(website) The ego is the healthy blend of the reality of the external world(1). Ralph is chosen to be the leader of the boys for a reason, he seems to know about order and fairness. He is chosen to lead the others because they believe he will make the right decisions. Ralph uses the conch as a form of civilization, to call meetings and make sure there are ground rules set for everybody. He tells the others to build shelters and also makes sure Jack is still the leader of his choir boys(4). He sees things from an adult’s point of view, which makes his decisions realistic and helpful. Also, is it weren’t for piggy helping him along the way he wouldn’t get too far with trying to get rescued and attempting to remain civilized. Piggy is different from Ralph though, and that is why he would be categorized more towards the

Show More
Related
69 Words | 1 Pages

Parliament had to pay for the war, even though the British won. They protected the colonists with a permanent army in North America from Indian attacks. In order to help pay for the taxes of war, they passed the Sugar Act in 1764. This act placed taxes on molasses and sugar imported by the colonists. British troops stepped up the search for smuggled good and smugglers were treated

Read More
152 Words | 1 Pages

In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the character Jack has characteristics of The ID. The ID is the part of the mind in which instinctive impulses and primary processes are manifest. Jack, displays this in chapter four when he is dancing in war paint for a religious ceremony. The author describes this event, stating, “[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling”(64) Jack displays his natural instincts in this part of the story.

Read More
891 Words | 4 Pages

During his lifetime, he developed many theories including id, superego, and ego. The id is our source of motivation and it also includes our sexual and aggressive drives. The superego includes our morals and ideals and lastly, our ego is made up of a group of mechanisms, like reality-testing, judgement, and impulse control. On one

Read More
977 Words | 4 Pages

Frequently, Jack attempts to turn the boys against Ralph, only caring for his own desires. For example, “He’s not a hunter. He’d never have got us meat. He isn’t a prefect and we don’t know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey him for nothing.

Read More
736 Words | 3 Pages

Meanwhile Jack doesn’t treat everyone fairly like Ralph does. This makes the boy listen to Ralph and what he has to say and not Jack. Ralph takes the time to listen to all the boys especially piggy and his thoughts on how everyone should be treated

Read More
1135 Words | 5 Pages

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies demonstrates how Ralph’s use of his id gradually overrides his use of his ego as time passes on the island due to the innate instincts in humans. Golding uses the fire, conch shell, and Ralph’s hair to show how Ralph transitions from primarily using his ego to using his id more often to finally having his id take precedent over his ego and superego. When the boys are first stranded on the island after the plane crashes, Ralph emerges as a leader for the boys, partially due to his strong display of his ego. After Jack, Ralph, and Simon have explored the island Ralph calls a meeting where he says “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak,” exhibiting how the conch represents order(33). By saying that

Read More
1059 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel Lord of the Flies, Golding unknowingly uses Simon, Piggy, Ralph, and Jack to illustrate id, ego, and superego. The id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego. Golding shows the id, ego, and superego with Jack being the id, Ralph being the ego, and Piggy as the superego. Firstly, Jack represents id within the allegory.

Read More
977 Words | 4 Pages

However, differences arise when Jack goes off hunting while Ralph is struggling to build shelters with Simon (Golding, 50). This is the first instance of Jack letting his personal goals get in the way of doing something for the benefit of the group, something Ralph is focused on because it ultimately leads to survival. These differences grow as Jack immerses himself in hunting completely and Ralph advocates for the importance of the signal fire. We see this explode in Ralph when a steamship passes by, but Jack and his hunters let the signal fire go out because they were too busy hunting. Ralph exclaims, “‘There was a ship.

Read More
522 Words | 3 Pages

One of Freud’s theories is that the “Id – Ego combination dominates a person’s behavior until social awareness leads to the emergence of the superego, which recognizes that

Read More
513 Words | 3 Pages

Ralph and Piggy tend to emphasize getting rescued, whereas Jack has an overwhelming desire to hunt and behave like a complete animal. The id

Read More
1480 Words | 6 Pages

These do not stand for physical areas of the brain, but more of the mental functions. ID translates to instincts, Ego is reality and Superego is morality. These three central functioning's make up “… the personality—instinctual needs, rational thinking, and moral standards.” (Ronald J. Comer). Dwight Schrute has a very poor ego, which in turn off-sets his ID and Ego.

Read More
1945 Words | 8 Pages

Lastly, there is the ego, the balance between the id and superego. The ego represents reality. Focusing on Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created, one can better understand their personalities by examining

Read More
1892 Words | 8 Pages

The media article that I will be assessing in this essay is “Crime Falls to Lowest Level in 33 Years”. The article is written by Darren McCaffrey who is the politics reporter for Sky news. The article was published on Thursday 24th April 2014 by Sky news. The article includes several statistics which are taken from the Crime survey for England and Wales although the results are published by the Office for National Statistics. The statistics presented in the article claim that levels of crime have decreased by 15% compared with the previous year and that this is the lowest they have been in 30 years.

Read More
755 Words | 4 Pages

Freud’s id represents underlying desires that seek gratification. These desires may be prohibited by society or considered taboo, such as greed, power, sex, or murder. The id, in contrast to the superego, is irrational and will seek the unconscious desires without the thought of consequences (Nolas-Alausa 7). Oedipus of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex falls victim to the id of his own unconscious which is represented by his immoral and irrational actions and the consequences he suffers because of them.

Read More
816 Words | 4 Pages

These impulses, often sexual, seek to provide pleasure without regard to the cost” (Henningfeld). Jack continuously exhibits such impulses in addition to openly violent ones throughout the novel. At the conclusion of the very first chapter of the novel, he foreshadows his sadistic tendencies when he very nearly kills a pig. Later, he is shown acclimating to his environment (i.e. the forest) and refining his hunting abilities. All of these events lead up to Jack’s eventual split from Ralph’s rule and his complete succumbing to his negative impulses.

Read More

More about Ego, Superego In Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

Related Topics

Open Document