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Ideologies In The Lord Of The Flies By William Golding

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Jaquess 1 Ethan Jaquess Brown/Caldwell British Literature 03 February 2023 Ideologies in The Lord of The Flies Human behavior varies between each person and everyone has different ideologies and things that they value. William Golding, who won a Nobel Prize for his works, was affected by his own experiences in World War II, and as a teacher. He wrote The Lord of The Flies to show how different types of people react in the same situation, in this case being stuck on an island. Sigmund Freud had a theory that everyone's mind has three different areas, the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the part of the mind that wants you to do what you want when you want regardless of the consequences. The superego is the part of the mind that wants …show more content…

Jack heavily disagreed with the way Ralph led with fairness and had only the desire for killing and power rather than leaving the island as shown by him letting the fire die out. As Ralph was scolding him for letting the fire go out when a ship went by, Jack exclaimed, "You should have seen the blood!".(Golding 70) At the end of the story it is shown that Jack used the little power that Ralph had given him and used it to gain power over everyone. He led a tribe of savages to hunt Ralph like he was a pig. When the naval officer showed up, someone with authority, Jack stopped in his tracks and could not even say anything to him while Ralph still was able to tell him that he was the leader even though the leadership had switched to Jack until that moment. "A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carries the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still." (Golding 201) Jack was led by his desire to kill and hurt things and led by intimidation but would only do something as long as there is no authority to stop him. Piggy acts on following the rules and is always worried about what adults would think of their behavior. Piggy values rules and civilization more than anyone else in the story and he was the smartest one on the island.One reason Piggy had …show more content…

Ralph insisted on keeping a fire going so that the entire group would be rescued. "The fire is the most important thing on this island" (Golding 80) Jack abused that power and rather than keep the fire going he prioritized hunting. Ralph tried to explain to him how important the fire is but he did not care. Ralph was trying to keep Jack from becoming a savage by telling him the importance of rules but he did not want to follow rules, he wanted to make the rules. "Because the rules are the only thing we've got."(Golding 91) Ralph wanted to keep control in a group where everyone has a say in what

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504 Words | 3 Pages

Jack wants to hunt down pigs and get meat to eat while Ralph wants to focus on building the shelters and keeping the fire lit. On page 42 Ralph says “We've got to have special people for looking after the fire. Anyday there could be a ship out there” This quote shows how the fire is the key to them getting rescued from the island and surprisingly, jack initially agrees to it and assigns his hunters the job of watching the fire. Unfortunately when the time comes Jack had taken all of his hunters on a hunt with him leaving the fire unattended to burn out and die. Showing Jack's true

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Piggy is fat, brilliant, lacking in social graces, and wears glasses, in other words the outsider on this island. Due to Piggy being such an foreigner, Jack feels that he is above Piggy, and feels better when he causes Piggy pain and sorrow. For example, “‘You’re talking too much,’ said Jack Merridew. ‘Shut up Fatty,’” (21). In this scene you can see power in Piggy’s lack thereof.

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Accessed 6 Feb. 2023. Originally published in Studies in the Novel, vol. 24, no. 1, Spring 1992, pp. 78-85. Golding, William, and Edmund L. Epstein. Lord of the Flies: A Novel.

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Out there. You’d said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out,” (Golding 70). It was his job along with hunters to keep the fire going and he couldn’t do that .This was their chance to get rescued and Jack ruined that. It seems that Jack’s priority wasn’t to be rescued. This was the start of Jack and Ralph’s hostility.

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Jack vs. Piggy: Freud’s Model of the Psyche Applied to Lord of the Flies The father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud developed a theory that divides the human psyche into three parts: Id, Ego, and Superego. In the novel Lord of the Flies, author William Golding reflects Freud’s model in the main characters of the story. Lord of the Flies is the story of a band of schoolboys from various prestigious Catholic schools that get stranded on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific. The boys elect Ralph as “chief”, and he tells them that they need to build shelters and keep a signal fire going on the top of the mountain.

