Jack Merridew's Personality Disorder In Lord Of The Flies

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Lord of the Flies Character Case Study Jack Merridew is a 13 year old male who experienced a traumatic plane crash, resulting in being marooned on an island for perhaps 2 months with a group of his peers similar in age. He is a former choirmaster and head boy in his school, and hereby therefore he has experience in leadership and control. His current physical health status is concluded as decent, considering the circumstances. Merridew's hobbies on the island included hunting and killing pigs, and singing/chanting. While marooned, Jack let the possibility of being rescued slip his mind, and instead focused his goals on surviving, hunting, and doing whatever they wanted. Throughout the difficulties that the island presented, Jack used a defense …show more content…

The main condition being Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is described as a patterned disorder of grandiosity, an excessive need for attention, lack of empathy, and entitlement.The psychodynamics of NPD is dysfunctional self-regulation, emotional regulation, and interpersonal NPD symptoms include believing oneself is the most important aspect, fantasizing about having control, greedy for attention, exploitative, envious, arrogant or having attitude, and feeling a sense of privilege. To relate to NPD, Sigmund Freud’s human psyche study provides reasoning behind the disorder and how it relates to Jack’s savage behavior. He states that the majority of individuals' mental processes are unconscious and fall into the hands of the superego, ego, and id. Id, the pleasure principle, ego, the governing agency, and superego, moral censoring agency, all contribute to individuals to make behavioral decisions. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory explains that these three components of the mind control human behavior. A shift in behavior is caused by an abnormal imbalance of the internal forces. The theory aided me in coming to Jack’s diagnosis of NPD, and the motivation and reasoning behind his behavior. Jack’s violent behavior stems from his NPD, due to the ego within him being impaired by the id. This disconnects …show more content…

NPD that is presented in a child like Jack is believed to be rooted in defense against parents, usually the mother. Neglectful parents cause the child to withdraw into themselves and force them to hide weaknesses. Grandiose and low self esteem are introduced into the child as they feel worthless, which makes them feel the need for attention, attempting to fill a void the parental figures left. Lack of parental attention and trauma fuse together to develop a