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Throughout the novel, Jack consistently demonstrates a disregard for rules and a desire for dominance and power. When he leads the boys in hunting and violence, he taps into their savage and primal instincts - including Ralph’s. As Jack proclaims, "The conch doesn't count at this end of the island" (Golding, 150) it becomes evident that he prioritizes dominance and power over order, authority, and the established rules on the island. In the midst of their destructive rivalry, Jack’s failures teach Ralph important lessons. Witnessing Jack’s inability to maintain the signal fire makes Ralph recognize the value of collaboration, communication, and planning for survival.

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250 Words | 1 Pages

To then turning the boys into savages and telling them to kill a pig and they decapitate it for some beast they’ve never seen. But this is only the beginning of jack and savagery on the island. He then goes out of his way to kill piggy. Because he knows he makes a lot of sense to the boys. Piggy being the smartest and most civilized out of the boys is the only sense of reason on the island.

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He wants to keep things organized so that they could get rescued. Ralph is persistent in keeping the fire going. Keeping the fire lit was always a challenge as some boys would get distracted and let it die out. Day-to-day Ralph was lighting the fire as it was one of his main priorities for being rescued. Ralph was persistent that the fire keeps going and that Jack “didn’t ought to have let that fire out.

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Ralph’s main focus is to keep the fire going so that passing ships will see the smoke resulting in the boys getting rescued. Jack's love for hunting pigs and lack wanting to get rescued show that he is turning more savage by the day. This is just another reason why Ralph would make a better leader than Jack would. This also shows that Ralph has better priorities than Jack does. The boys first reaction

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Jack lost his sanity and civility and this changed him in more ways than imaginable. Jack was a natural leader when the boys first came onto the island, but as time continued he became a horrible dictator. On the first day on the island, Ralph and Jack competed for chief of the island. Ralph won. Jack was unhappy with this result, but it didn’t yet throw him into a spiral of craze and anger.

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After Jack and his choir agree to tend to the signal fire, Ralph spots a potential rescue ship but finds that Jack’s group let the fire go out as they went on a pig hunt, making Ralph extremely enraged and disappointed. Whereas previously there were only minor arguments that resolved quickly and easily that did not damage their relationship much, this marks the official beginning of the conflict of Ralph against Jack.    After this incident was yet another turning point. What started off as an assembly “to put things straight” resulted in Jack disputing Ralph’s authority and leading everyone away in a show of clear mutiny. This shows that Jack is distancing himself and the group away from Jack.

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His priority was to have a signal fire so they can get off the island quick and effective and also he wanted to build a shelter so they had somewhere to sleep. However, Jack can be considered a fierce leader and Ralph can be considered a civilized leader. Jack is known to be cruel but when he is a leader he can be fierce because they

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These actions of Jack express his greed for power and the unimaginable way he would kill another human being. Jack's rampage continues as he seeks to be the chief of the other boys. In his onslaught of greed, he starts to burn down the fire in pursuit of his last rival, Ralph. In doing this everything on the island is burned from their only food sources to their only shelter and fire sources to stay warm. This final act of savagery by Jack ultimately shows how far his greed for power takes him on his path to becoming chief of the island

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671 Words | 3 Pages

This shows that Ralph isn't the only one who wants order on the island, but needs rules to keep civilization. But as we go on we see that Jack starts to think that Ralph's rules are wrong and that everyone is not obeying the rules, and he wants to start his own leadership. Jack states,” I’m not going to play any longer, not with you, I'm not going to be a part of ralphs lot-”(127). We see that Jack had enough of Rlaphs “poor leadership” and wants to start his own civilization and shows a lack of civility towards Ralphs's leadership

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737 Words | 3 Pages

Sohmee Kim Mrs. Houle English I PAP- 3 28 April 2016 The Ego in the Lord of the Flies People contradict themselves. People sometimes think logically but sometimes act on impulses that are controversial. Sigmund Freud, a neurologist, tried to explain these controversial acts when he said, “the ego is like a man on horseback, struggling to contain the powerful beast beneath…” Freud believed that humans have three personalities, id, ego, and the superego.

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